NOTE TO READERS – This post will be a bit different from others on this site. First, it’s about something that is somewhat controversial, hunting. Second, there is no accompanying photograph as it is almost impossible to photograph myself while hunting. Third, this post will be a bit longer than normal and maybe a bit more personal as well. I hope you enjoy it.
I have been pursuing recreation in the outdoors for most of my life. I started under my Father’s guidance with camping and fishing at a very young age, then moving into hunting when I became old enough to receive a license. Some of these have had additions to them, such as adding snowshoes and a sled to my camping gear so that I can camp year-round. Over the years my hunting equipment has also expanded from starting with a shotgun, to adding a rifle, to then adding muzzleloading firearms, and finally adding a bow. The bow has been the most difficult to learn and to have a level of success in taking game animals. It has been a journey, for sure.
Having been a hunter for over 40 years, I thought that I knew every trick in the book to spend more time in the woods. I’ve taken vacation time, worked hunting around holidays, called in sick (“cough, cough”), left work early, and given up sleep. I even bought primitive, side-lock muzzleloaders to take advantage of extended season privileges. But it wasn’t until relatively recently that I began to consider hunting with a bow and arrow.
I remembered my very first experience with a bow as a young boy in a town summer recreational program. It was a bright yellow fiberglass recurve that probably had a 15 to 20 pound draw weight and shot wooden arrows. But the first arrow I shot with that bow was a bullseye. It was pure luck given my undeveloped ability and limited instruction from an underpaid, bored teenage staff member. I also remembered, in the “hook and bullet” magazines of my youth, reading stories of legends like Fred Bear and Howard Hill and actually seeing them on the early “sportsman” television shows. They used recurves and longbows and had mastered seemingly impossible feats of skill, accuracy, and hunting prowess. I committed myself to purchasing a recurve bow with matched arrows and learning how to shoot instinctively.
It took some searching, but I finally found a reasonably local archery shop that had a number of recurves in stock. I visited the shop, shot several bows on the indoor range, and walked out the proud owner of a new bow, a dozen arrows, and everything needed to shoot at targets. I bought an inexpensive square foam target and set it up in the back yard. The instinctive aiming method seemed to work for me. I had played sports in high school and college so the idea of muscle memory and repetition made sense. Before long, I was consistently hitting within the bullseye and the second ring at 20 feet. I kept practicing and continued to increase my distance from the target until I reached the limit of my back yard range at about 20 yards. Unfortunately, a severe shoulder injury prevented me from preparing to hunt that first year. I would need to wait.
The next spring, two years after I had purchased my first bow, I set up my archery range again. I expected that I would be starting from scratch. But I was pleasantly surprised that my aim quickly returned and I was soon confidently shooting out to 20 yards again, and then on to 30 yards. It seemed like the right time to take my state mandated bowhunter education class. Much of the state required curriculum deals with the differences in laws, differences in projectiles, and some differences in tactics between hunters using firearms and those using bows. There was also a good quantity of printed materials from the National Bowhunter Education Foundation. At the end of eight hours of class and six hours of study on my own time, I walked out with my bowhunter class certificate. The next day I went to a local archery shop and purchased my license. Now I was really starting to think seriously about bow season.
Opening Day of bow season dawned clear. I sat in one blind most of the morning but saw nothing. While sitting in the blind I began to think that maybe I was too close to the deer trail for a good shot. So I began looking around for another location that didn’t need much work but could still give me a good chance at a shot. I settled on another spot about 15 feet from where I was sitting which would potentially give me a 25 to 30 foot shot. I was confident at that distance so I still felt good about my chances.
My chance came about 3:30pm. I spotted two doe coming through the goldenrod about 50 yards away. The distance was much too far for me to contemplate a shot but I began my preparations to possibly draw my bow for a shot at some point. The two doe continued to head in the general direction of my blind. They were feeding and moving slowly, stopping often to eat fresh grass, poop, and pee. It took them almost 20 minutes to move 10 yards closer to me and another 10 minutes to move 10 more yards. Now they were within my preferred range but neither one presented any kind of a shot. There was also too much vegetation between us for a clear shot. I should have been nervous but I was really overjoyed at seeing two deer that didn’t know I was there for a period of about 30 minutes. To be that close to two wild animals and just watching them was thrilling. But the thrill was soon to end.
After more than 30 minutes of observing the two deer with no clear shot, the completely unexpected happened. My neighbor’s two dogs began to bark about 300 yards away. Both doe looked in the direction of the noise (away from me), one snorted and stomped, and they both took off heading back the way they had come. I could hear them stop after about 50 yards and snort and stomp again. Then I heard something I had never heard before, rapid bleating from both doe that sounded almost like laughter. It could have been directed at the dogs, at me, or just some kind of nervous relief.
So my first experience with bowhunting did not result in food for my family. But I had a great time observing the two doe and learning more about deer, about myself, and perhaps a little about bowhunting. It was an experience I would not trade for anything.