Ep 080: 2026 PA Total Archery Challenge DAY 1 Sitka Course

On this episode I sit down with Misha Koroscil and Ryan Peterson after Day 1 of our Pennsylvania Total Archery Challenge experience.

Follow Mischa on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/misha.koroscil/

https://www.instagram.com/straysons.co/

Follow Ryan Peterson on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/airbornearchery/

Transcript

0:18

Welcome to Table Talk with Care Remediators. Welcome back to the Hare Remediators podcast. I think it's number 80, maybe. Brought to you by Bushlight Apple. Tastes like apple juice, super delicious. Coming to Canada, but not here yet. But there's tons of it down here. Nice. So we're just gonna do a recap on day one for us of uh PA TAC 2026. Uh we drove down yesterday on Thursday. Um today, Friday was our first day on the SICA course. Um we'd never done that one before. What did you guys think? It was good. Um glad it wasn't raining, and uh there is some pretty steep hilly terrain, and uh even without the rain this year, there's a few spots that you definitely had to watch your foot in. So I uh I would say that one. I would definitely say that one if it was a little wetter than what it is today, it would be a very challenging walk. Yeah, yeah. Some of the yeah, some of the stuff in the really thick stuff. There were some vines on the ground that would catch your feet and uh definitely fell victim to that. It would be a total archery challenge. Yeah, somebody could chip. A couple toe catchers. Yeah, yeah, toe catchers. So that was cool. No, I liked it. It's uh a lot of there's quite a few dark shots, like shooting into the forest and barely seeing anything. Luckily I had the lighted knocks. Sometimes I gave you guys a good shot, sometimes it didn't, but turned out pretty good. And they weren't all crazy. Like there was a few that were over 100, but for the most part it was like what like 40 to 50 to 50 to 65. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple in the what was we only had a couple, I think, in the 36 range, or two. Yeah, and it was like, yeah, but most of them, yeah, like 40s, 40s probably to 70s or something like that were pretty pretty common. And then a couple that were with a couple far ones, you know. But still fun. Still fun. We lost uh I lost four arrows today, which is a new record for me. Last year I lost four or three for the total all three days, but so I gotta make up some some room tomorrow. Yeah. I managed to keep mine, but they just kept going left. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it's the elevation here when you think with the sights, we probably miss. Yeah, I'm not even sure. What are we sitting at right now? I think it's about 1,500 feet if I remember, but uh yeah, everything wanted to go left and practicing on flat ground, like I feel like my bow fits me really well, but then as soon as I have to do like uh you know shooting up on top of those ski hills on an angle, then it feels like I'm too long. Yeah. I felt like my third axis was good until I my bow fell over. Once it fell over, everything was out of whack, and I was like, yeah, fuck. I was doing pretty good. I started off pretty good with a couple twelves. Yeah. And that 106-yard shot, I misranged it, and arrow was short, and the next one was less short, but still short. So I lost two arrows there, bent the inserts on toast. Yeah. Other than other than that though, like it wasn't we weren't we were shooting pretty deep. Yeah, we did alright. Yeah. Ran in a couple of uh guys on the course that joined us, so that was cool. A couple local guys, a couple PA guys. Yeah, PA and Pittsburgh. Yeah, we had Josh and uh Nate. So that was cool. It was a bit of a lineup. They had some, I think, uh a lot of traffic, oh wait. Yeah. It's like we were always waiting, but then there's always people waiting behind us, and it's like I feel like they want us to go faster, but it's like we can't. Like there's people in front of us waiting, like it's just a whole basically just the traffic jam at that point. Yeah, they had some issues with the um the chair lift. Yeah, stopping and starting. Yeah, kind of bogged up the traffic. When we when we got into the lineup about two, they had just sent up like some people from 130. Right. Oh they told me. So they were already behind in the half hour. Yeah. And then they had a bunch of walk-ons, so we got to go first because we had that time already booked. So a lot of those people that were bogging things up, I think, were the extra walk-on people. But people will do like the three guys were shooting behind us, we're shooting all at once. Yeah, so that like it works, but like at the same time, you're now you're just walking in the next target and waiting. And if that's what they want to do, fine, but we're not rushing because of that, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, take the time, get yourself set up. And um, yeah, especially, yeah, they're walking off and then shooting three arrows, it's sort of like, well. How do these guys shoot so quick, and then I look back and all three of them line up by once in the top? Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, fucking. The vendor village didn't disappoint. No, no. And even did it seem like there was even more than more last year. Yeah, more than last year. Yeah. There was more tents and uh lots of outfitters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I said, or mentioned to you, with all the influencers that are posting more and more with, you know, they're obviously using outfitters to get these big deer or caribou or elk or mule deer or pronghorn, and people are looking at that and well, I want to do that, but who are they gonna go to? So these outfitters are now taking advantage of that, coming to this, because they know the influencers come here, they know that the influencers' followers are coming here, so then this is how they get their business. Yeah. Smart. Yeah, and it's pretty wild that not all of the companies that come out to these are at this particular one, and this is the biggest one. And it always sells out, and there's usually around 7,000 people here. So as a business, to kind of no-brainer, you gotta make you gotta make the effort to be here. Because people are here and they're ready to spend money, uh, especially Canadians that come down exhibiting right here and looking to my left, these two. But it makes sense because you know you're getting a discount, you're not paying shipping or duty or anything else, and it's just it's a win, right? Like and they and they usually have 15% off, sometimes 20, uh, sometimes they'll have a couple hundred dollars off a bow. So it's uh and that's like US dollars, like 300 US dollars off a boat, right? So for Canadians, that's a big deal. So I I did the math on mine for me to buy my bow at home, which I would love to do and support small business like our archery shops in Canada. But for me, financially, it doesn't make sense for me to buy it at home if I know I'm coming here. Yeah. Because here I got my ARC 34 with uh limb legs for $2,000 Canadian at home before just the just an ARC itself is $2600 after taxes, yeah. And then you throw in the limb legs, you're at like $2,750. Yep. So $750 I was able to save that I can now put towards my site uh a rest or a stabilizer or something like that. Yep. And like it just financially makes more sense to do that if I know I'm coming here, which I know a lot of the Canadians that are here are doing. Yeah, you know, they'll save the whole year and come here. Yeah, you can even call ahead like that your your experience you called ahead to the store that you knew that was gonna carry it and basically made your order ahead of time, which is awesome. Yeah, so they also have your boat was $300 off, right? Yeah, yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, so it's like it just makes sense, and then yeah, those guys had exactly what I wanted waiting for me. Yeah, and away you go. It's a super awesome video with the uh the guys at the archer's edge there. So they got like real offended when we said our sales tax was 13%. Oh yeah. They were like, what? All at the same time, they all at the same time said 13. Yeah, but yeah, dude, like they're like ours is six. I'm like, I would kill for six percent sales tax. So usually we need fuck man, like yeah, crazy, yeah, taxed to death, that's for sure. So yeah, they were trying to explain the Canadian economy down here to some of the Americans, and they were just why do you live there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but a lot of the guys at home asked me to buy them some stuff, so yeah. I'll be doing that tomorrow. Well, and you make the the the effort down, like I mean it's it's a you know a bit of a haul on a vehicle, like by the time you put all the effort into coming down here and stuff, it only makes sense when when you're here. Like you you put the effort in, you have everything there, you're you're able to get it. So yeah, it's uh it's kind of a no-brainer, really. Yeah, I'm gonna come every year, even if I come by myself, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm well I love having you guys here, but I just it's such a good it's a great experience. It's awesome to shoot these courses, but it's even better to get face to face with some of these companies and be able to ask questions to a real person that's right in front of you and be able to pick up the item that you're looking at and get your hands on it, right? Yes, that's huge. You didn't go see that booth that I told you to go with that uh No, we're going tomorrow. Yeah, it's uh it's like a a cleat, a magnetic cleat for saddle hunters and tree stand hunters. I think it's the smartest thing that's ever been made, and he said no one's ever made it before, and he started the business three days ago. Three days ago. He opened it three days ago. It's a what is it? It's a metal. It's it's right now it's 3D printed because he just started it, but he wants to do plastic injection, sort of like uh the latitude, like SS sticks, right? He might do like a carbon injection molding sort of thing. But essentially it's a cleat that's magnets, or it has three magnets, one in the middle and two on the sides, and it clips in like that. And I I tried like it it takes a bit of muscle to pull it apart, and I was like, How much weight can this go on before it breaks? Because I know it's 3D printed. He goes, Well, like I have like you know, I've tried tested with 70 pounds, it's fine. I had put it on my wall, the 150 pounds worth of stuff, it's fine. And I'm like, okay, that sounds pretty cool. But the way it works is the bottom one has holes for a molly strip. So if you have that on your saddle, you sort of hook it on there, or you do it through a belt, and then you put the other one on your on your stand or your platform using C clamps or the C bolts, the U bolts, sorry, and then that attaches right on there and it doesn't move. You use he had a lone wolf stand, he put it on his back and he's turning around, it's not moving. Well, so I'm thinking like that thing's fantastic, because right now I use a carabiner with my uh platform whenever I'm climbing, but like I'm back there trying to undo it blindly, I can't do it. It takes me fucking like 20 seconds to do it. But to just be able to unclip it. Especially when your hands are cold. Like you get into that late season hunt, like there's things that you can do, or you know, like when your hands are warm, yeah, no problem fidgeting around, but then when your hands are cold and you're messed up, you're like, Yeah, your 20 seconds turns into like a minute and a half or three minutes, you know. It's like, oh my god. I told him I'd bring you to them uh yeah today or tomorrow. What was looking for? We got separated a couple times. I was looking for it, and then it's figuring we'll go tomorrow. Yeah. In the morning. Yeah. I think yeah, if you did that, did a review on it. Yeah, cool for sure. Yeah. We're shooting the B Real course tomorrow. And then the uh Rocky Mountain Alpha Foundation one on Sunday. Which would be 15 targets. Nice. Yeah. Big Elk targets. There's a lot of Ram targets today. Oh, yeah. For a Sitka course where you think would be more dear. Yeah. Yeah, lots of Rams. Lots of Rams. Lots of light, and they had quite a few white ones, all white. Those are very hard to see any rings on it. And a couple black ones, like that were just the black, straight blacks and the straight whites was and that one was like shot all up. Like you couldn't see anything. There's a lot of embedded targets too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and I think today's lesson, I I gotta figure out why why everything was going left. I'll sort that out. But I think the big thing for next year will be how to streamline my system. I like by the time I'm going up, I think I want to be minimalist on my harnesses and all my different things. Like, I want to care, I want to carry less things because what were we? We started probably around 2.20-ish or something like that shooting. And when did we get to the truck? 7030. 7.30. So I mean, it's a five-hour adventure up and down hills. And uh today we yeah, it was nice to not complain about rain, but it was also yeah, pretty warm. So 14,000 steps today. Yeah, 14,000 steps up and down those hills, and uh you start to that's when you're starting to realize like near the end, like you said too, like I you peter out near the end, and it's probably like yeah, dehydration and a lot of a lot of a lot of stuff was going in near near the end, right? Thank God for those gummies that you run. Yeah, you little yeah, bring snacks, yeah. For we'll mountain ops tomorrow and grab some of the electrolite powder they got. I'm gonna get that first form berry stuff that I was. That was very good. Yeah, lemon berry. Lemonberry. Yeah, that was like uh that was really good. What's it got? Um creatine and something else? Yeah, creatine. Creatine and shit, I can't remember. It was amazing. Yeah. I kept going back. Yeah. Why is it in such a small bottle? They're like, there's 30 scoops in there. I'm like, oh it should be in the protein bottle size. Like it's amazing. It's good stuff. Just want to take a quick break to talk to you about a couple of things that I've been using that I think might benefit you. Uh, one is this Numa Outdoors gear. Uh, this is in their Kaza OV pattern, which is great whitetail pattern when you're up in a tree in the fall and late season. They also have a Kaza pattern which has more green in it, which is good for spring through to the fall. Numa has given me a code to give to you of Caribou Media 20, which will save you 20% at checkout. Another product here that I've been using for years now is the Bulldog Targets. This is a Canadian-made Target. They're made in Manitoba. They have a lifetime warranty. I've used that warranty twice now on a couple of my larger targets that are outside. It's very simple, very easy. These targets are two-finger removal every single time, which is incredible. Uh, field point only target. Bulldog's been gracious enough to give me a 20% discount code to give to you. Checkout, use code BD20 hyphen caribou hyphen media. That'll save you 20% on these awesome targets. Now back to the show. Lots of cool things here for sure. But yeah. I didn't, I didn't honestly didn't think that I walked around and saw everything yesterday. Oh no, or today. I definitely like even though we were there for walking around for three and a half hours, I was like, I there's a lot of booths I didn't look at. Yeah. It's very easy to run into people that you see on YouTube and have conversations, and then other people you don't even know as strangers, you can stop and just start having conversations. And uh it's actually it's very easy to just kind of you'll be walking with people and then they see something or see somebody, and uh some people too even, you know, they can't remember your name, but they remembered you from last year, like, oh hey man, you were here last year, and you're like, Yeah, hey, yeah. So it's kind of weird, like you start the for the the thousands of people that come through here. Um yeah, it's interesting how that that can work out, but yeah, no, it's uh yeah. Definitely gonna try and figure out how to streamline that gear. And uh well, yeah, I gotta buy a few more things. Yeah, one of the things I was gonna tell you was that push archery pocket quiver. It's got the magnet on it. We saw that guy have one. Yeah. I was looking at them. I've looked at them last year too. And you can fit arrows in them. There's a little pocket on the front for your release or your rangefinder or whatever. And there's also a magnet at the bottom, so it'll keep your your arrows in there. That's really cool. And it just flaps right over top of your pants or your pocket or whatever. It's wicked. And they also have a larger size one too, but again, everything's on sale down here, so it makes so much sense to check things out. And you know, some places don't have stuff that you can look at and then you'll have to order, but there are places that are that are selling things. And a lot of bow companies that are setting up bows for people, like well, there were some stores like the tents you guys went to. Prime's got their new traveling bow building rig there, so they were building bows for people too. Like it's just wicked sea. Yeah. So much opportunity down here. Yeah, and gas bowstrings here. Yeah, we're setting up strings for people. Yeah. I was able to get my my strings warranted, which was really nice. Uh Destiny was a lot of help. Um, I had the the gas bowl strings on my B3X, and I had some issues with the servings on the cables. Uh, and she looked at it, said no problem, and gave me a brand new set of System X strings. Nice. So uh string upgrade, and uh on Sunday I'm gonna go back and before we leave, and they're gonna put it on and set it all up for me. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, great company to deal with for sure. Yeah, no, no hassle warranty. Even the registration though, like we this place sells out. That's the problem. It's a good problem to have for them, but it's it can be frustrating for us when we're trying to book ourselves in. So we had the same course today, the same course on Sunday. I didn't get into the B-Real one for Saturday. And one of our times was off for today. For today and tomorrow. For today and tomorrow. Yeah, you didn't even know. I didn't have this course at all because it sold out. And then one of our times was off, and we asked them at the registration, and they just they pulled out the list of all the people and they they worked their magic, and we were able to shoot together today, and I was able to get onto the Be Real one for tomorrow, and then they lined up our times for that. So everything's really worked out, so they've been pretty incredible to deal with, especially with 7,000 people this year. Who a lot of a lot of them are gonna have a lot of the same issues that we had, right? Yeah, yeah. My yeah, I wish we could just put a profile in with your group or or change some sort of registration. The other guy said, Yeah, make a time slot, like you know, if you're going to a concert. There's a couple different ideas people were shooting around, but it would just it'd be better to be able to. If they gave people a week to make their group, yeah, like for all of the tacks, like just from for every single tack event, put it all into one. Everybody has one week to make your groups, and then when the registration comes for the event that you want to go to, just press add group, yeah, and then you're good. Because everybody that's registering is going to shoot with somebody, and we all were on it right away. Like as soon as it opened, we all pressed. Enter. We all had it at the same time. And like I was number 300, whatever, Josh was 980, and you were back in 1100. Yeah. So it's like there's probably 3,000 people right at that second trying to get on, and it's all nanoseconds. And like I was able to get all the times that we wanted, they were not, so then it's like the whole group is screwed up, and then when we come here, they have like we're asking them to change shit around. So if they can find a way for us to pre-make our groups, like then it would be fantastic to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you want to say something about boots? Is that what you were saying earlier? Boots? Wear your boots before you come here. Oh yeah. Like, you know, we get we get back to the truck, and it just felt like uh, you know, I love my crispy boots, they they work awesome, but at the same time it was like wearing a pair of ski boots. Like you, you know, it's like you take the season off and you put them on for the first time, and you're like, you know, you should probably put these boots on, you know, a little bit, wear them a little bit around before before coming out here, not the first time again. Your feet take a bit of a shit kicking here because yeah, you're standing on an even ground, you're shooting on uneven ground. There's rocks everywhere. Up and down, up and down. You're just a mess. Yeah, lots of hills. Make sure you like these are actually kind of flexible boots too. Yeah, I found. Because last year I brought three different pairs because it was supposed to rain, and the one pair I had is like not very flexible. And that one was harder to walk in than the other ones, especially because of how rocky it is. Yeah. Yeah, and you don't realize too, like um downhill. You always think walking up a hill is hard, but on your feet, downhill can be a bit of a workout for them. Yeah, maybe you bring like uh those little spikes. Like cramp on the crampons. But but yeah, you definitely it felt like taking those boots off when we got home. Like I felt like I was taking my ski boots off or something like that here. You know, just gotta get your feet used to that a little bit, you know. Sure. Yeah, all in all, it's awesome. And again, you see people you met last year, so it's pretty cool. It's very talked to Zach Blasica. Yeah, had a good chat with him and the guys there. And Cody from Easton, yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was like, he went to shake my hand, I was like, me Shannon, nice to meet you, and he's like, I remember you. He's like, I remember you from last year. I was like, oh, okay, you know, you meet like thousands of people at all these events, you know. I just thought I'd reintroduce myself, but now he's like, I remember you, and I was like, oh cool, yeah, you know, yeah, so yeah, I think he was asking me for workout advice, but uh yeah, didn't have any. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. It's kind of like your Boneware comment last year. Yeah. We gotta go back there and I gotta buy some stuff from him. Yeah, no, he's a good dude. I like uh I like him, man. Yeah, and it's a great business to be in, especially here when you sell arrows. Yeah, I had him. I have to buy some more really. I have some at home, but I might have to buy some to get through. Well, you saw the the arrow trash can, right? Even on the first day? Fucking piled up pretty high already. Yeah. Yeah, what did they say last year for all the tacks? The broken arrows are something like two million or something like that. It's like my Game of Thrones chair. Way too million. Yeah. Maybe 200,000. 2 million? Yeah. Each tack gets like 6,000 people average. Yeah, like how many was their broken arrows there? They had some number. It was crazy. But yeah, maybe. Or two million dollars worth of it. Oh, that might have been. Yeah. Yeah. So there are there wasn't that many shots where you would actually there were quite a few shots where you could break an arrow through the trees. Yeah. And then even just that that one girl got that gust of wind. Yeah. And it just released right as it was pulling through, and she smoked that one right behind it. So there was that one shot, that black bear shot, where we were shooting through what seemed to be like an eight-inch opening between like four different trees. Yeah. And like all of us snuck through it. Yeah. No one lost one on that one. And we the one one guy that was with us there, Nate, he had that one go sideways. I didn't. Yeah, it wasn't on that one, that was on the other one. Yeah, that one was on uh when we were kind of making that downhill descent, you know, where we just kept going down, down, down. We were halfway down. Yeah. And he he caught something. I didn't even see what it was. He had a branch. And he that's yeah, I think I think that's what the one uh Josh was saying. I said, Oh, he caught that branch. But we found his arrow, it was kicked off to the side or whatever, but uh yeah. He was clicked in all the broken ones. I did that last year, I don't know what they're gonna do that this year. Yeah, that quiver was full of shit last year. Is that for victory? Yeah, they get to try and get the free uh yeah, the free pack. And I shot the Matthews Arc 34 today. I shot the 30 in Salt Lake City. Shot a 34 today. He wants one. I'm trying to convince him. It was pretty stunning. I also shot the Prime Divide 30, which was pretty cool. For a short bow. I'm not used to shooting short bows, but that felt really good too. So I'll be shooting the Hoyt's tomorrow. I want to get that AX90 in my hands to see. Yeah, they have right hand just in it. Just to see. And the thing, like with Matthews, their risers are so tall, like even with the short bows, like those risers are long. So they feel good, like they still have a good string angle when you even if you get the shorter ones. Um but yeah, just the geometry on them is is really good for that. You don't feel like you're shooting a short bow. No. Yeah, so lots to do still a whole day and happen. Meeting up with some Canadian boys tomorrow. Yeah, what are they up to? Are they I don't know. Uh the first group was still driving down here when I talked to them, and the second group was shooting another course. So we'll we'll have to catch. Yeah, we'll have to keep an eye out for them. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll find them somewhere. Cool. Alright, anything else you want to talk about from today? Dougley signed his bow again. Oh yeah. Yeah, I got uh sister, sister signatures there on each sister signatures. You gotta clear coat those so they don't come on. Yeah, and it's crazy how like you can tell he does a lot of them because they're identical. Like my I don't think I have two signatures that look the same. But uh he's worked on it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that dude uh who had that that PSC that was right behind us from 2004. Oh, it was an old hoit. That was an old hoyt. It was an old hoyt, I thought he came in with what that old hoit from 2004. It looked like it was brand new. Yeah, like 2003, 2005 or something he said. And uh Dudley said that he competed with one just like that Kermit, his Kermit bow. He's got it all in green. It was a candy apple red. Yeah, that was it was it looked pretty nice. Yeah, and even the sight, like it was it, it still like the clicks on it were very uh They were loud. Yeah, click, click, click, but it was very like unlike for the that age, like it was yeah, it was a good good little setup. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. Matthews had some uh titles and candy red too. Yeah. Sent picture to Gary. I did. I did. Yeah, you liked it. Yeah, very cool. Alright. Let's go to bed. Yeah, we'll do it all again tomorrow. Yeah, do another recap, see how much money we spent. I think tomorrow will be a little cheaper, maybe. I don't know, it depends what we run into unless we uh probably use it and say just let it happen. Book a trip on a red stag trip in New Zealand. Yeah. The New Zealand Dumffitters are here and they'll take your money. Yeah. I'll tell Veronica I did not buy a bow. Yeah, I did not buy a bow. I just bought a red stag. Oh man. Yeah. But they're right there. We should go look at them tomorrow. What's this? What's the worst ever now? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Exactly. All right, cool. We'll do this again tomorrow.