With opening day fast approaching, is your bowhunting gear ready to go? This means a thorough check of your critical archery gear.

Inspect your bow. Look for bent bow-sight pins, broken arrow rests, frayed cables, a frayed bow string or any cracks in the handle, wheels or limbs. Check limb bolts and sight attachment screws for tightness. Lubricate wheel axles to prevent creaking and groaning.

Two or three twists will shorten a stretched bow string by about 1/8 of an inch. Wax the string at least once a month throughout the season. Replace excessively stretched or frayed strings. Look for frayed or broken strands under the serving at the nocking point. It's a good idea to replace bow strings every two or three seasons.

Check all arrows, points and nocks for straightness. Any of these arrow elements that is more than a few thousandths of an inch off perfectly straight can greatly diminish accuracy. Replace or straighten bent shafts and square up heads and nocks.

The National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) is the best friend the wild turkey resource and the wild turkey hunter has. For more than a quarter of a century the NWTF has championed the cause of wild turkey restoration and sound, scientific wildlife management.
Although near extinction at the turn of the century, the U.S. wild turkey population is nearly 5,000,000 birds, with huntable populations in 49 of the 50 states.
The NWTF has been a considerable force in the successful restoration of the wild turkey. On the political side, it has presented the unified voice of thousands of turkey hunters calling on wildlife management agencies to make wild turkey management a priority. Through NWTF fund-raising efforts, millions of dollars have helped with wild turkey restoration and management activity.
Without all this, we would certainly not enjoy the great turkey hunting we have today. All serious turkey hunters should join and support a National Wild Turkey Federation chapter near them.

For bowhunters, right now is not too early to start your scouting for the upcoming bow seasons. The early archery seasons are just around the corner. When the season opens, deer will still be in the same pattern as they are now

You haven't started shooting your bow yet? Shame on you. Good practice is the basis of good bowhunting. It's like the coach always told you, "The way you practice is the way you play."

Some think that bow tuning should be the first step toward a new archery season. Not so. First get the rust off your shooting form. It is highly probable that some perceived mechanical flaw with your equipment is actually a fault induced by your out-of-practice form.

Start simply and with short sessions. Don't expect to pick right up where you left off last year. Avoid making rusty form worse by over-shooting to the point of fatigue. You've got to re-tune your muscles at the same time you are re-tuning your form.
Once you are back in your shooting groove, critique your equipment's performance. Good bow shooting is part physical, part mental and part mechanical. All of these factors must be brought to the same level of play for things to work out right.

Stand-site selection should be a key component of your summer scouting. That means actually picking a specific spot and putting your stand up early. Deer, particularly bucks and most particularly big bucks, are very sensitive about the areas they call home.
A lot of human activity, whether it's last-minute scouting or the necessary disturbance of stand installation, pruning of shooting lanes and so forth, occurring just before the season, hurts your opening day chances.
Do your scouting early. Find the sign that signals a good stand site and then go ahead and put up your stand. Make whatever habitat alterations, such as cutting shooting lanes, that are absolutely necessary but try to keep the disturbance to a minimum. By starting early, you can get away with more activity. It gives the deer and the area a chance to settle down.
You should be completely done with an area at least two weeks before the season opens. Then stay out until you're ready to hunt.