Momentum: A Strange Force That's Vital to Bowhunting Success

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through many years of bowhunting, it’s that success often comes in streaks, and failures, if allowed to fester, can lead to slumps. In many ways, bowhunting is no different than other sports. Take baseball, for example — even the best hitters struggle with slumps. When they do, they refocus on fundamentals and eventually swing their way back to form. Each hit restores confidence, and back-to-back hits build momentum.

Momentum is a strange, unquantifiable force, yet its impact on performance is undeniable. A loss of momentum results in diminished confidence and impaired ability to focus and execute. Striking out once is fine. Strike out a few times in a row, however, and it’s difficult to keep your confidence from waning. Once that happens, focus suffers, and negative momentum builds with each compounding failure. Before you know it, you’re officially in a slump.

Momentum has the same effect on bowhunters, and it’s just as real as it is in baseball. I’ve experienced both hot streaks and slumps throughout my bowhunting career. I exude confidence during the streaks, and struggle with it during the slumps.

Breaking a bowhunting slump and regaining momentum can be difficult. Unlike baseball players, we aren’t guaranteed any at-bats. Our opportunities are heavily dependent on factors beyond our control, and depending on where and what you hunt, bowhunters can go a long time between opportunities.

Let me tell you about the slump I experienced last year, and about the immediate effect regaining a little momentum seemed to have.

The Slump Begins

Last fall, my schedule was stacked with awesome hunts. I’d begin with Colorado antelope, followed by Utah mule deer, Colorado elk in a premium, limited-entry unit, Kansas deer, Oklahoma deer, and finally, back to Colorado for Eastern Plains deer. I was licking my chops.

My Utah hunt was special. I’d been invited to hunt with good friend Jeremy Eldredge, Director of Marketing for Hoyt Archery. We would be field testing Hoyt’s yet-to-be released, 2024 flagship bows, and I was honored to receive the first Carbon RX-8 Hoyt ever shipped. With Colorado antelope season starting a few days prior to our Utah hunt, I figured arrowing a speed goat would make me the first bowhunter to harvest an animal with the new bow. Little did I know this hunt would send me spiraling into a terrible slump.

Two days prior to leaving for Utah, four antelope bucks ran my way after spotting my bow-mounted decoy. At 60 yards, the two bigger bucks in the back slowed to a walk, while the two little bucks leading the charge ran right into my lap! With the dinks 10 yards to my left, I kept my decoy pointed at the bigger bucks. As they reached 30 yards, I attempted to draw, but the two little bucks were too close and spooked, taking the big bucks with them. Not knowing what happened, the big bucks stopped at 50 yards. I ranged, drew and took a shot at one of them, but the alerted buck dodged my arrow. Still, my decoy had them fooled, and even after my shot, they circled back. As they did, some longer grass obstructed my rangefinder, and in a frustrated panic, I stretched to get an accurate reading. Once it finally gave me a reading, I drew, settled and shot again.

When my whisper-quiet RX-8 reacted with a resounding bang, I knew something had gone wrong — way wrong! I never saw the arrow fly and immediately thought my nock had failed. Cursing as the bucks fled, I glanced at my quiver and counted five shafts.

I’d never dry-fired a bow before, but during the chaos I somehow forgot to nock another arrow. To make matters worse, this bow was top-secret! No one outside Hoyt’s engineering department had ever seen it. Showing it to anyone, or even mentioning its name, was strictly forbidden. What if I needed a new string? What if a limb cracked or an axle bent? I was due to hunt with Hoyt in Utah, with this specific bow, in two days!

In a remarkable testament to Hoyt’s legendary toughness, the only thing that happened to that RX-8 when I dry-fired it was one of the silencers dislodged from the string, and I was shooting again within minutes! I was amazed, but also deeply disappointed that what seemed like a slam-dunk opportunity had turned into a humiliating failure.

From Bad to Worse

My story drew lots of laughs in Utah. On the bright side, if I was able to take a nice muley with that bow two days after being dry-fired, I would have quite a tale to tell. But that wasn’t to be.

Jeremy capitalized on a beautiful buck on our Utah hunt, while I seemed to do nothing but blow stalks. My hunt ended with more embarrassment after I disregarded our guide’s advice and chose an approach that was too noisy, alerting a last-chance buck. I left Utah empty-handed, with my confidence fading fast.

A couple weeks later, I was back in Colorado with a premium, limited-entry elk tag in my pocket. I’d always been proud to say I had never eaten a premium tag, but that was soon to change.

The elk rut seemed late, but following a week and a half of hard hunting, I was given an opportunity. With a bull bugling just through the trees, I’d instructed my son, Lane, to start raking a tree. Seconds later, the bull raced in toward the sound. As he crossed my narrow shooting lane, I stopped him with a cow call and pulled through the downhill shot with my 40-yard pin in the middle of his lungs, but the bull ducked. The combination of movement and downward shot angle caused my arrow to impact high, and we were ultimately unable to recover the bull. I was devastated, and now officially in an abysmal slump.

Next was Kansas, a location I’m very familiar with. After hanging cameras on an earlier trip, I arrived to discover a familiar foe frequenting one of my haunts. I call the buck the Straight Eight, as there’s nothing remarkable about the 8-point frame, but his hulking body makes him impressive. The next day, I climbed into a stand to exploit his apparent pattern, praying my luck would finally change.

The Straight Eight slipped in at dusk without a sound. Scanning to my right, he was suddenly five yards from the base of my tree, staring right at me. He remained frozen for what seemed like an eternity before swapping ends and retreating without giving me a chance to reach for my bow. Even worse, the encounter disrupted his pattern, and after a slow week of hot, dry weather, it was time for me to head to Oklahoma, dragging a heavy load of compounding failures.

The Sooner State was experiencing the same terrible hunting weather as Kansas. I was hosted by good friend Brandon Adams. Several bucks had been appearing on Brandon’s cameras, but daylight action was practically non-existent, and our week there proved to be a grind. The hunt culminated with me sinking even further into the slump when I missed a shot at a nice muley buck. Embarrassed and dejected, I hit a new low point, but I was more determined than ever to right the ship. So, rather than going home, I decided to return to Kansas for an extra couple days.

Catching a Break

Not much changed in Kansas, and on my last morning there, I overslept. Absolutely nothing was going right! Frustrated with myself, I decided to head to a familiar spot to glass and try to salvage the day.

When I got there, I finally caught a break. A nice 10-pointer had a doe locked down in a weed patch, and after watching the pair bed, I donned a bow-mounted Stalker Decoy and started heading for their position.

Crawling within 60 yards, I was about to hit my grunt call when the buck suddenly stood and spotted my buck decoy. He immediately pinned his ears back and started to posture, but he didn’t seem to want to leave his doe to chase me off if he didn’t have to, opting instead to try and intimidate me into leaving. He kept at it for 15 minutes, pinning his ears, puffing himself up and raking weeds with his antlers. When I wouldn’t leave, he finally decided he was going to make me go.

Cutting the distance in half, the buck looked like an angry gorilla as he approached, and I struggled to maintain composure. It’s hard to be confident when you’re in a slump, but when he gave me an angle at 25 yards, I slid the string straight back, anchored and watched the arrow disappear right behind my pin. The buck gave a classic mule kick on impact and didn’t go far. Driving home to Colorado, I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my back. The shift in momentum could be read on the Richter scale!

After settling in at home for a couple of days, I headed out to check cameras and was surprised to find an old friend making daylight appearances. He was an old tank of a buck I had plenty of history with. I first noticed him in 2018, and had photos of him every year since, but I’d never seen him on the hoof, or even in a daylight photo. This was my chance. Luck seemed to be turning in my favor.

The following day, I jumped into a treestand aptly named the Kill Stand. Late that afternoon, I spotted two does emerging from a bedding area, and right behind them was the tank. Rounding a bend out in front of my stand, the does appeared first and quickly closed within range. About the time the buck rounded the corner, the does went crazy, running and playing like fawns while the buck stood out of range just watching them. When the does disappeared, the buck changed direction and took a path that would bypass my stand.

I grunted several times before he finally heard me. When he did, he charged into 35 yards, but on the wrong side of my stand. I only had one shooting lane and he needed to come another 10 yards to reach it. After failing to see a buck, he quickly covered ground away from me. I hit the grunt call again, but he didn’t seem to hear it. Realizing it was all or nothing now, I blew that call like a trumpet! It stopped him in his tracks, and one more soft grunt brought him charging back again!

The second burst of adrenaline did something strange to me. I’ve experienced leg shakes before, but never like this. Suddenly, both legs started firing like jackhammers, and the more I tried to stop them, the worse the jackhammering got. The buck stopped at the same point he had before, 10 yards shy of my shooting lane, looking for the intruder as my treestand was literally bouncing under my feet! The only way I seemed to be able to stop the shaking was to sink into a squatting position. When the buck turned to leave again, I reached out to brace myself so I could sit down, but when I did, I inadvertently touched my rattling antlers, and they fell out of the tree! Landing with a clang, they rustled leaves as they tumbled a few feet behind me.

After knocking those antlers out of the tree, it seemed I’d done everything humanly possible to screw the situation up. Yet, when the buck heard that commotion, he mistook it for deer sounds, and this time he charged all the way into my shooting lane! Now comfortably seated, I was in perfect position for a shot, and I made it count!

As I said before, momentum is a strange phenomenon, but it’s real. When you lose momentum and fall into a slump, nothing seems to go your way. But as soon as the momentum swings, and it’s suddenly on your side, sometimes it feels as though you can do no wrong!

Danny Farris no stranger to these pages, having previously served 12 years as Bowhunter Associate Publisher and 10 years as Bowhunter TV Producer. A resident of Colorado, Danny owns Ultimate Predator, hosts the Hoyt Archery Bowhunting Podcast and continues to represent the Bowhunter brand as a freelance columnist and TV co-host.

Equipment Notes: On the hunts in this article, I used a Hoyt Carbon RX-8 Ultra bow outfitted with a Spot-Hogg bowsight, Easton 5mm Axis arrows fitted with Lumenok lighted nocks and tipped with Rage Trypan broadheads, Leupold optics, Kifaru packs, Browning apparel, Kenetrek boots and a bow-mounted Ultimate Predator Stalker Decoy.

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