My bow is over 10 years old. There is nothing wrong with that, and in its day it was the cream of the archery crop. Even today I annoy a few bowmen by keeping up with their latest and greatest shooting setups using a single-cam compound bow. It has an early-model four-pin fiber-optic sighting system, and until last week I was shooting off a two-pronged aluminum rest.

My old arrow rest has always been the weakest component in my archery gear. As I drew, there was just enough noise caused by the aluminum-carbon composite arrows I used to alert deer to my presence. Not good. If I drew at a steep angle, the arrow would sometimes bounce on the rest, also not good, or even slip off the side of the rest altogether. Soooo not good.

The day the archery range opened, my first customer was an older gentleman I knew from church. One by one I saw his arrows cluster around the bull's-eye in a tight 3-inch group at 20 yards. Then I saw him make a similar group on the 30-yard target. I looked at his bow, his arrows and then his rest. It was a Whisker Biscuit.

The next day a tournament archer arrived. That guy could cluster arrows in a circle the size of a Ho-Ho at 50 yards! I closely inspected his setup. The arrow rest was a Whisker Biscuit.

Throughout that day more archers arrived. Some were good, and others were exceptional. All were using Whisker Biscuit arrow rests. You'd think no one around Sidney, Neb., sold anything else. I took the hint and bought one.

The Whisker Biscuit is made by Carolina Archery Products, and the current generation is composed of synthetic fibers protruding inward from a plastic circle. In the center is a hole just large enough for an arrow shaft, and there is a pie-shaped gap in the fibers to allow an arrow to be slid into the center hole of the rest. Just enough fibers slip back into position after the arrow is in the rest so that you can turn the bow over 360 degrees and not have the arrow fall off the rest. When you shoot, the shaft is drawn and released through the Whisker Biscuit and the vanes or feathers slip silently through the fibers on the way to the target. It's one of those slick and smart ideas; so simple and obvious that a person asks, "Why didn't I think of that?"

With my new Whisker Biscuit mounted, I went back to the archery range. The older fellow I'd mentioned earlier was there. He gave me some adjustment pointers and soon we felt we had the rest mounted the way it should be. For sighting-in purposes I stepped up to the 10-yard target and let an arrow fly toward one of the 2-inch dots on the American Whitetail foam cube. The arrow pierced the dot precisely in the middle. I aimed at another dot and let loose. The arrow pierced that dot as well. Seconds later, a third arrow punched into the bull's-eye. I was excited by that point and moved to the 20-yard target. Again and again my old bow shot better than it ever had as arrows actually touched one another in the center of the target.

As I write this column I've just returned from my second practice session using the Whisker Biscuit. With my old setup I had a self-imposed bowhunting range limit of 30 yards. That was the distance at which I could consistently put arrows into an 8-inch target. This evening I was hitting a smaller target at 30 yards, and then sending arrows into a 6-inch target at 40 yards. I was even hitting home at 50 yards, something that was unthinkable for me BWB (before Whisker Biscuit).

Whisker Biscuits are readily available for any bow or configuration. I recommend the QS model; the price is anywhere from $25 to $50. Switching to the Biscuit has given me a quieter draw and shot, and also has greatly improved my accuracy. Perhaps it can do the same for you.

Click here to purchase Carolina Archery Whisker Biscuit Arrow Rest.