BuckRub said:
I aint no big mathmetician but I have shot at some deer, apeared to be calm and eating at 10 yards and immediately they hunkered down and arrow went buzzing over them. It just makes me smile and say "thats hunting". I know theoredically they shouldnt be able to move that fast but some things will catch you off guard. Ive only been hunting for 40 years and havent experienced it all or seen it all yet.
Simply put, there's something else happening. The math can't tell you what IS happening but it can reasonably eliminate what ISN'T happening.
There is no possible way that a deer can dodge an arrow at 10 yards. Take a look at the numbers above at 20 yards.
Let's do some math for 10. Even a relatively slow bow will get an arrow to 10 yards in under 0.20 seconds. The sound takes about 0.025 seconds to get there. If the deer takes 0.07 seconds to react, which would be almost miraculous from a relaxed state, it only has about 0.10 seconds to move. If you're aiming for the middle of the deer, it has to move at least 9 inches or so for the arrow to go over it's back. 9" in 0.10 seconds is 450 feet per minute, 27,000 feet per hour, 5.11mph.
That doesn't sound so fast, right? Well, how does a deer move
down?
Gravity, right? It can't JUMP downward it can only fall. How far and how fast will gravity move an object in 0.10 seconds? 1.93" After falling for 0.10 seconds, an object is only traveling 2.19mph, less than 1/2 the FINAL speed that would have to be AVERAGE speed for the arrow to miss.
That's very nearly the BEST CASE scenario for the deer, including the notion of complete and total free-fall which is more than a stretch just by itself.
Now, I have no doubt that you (
and in fact I) have somehow managed to miss and/or shoot over the back of deer at impossibly close distances. It happens. Maybe the deer moves for some other reason before we recognize and can stop the firing, it happens so fast we don't process it. Maybe that's why. Maybe we just screw up. Maybe the shot goes over the deer because we screwed it up and we see the dodging deer and figure it "dodged" the arrow?
I don't know. I only know that they can not possibly dodge arrows the way the internet myth says they do.