I am a horrible Archery Hunter. Not necessarily a poor archer (although archery is not my strongest suit), but a very lackadaisical archery hunter. The difference being, an archer is someone who regularly shoots a bow, and an archery hunter is someone who is actively trying to harvest animals with a bow and arrow. I consider myself more of the latter, although I am terrible at it.
A few years ago, I got sort of into archery, shooting a recurve bow, with no pin sights, in the upstairs range of the now-defunct Northwest Outfitters in Alexandria, Minnesota. To be entirely honest, it was mostly just me and some middle school friends getting together and shooting arrows until our forearms were bruised. As with most activities involving precision and competition, I found archery exhilarating, yet I didn’t actually go bow-hunting for a year or so after I started practicing with a bow.
My first expedition bow hunting for deer was the opening day of Minnesota archery season when I was 15 or 16 years old. Armed with my Grandfather’s old bow, a handful of arrows, and a long sleeve, camouflage t-shirt I trudged out into the woods surrounding one of my favorite places in the entire world. For the first couple hours, I sat quietly in my stand, patiently waiting for the deer to trot within range of my bow. After several hours of sitting painfully still and watching deer walk around vastly out of range, I decided to climb down from the stand and partake in a bit of stalk hunting.
This was, in my opinion, simultaneously infinitely more exciting and frustrating. Exciting because by climbing out of the stand, I had to focus on moving quietly through the Northern Minnesota forest. Quietly picking my way through the freshly fallen leaves, focusing on reducing every sound to less than a whisper, I was able to actually close the distance between myself and the deer, until I was finally able to take a shot.
Frustrating, because when I finally was able to take a shot, I shot low and missed. Yet the deer stood there and allowed me to shoot again. This arrow went high, yet the deer stood stock still, staring at me as I re-knocked a third arrow, only to miss again, and a fourth time. At this point I was empty of arrows, and just stood there staring at the deer, as the deer stared back at me. Frustrated, I chucked a rock and the doe finally took off.
After that exasperating experience, it would be over four years before I took a bow out into the field again. This time, I would end up tracking two large bucks nearly five miles before finally catching a full glimpse of the two deer, on the wrong side of a rancher’s fence. I would return the next day to find another hunter field dressing the same two deer out of the back of his truck.
This season, I returned my grandfather’s old bow, and bought my own, new compound bow. Lighter and more compact than my grandfather’s antiquated bow, I eagerly trudged through the growing pains of sighting in a new bow and reacquainting myself with the nuances of archery shooting. It was exciting, the gear was new, and my attitude towards the hunt had changed.
My first archery hunt this season, I dropped myself into a chair, and promptly fell asleep, only to be woken by the sound of a rather large buck trotting across the west Texas gravel and out of range. A smaller, not yet ready for harvest, buck would then walk across my shooting lane as I leaned over the side of my stand, texting my dad. The deer and I paid each other exactly the same amount of attention. That is to say, I regarded his too thin antler profile and went back to what I was doing, and he regarded me without a care in the world as he munched on the corn from the feeder roughly forty yards down range.
In the second archery hunt this season, I showed up in khaki 5.11 Tactical pants and a plaid flannel. A far cry from being decked out in camo like I was the first go around over six years previously. Nor was I inclined to go stalking around the bush, this time opting to sit in a hastily selected spot, sort of (but not really) concealed behind a mesquite bush. Toting an excellent book about the biological and geographical reasons behind the rise and fall of civilizations, I actually saw nearly a dozen deer, none of which were inclined to get stuck by a pokey, carbon fiber stick flung out of a contraption that only sort of resembles the recurve bow I learned to shoot on a decade before.
I think if I was to place the reason why my archery hunting as become more lackadaisical over time is really just a different appreciation for the hunt, combined with an “Eh, screw it, rifle season is in a few weeks anyways” mentality. My attitude towards the hunt has really evolved from feeling like I had to harvest a deer to be successful. Now, if I am sitting out in a deer stand, a dove field, a duck blind, or trudging through a slough looking for pheasants, I have succeeded. As my father says after just about every hunt, “that’s why it is called hunting and not shooting.” If I am being totally honest, removing that pressure to harvest an animal from myself really makes me enjoy just being out there again. That is definitely not to say I will not be trying to fill the freezer in the coming weeks. I just do not think I will feel as bad if that proves to be an unsuccessful endeavor.
I totally did smoke two feral goats though. With an AR15. So that was cool.
Good story. Awakened maybe??? 😉