Bow Hunting Changed Me

It's hard to believe that I was a reluctant bow hunter. In 1989 I started teaching school and realized I had a "good problem". Rifle Season was short, but now that I was teaching school I had more time to hunt. I started looking for a way to extend my season.

The Oklahoma Hunting Guide showed the Muzzleloader Season to be about the same as Rifle Season, together maybe a month long. I was a certifiable gun nut; never even shot a real bow. Without much interest I turned to the bow-hunting section.

Wow! October first till January fifteenth. Wow! You can legally hunt almost anything with a bow. Oh! You have to use a bow. I couldn't imagine getting a deer with a bow-n-arrow. I couldn't even imagine going hunting without my gun. Not for me, I thought!

But, it kept "eating at me", I kept thinking about how much more hunting I could do. I started to notice things about bow-hunting everywhere.

I remembered that at one time I didn't care about photography until I learned more about it. In the Air Force I took my first pictures. I wondered why they weren't very good. I read a book and eventually photography turned into a passion and a career.

I decided I should learn about this bow hunting so many were excited about. The crossbow, compound bow , recurved bow, stick bow ; I didn't know where to start. But after much study; that summer I found myself buying a recurved bow instead of a muzzleloader.

That first season was very exciting! I was totally hooked on bow-hunting! It would be "cool" to say that I was a natural bow hunter and got a deer the first season. It took six years!

I quickly adapted from rifle hunting to bow-hunting. Where I had watched for deer before from some distance, now I was in there with them. It was a new experience for an old hunter; never having been so close to deer before.

That first season I sat for hours, and hours, but the special moments were worth it. One afternoon; two bucks were so close I could have touched them with a long bow!

I cut away some of a cedar tree so I could sit on a folding stool close to the tree trunk. Then I was surrounded on three sides by the thick branches which are hard to see through. They have a strong smell, possibly a natural cover scent.

I was in the shadows, complete camo, and concealed except directly in front. I had set-up to watch a well used trail in a small patch of woods. A little used trail went right by the cedar, but I didn't notice it.

(Goose-bumps now, as I write this!) Sitting there for several hours; I sensed something behind me. Even if I dared to turn, I couldn't see through the cedar I thought. They didn't see me either!

The branches to my right were suddenly moving as a young buck brushed them walking by. He was no more than five or six feet from me at one point. Just when I was about to breath, it happened again, this one was a better six point.

He walked out about fifteen yards stopped and put his head down to sniff for a second. I was so "pumped" I probably couldn't have hit him with a shotgun. My arrow flew about a foot over his back. It didn't matter much, I'll always consider it one of my very best hunts.

Bow-hunting can cause a paradigm shift in a hunters thinking. A close encounter like that is so good, it's as rewarding as taking a deer at longer range. Having the skills to get close to a whitetail, with its finely tuned senses and reflexes, is always a thrill.

Eventually you want to bring home some venison, but you may consider many hunts successful without the venison. (Unless your hungry!)

For most of my life I had trouble getting a deer even with a rifle. I still love guns, and almost any kind of hunting. By the time rifle season arrives, I'm ready for it.

Bow hunting has made me a better hunter, maybe a little better person. Taking a good whitetail with a rifle is not easy for me, but it's not that hard either. Taking a deer, on the ground, with a bow; is tough. I'm happy to live in a country where I can hunt both ways.

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