I’m wanting to climb some trees the lower limbs of which are out of reach of my Sidewinder, even with Fireline on a spinning reel. Any suggestions or advice? Crossbow or compound bow? Any particular models? Weighting of the arrows? Success stories especially appreciated, failures possibly more instructive.

Thanks!
Jim

If you put your Sidewinder head on a 10' pole and stretch the slings full length you can probably go over 200' with fireline. With a 10 oz bag and 1.75mm throwline you can get up in to 135' and probably better on warm day. What's the approximate height you're trying to reach?
-AJ

Thanks, Moss!
The problem is that the trees are in California, and I'm here in Georgia. I've only seen them twice and haven't even picked out the best ones to climb. I'm sure there must be some climbable limbs under 200', not sure there's much under 150'. But given the expense of getting out there and the limited time I have when I do go out to see my son and daughter-in-law, it might make sense to invest in some more high-powered technology. Hard to decide.

Jim

OK, I sprung for a compound bow. Actually, it was given to me, combination Father’s Day and birthday present, maybe Christmas too. Still looking for any advice, but I have learned a lot.
First of all, bow-fishing slides are an essential part of the setup, and the slides require solid fiberglass arrows. The slides came a few days ago, and the arrows yesterday, so today I have been playing with my bow and arrows.
Results. First shot, with Zing-it line tied directly to the slide and about 1 oz of extra weight on the tip (nuts and electrical tape, after cutting the fishing tip off the arrow), did not look to be much higher than what I can get with my Sidewinder and a 6 oz bag. So I reduced the weight and tried again. Better, but not great. Then I switched to 30 lb Fireline on a spinning reel clamped to a stake I drove in the ground. That worked very well, but I don’t think its going to make much better than 150 ft, certainly not 200. Maybe that will be enough, since the trees I want to get into are in a creek bottom, and I can shoot at them from up the slope.
I’ve got the bow dialed back because the bursitis in my left shoulder is killing me. I hope to get more height when I dial it back up to 50 lb.
See you in California!
Jim

Sounds good! Sorry about the shoulder. Is there a Big Shot or Sidewinder available at your destination? I think it would be interesting to compare what kind of height you can get out of a big slingshot and say a 2 or 3oz weight trailing fireline. The advantage with that type of rig is you can rig some kind of "pull and hold" on the pole and put much less stress on your shoulder for loading up the slings and firing.
-AJ

Yes, I do have a Bigshot in California and will definitely use all available means to get into the big trees.
Pulling the slingshot down doesn't bother my shoulder the way drawing the bow does.
Thanks!
Jim

Moss was right. I could not get significantly more height from the compound bow than my Sidewinder, certainly not enough to justify the cost (or the pain in my bursitis shoulder). Maybe a 70-pound bow would do better, but that’s too much for me.
I did have a good bit of fun practicing with the bow here in Georgia. I was consistently shooting 10 ft or more above the top of a 110-ft poplar from 120 ft away on the ground. An arrow weighted to 3.35 oz always came down through a fairly dense canopy.
In California, I found that I had way overestimated the height of the lowest good branches. There were plenty of trees with decent branches not much more than 100 ft. But Josh (my son) and I spent 3 or 4 hours trying to get a line up in the biggest tree we could find, shooting at it from about 25 ft up a steep slope (with an arrow weighted to 2.95 oz). There was a nice big branch at the upper limit of the bow’s range, but we kept missing one way or another, or the arrow would be deflected by an intervening branch. Finding and retrieving the arrow takes some time and would be very difficult to do alone.
Finally Josh made a perfect shot. We pulled a black line up with no problem, tied on a 14-oz bag, and got to work on isolating. But somehow the bag got stuck very near the top (we couldn’t see it even with binoculars; too much foliage in the way). When nothing I did would get it to come down, I decided the only way to go was up. Pulling it up got it loose, but of course it came off the branch.
Sour grapes anyway, since we couldn’t even tell for sure if the branch was live.
That was all the time I had, since the next day was the beginning of the Rendezvous, which, by the way was absolutely fanfuckingtastic!
But back at Josh’s place on Sunday after the Rendezvous we did get a line up with the Big Shot over a for sure live branch at 120 ft in a very nice tree.
I left the bow out there; no need for it here. For getting a line up really high I recommend skipping the compound bow and going to a crossbow, but they are expensive.