Aug 24, 2003 By Rod Schoener 10 min read

Upon arriving at Kevin’s Archery in Carmichaels, it wasn’t hard to figure out that hunting season must be at hand. As I fumbled in the back seat to get my tape recorder and camera from my backpack, two customers walked out the door carrying bunches of newly-fletched arrows.

On entering the shop, it was even more evident as Kevin Polish and two other employees hustled about taking phone calls, serving strings and installing new bow sights, while Polish’s wife, Kris, was busy at the fletching bench, putting feathers and vanes on newly-ordered arrows.

As Kevin and I stepped outside, where we could talk away from all the commotion, I commented on that fact that everyone seemed to have a handful of new arrows.

Polish said, “We’re selling lots of arrows, and the bow sales are still there with the introduction of the new cam-and-a-half that Hoyt is offering this year. It is a hot seller, but Matthews is still holding its own.

“With the new designs and innovations, bow manufacturers provide things for the bowhunter to see, shoot and fuel their desire to want more. We are selling a lot of bows.”

Polish said that when you’re talking about bows, there are always accessories to go with them, too.

“The release market … it never quits, and the fiber-optic sight market keeps going and going. They have new wrap spools this year.

“Probably, the hottest commodity the past couple of years – and the biggest money maker for pro shops, not only in our area but around the country – has been the introduction of the drop-away arrow rest.

“I think the drop-away rest is almost a big as the introduction of the one-cam bow, just because it gives the bowhunter a lot more fletch. They have arrow holders on them, and they have arrow containment. People can hunt with them, as they have tree stand maneuverability.

“It’s just interesting things like that that keep the archery market going as a whole across the U.S.” Polish said.

The sale of archery equipment has been stable for the past two to four years, but everywhere Polish travels around the country to different shows, people indicate that this has been a breakout year, and they attribute that to carbon arrows, new fiber-optic sights and drop-away rests.

Last year carbon arrows took a big step forward as the result of new innovations.

Knowing that Kevin was an aluminum arrow person for years, I had to ask if carbon arrows were still making inroads.

“I can honestly say I sell 1,000 dozen arrows less a year now than I did 10 to 15 years ago, and that is because the carbon arrows are here, and they are that good,” Polish said. “They are fair priced. The price is down from what it used to be, and they cost only a few dollars more than aluminum arrows per dozen.

“Carbon arrows are here to stay, and I never thought that I would ever say that carbon arrows are the way to go, but now I sell 75 percent carbon arrows in my store and 25 percent aluminum.

“Last year it was about 50-50 or 60-40 in favor of aluminum arrows, but it took a lot of coaching from my son, K.J., who is a world champion archer. He introduced me to them. I always used aluminum arrows for my first 20 years of hunting. I had the opportunity to shoot a couple of deer with them (carbon arrows) last year. You just can’t hurt them.

“With aluminum arrows you bend them when you practice, and you dink them up, but the new carbon arrows are that good.

“I told all the people who have been coming to my store for the past 15 years that I didn’t like the small diameter carbon arrows, but the larger diameter carbons give better rest clearance, and with the new drop-away rests, it doesn’t matter anyway because the arrow does not touch anything once its shot.”

I then asked about the Teflon sleeves I’ve been seeing on carbon arrows that are supposed to make them easier to pull from targets and if the Teflon really helps.

From past experience, I know how hard it is to pull carbon arrows at 3-D shoots when they are punched into foam targets at 300-plus feet per second. The heat and friction almost make them bond to the targets.

To that, Polish said that the sleeves do make it easier to pull the new carbon arrows.

He then noted that, locally, most 3-D shooters are using carbon arrows, but at the national events, such as the recent ASA Championships in Alabama, most of the professional shooters use aluminum arrows.

“I would say 90 percent of the shooters in the pro classes use aluminum arrows, and that is primarily because they are easier to pull out of the targets.”

After noticing a large store display for new Primus deer calls hanging from the ceiling, I had to ask about them.

The calls resemble the old sound boxes that were used in baby dolls to make them cry and say mama when turned over.

Polish said, “We had the fortune of selling them last year,” Kevin said. “I ordered about 100 to 150 of them this year, but I expect to sell probably 150 to 300 of those cans.

“Now what they’ve done, they had the original can the Easy Estrus Bleat can, but now they have the Great Big Can and the little Hyper Estrus Bleat can. They are a hot commodity, even at the shows. When you go to the shows at the national level, the Can is overtaking all other deer calls.”

Polish explained that the original can was a doe bleat, but the little one is more like a fawn distress, even though they don’t like to call it that. The bigger one is a mega doe, which makes the sounds an older doe makes when in estrus. We haven’t much response yet because two of the cans are new.”

When asked how well they work, Polish said, “I can’t answer that question until the guys take them out in the field, but last year I sold 20 or 30 of the original call and had calls for at least 40 or 50 more, asking ‘do you got the can?’ Everybody was sold out. They were hot, but this year I will have them.”

Polish did say that if it is raining or extremely cold the sound is somewhat affected.

“There are the pros and cons,” he said.

“Look at what the market has done. Twenty years ago we went into the woods with a finger tab. Now we go into the woods with a fanny pack and all of our pockets are full. Forget one call, and you feel like you can’t hunt tonight.”

Scent lock clothing is a big commodity, but Polish doesn’t stock it. “I’m a service oriented business,” Polish said. “If people want scent lock clothing, I special order it for them, but the market is just so big.

“It does work and many guys come into the store who swear by it. It is really effective.”

Where scent pads used to be the means of placing attractant and cover scents, now they are dispersed by portable fans, and one company even has scents that you can dispense from your tree stand with a slingshot.

“It’s just amazing the stuff they come out with,” Polish said.

Polish said that arrow cresting has also become more popular.

Cresting is the painted bands on an arrow below the feathers. Today, cresting is done to make the arrows more attractive, but originally it was used as a means to identify a particular archer. Cresting is still used for that purpose in many countries.

“I’ve hunted with crested arrows for years,” Polish said. “It’s just amazing that one out of five people who come in and purchase arrows want them crested.

“We don’t paint them anymore. Painting is a thing of the past for my bow shop. We do it with a wrap-on cresting tape. It is an additional $20 and slows bow speed down by two to three feet per second but consumers don’t seem to care. They want their arrows crested.”

In getting back to the new bow innovations, Polish said, “The new Hoyt cam-and-a-half allows shooters to pull five to 10 pounds more bow weight than they can with a one-cam bow. It’s that easy to draw.

“Matthews has a new bow in which the let-off can be changed from 80 to 65 percent with one minor adjustment, making it legal for Pennsylvania hunting and hunting in states which have 65 percent let-off maximums.”

This year’s most popular arrow rest is the Ultimate Fall-Away by Vital Bow Gear, plus there are also many new shock-absorbing stabilizers on the market.

“There is new innovation every year,” Polish said. “I’m just glad to be a part of it.”

Polish noted that tree stands are getting better each year, especially the climbing stands. “I don’t sell a lot of them but they are out there,” he said.

New and better broadhead targets are being marketed all the time, and mechanical broadheads are grabbing a bigger share of the market.

In responding to a question about what’s new in broadheads, Polish said, “I have never been a fan of mechanical broadheads, but today mechanical broadheads are 50 percent of my sales. They caught up with the fixed-position broadheads. We still sell a lot of Muzzys, Wasps, Interlocks and Thunderheads. The biggest selling broadhead in our shop is probably a Muzzy, but right behind that are the Rockets, Spitfires and Shockwaves.

“We can’t even keep them all in stock anymore, because of the innovation.

Every year there are new broadhead changes, making it better for the bowhunter.”

I asked Polish what comments, if any, he has heard about the new antlerless deer license allocation system, where licenses are sold for wildlife management units rather then for individual counties.

He said, “The deer hunters are liking it better, but a lot of them are afraid they will not be able to buy a second tag. There are rumors floating around that there are only a few thousand left in our district (2A).

“Most hunters like the idea of being able to hunt in more than one county, they are just afraid there won’t be enough licenses to go around.”

In response to another question, Polish said that most hunters still don’t like antler restrictions.

“If we’re being introduced to a bigger buck in just one year, we may be sitting here in two years and saying what a great job this guy did,” Polish said, “Then again, it could backfire to the point where they may have to do away with spotting or look at some other issues.

“When you start getting big bucks in this state, with the number of hunters we have and all the poaching that goes on, it could be enticing to a lot of people.

“To me that’s only five percent of it. Ninety-five percent of it is that we’re not going to have a place to hunt.

“People don’t mind letting you hunt now, but when they have people offering them money to hunt because they have 20-inch deer on their farm, what is going to happen then?

“If you want to see what I mean, just go to Illinois and try and find a place to hunt. I think they (the Game Commission) are aware of what can happen.

“If they can come up with more deer and better deer, more power to everybody.”

Herald-Standard outdoors writer Rod Schoener can be reached on line at rschoener@herald-standard.com.