Though my buddy contacted me via messages I have thought a few times of what a phone conversation would have been like....

"Hey Curtis! I have a new product I would love for you to try out!"

"Sounds cool JC! What do you have?"

"It's called Hushpuk." (insert long silent moment)

"Um, ok ........ JC, you realize I am in Texas and I really don't care about hockey or making it a quieter game, right?" (another momentary silence followed by laughter ....... on his part)

"Seriously dude, hockey is not my game!"

As it turns out, Hushpuk is a bow vibration dampening device. Nothing at all to do with hockey. Cool, I can live with that. Hushpuks have been in use with some Pennsylvania longbow shooters for a while and the response to them has been good. Next step would of course be getting compound bow shooters involved. I was more than happy to give them a try.

Most of us compound bow users have or still do utilize a popular vibration dampener. It's been around a while and has a solid following. After getting my newest bow, a Bowtech Assassin, I never added them. I felt the bow was quiet enough and fast enough for the short shots I would have that I wouldn't need them. But I wasn't opposed to using them. When JC asked me about these, I said sure, why not.

First, a little about Hushpuks. They are sleak and low profile, a big plus in my books. However, their claim to fame is that they are repositionable. Meaning of course you can peel them off and move them to a different location. This appealed to me in so much as I could try different spots on my bow and see what results were for each spot. But I was a little skeptical. Here in Texas we have a little something called high humidity. Like the old saying goes.. "Don't like the weather in Texas, give it a few minutes and it will change." A lot of times that humidity and those temperature changes have an adverse effects on so called removable adhesives. So one of my tests was seeing how long before the Hushpuks lost their "stickiness". I have had them in the humidity, the rain, the heat of a closed werehouse, out in the woods, in an air conditioned area and much more. Many times they would be in several of these places all in the same day. And as of yet, they still bond to the bow limbs tightly and leave no residue when I move them or take them off. After doing a little more research on them, I even found out the polymer adhesive side can be cleaned and it will work as good as new.

The next item on the testing agenda was to see if they really made the bow quieter. Not an easy task if you don't have all sorts of sophisticated equipment, right? Of course not! We live in an age of apps. So I looked on my phone and sure enough there were several apps dealing with measuring sound. Of course these aren't truely scientific, but hey, I'm no scientist. I did learn a few things though. From what I was told, it takes a difference of 3 decibles for the human ear to notice change in sound. Naturally, deer would take even less of a change. During my testing I ranged anywhere from one to five decibles of change. I moved the Hushpuks all around, shot the Assassin with and without a loaded quiver and an unloaded quiver. As well as deer and other wildlife can hear, one decible can be huge in avoiding a miss due to them jumping the string.

As for the vibration dampening? Let's be honest, most gadgets and gizmos for hunting, just as in fishing, are designed to catch the hunter (angler) more than the prey. But with Hushpuks, yes, I feel they do indeed take away some vibration. That in my opinion gives me a better follow through and a more stable shot. We put a set on my son's Diamond bow and he felt they gave him more stability. A very large part of archery is mental. And any confidence gained by using Hushpuks is of course, a good thing.

I still have plenty of testing to do. I want to run some arrows through a chronograph and see if speed was altered by adding Hushpuks. Speed matters to some and not to others. I am in the latter catagory. My personal belief runs along the idea that people have been taking game with bows for years and early compounds, though slower, still managed putting arrows in game.

Right now my Hushpuks are attached to the outside of the limbs near the draw weight adjustment. So far that spot has given me the most change in decibles.

I plan to keep these on my bow and will update the page as I find out more. But as of right now, I do believe they are a great product. They dampen noise and vibration and help me, mentally and physically, make better, more consistant shots. And as I pointed out at the beginning of my review. They are low profile! Which means no "knob" sticking off of my Assassin. Can't complain about that at all.

You can find Hushpuks online here. They also have a Facebook page. Like and follow their growth. I see nothing but good things for them! So check them out, try them out and give your feedback on them. I would be interested in hearing your results.

Happy and SAFE hunting to all!