My first archery white tail harvest

Anyone who knows me knows I love to hunt. Never one to be content with watching life through a windshield or a TV screen, I have a strong desire to live it. And living it means being a part of the food chain. An ACTIVE part. Some people are happy to walk in to the supermarket and toss a steak into the cart. And that's not a bad thing, but it doesn't hold a candle to harvesting your own, in terms of quality, taste, experience, and certainly not satisfaction and the feeling of independence.

One of the reasons I was so willing to move to Arkansas was the hunting. Granted the state is probably not a match for Kansas white tails, but it does hold its own. So I figured that's what I'd start with down here since it's what I know best.

A little over 2 years ago I made up my mind I wanted to harvest a white tail with a bow. I love going primitive. The biggest buck I have taken to date was with a .50 caliber springfield hawken flintlock. There's nothing like it. 10 yards, eyeball to eyeball, with only one chance... and when you pull the trigger, just like any one of the 50+ men on the lewis and clark expedition in that long cold winter out on the frontier, the pan flashes, the fire passes through the touch hole, and the muzzle cracks. When the smoke clears, you hope you've put a lead round ball through your quarry. And I did! But I wanted to take it a step further.

So I spent a wad of jack on a really nice bow (started with a crappy one and realized it wasn't going to work!). I got a Ross Cardiac and set it up. I practiced and practiced. I was already familiar with the up close and personal hunting tactics from black powder hunting (modern rifle hunting really requires almost no skill, I'm sorry to say). I learned how to scout, how to stalk, how to outsmart one of the most woods-wise animals on the planet. But I did it the hard way.

Last season I spent countless hours in the stand. Sun up to sundown, with my thermos of coffee, my lunch (often deer jerky from another hunt), and my imagination. I had 2 chances to shoot. Both missed the mark, mainly due to the fact that I did not have surprise in my favor, which is CRITICAL with white tail hunting.

This year started off almost as badly. My first chance came a couple of weeks ago. It was twilight, and I was back in the woods when a nice sized doe and 3 fawns came strolling into my sights. By the time I got a clear shot, I had trouble seeing (yes it was legal, but barely, right at sundown). I missed. I nearly cried.

Last weekend fortunes changed. About 6:00pm, a medium sized 6 point buck strutted into my lane. He almost walked directly under my stand. He was so close I could have almost stuck him with an Arkansas toothpick! Having learned from my previous experiences how NOT to alert him to my presence, I waited. I waited until I had a clear shot, and he couldn't possibly see me in his peripheral vision as I drew the string back.

The string felt heavy. I've shot this bow a million times. I have a spring scale that measures the draw weight at 60 pounds. It may as well have been 600 I was so filled with adrenaline, because I WANTED THIS. And I was tired of missing.

At about 15 yards, he stopped and turned. My 20 yard pin was right on his front left quarter, just behind the elbow. Perfect alignment... and then.... SNAP!

The arrow flew at over 200 miles per hour. In an instant, the string popped, and he bucked. He literally looked like a Brhama coming out of the gate. Then he trotted off. He never knew what hit him. I waited to move, so as not to scare him and make him run farther, still not 100% sure whether or not I hit him.

Then I saw my arrow, stuck in the ground. I didn't understand what happened, because I was almost positive I hit him when he bucked. When I got out of my harness and down from the tree, I saw the blood on the vanes and the fur on the broadhead, and I knew I had him! The arrow had passed COMPLETELY through his vital area.

A frantic search began. Would I lose him after all this? Who should I call to help? Can he be found before dark? I send a text message to my wife to tell her. I called my daughter out to help in the search. I looked and looked. He was nowhere to be found. However, the area was surrounded on all sides by asphalt. I saw no blood on any of it.

I knew he was near. After a good 30 minute search, I found him. Friends there is no greater thrill in life than to see a buck dropped, waiting to be brought in!

Dragging him out of the woods was not easy, but I did it. My daughter helped me gut him and hang him up. That's the nice thing about having raised my kids "country", they've got frontier skills (and attitudes). She even identified most of the organs in the animal!

We were up until midnight working on him. We got him guttted, skinned and quartered. We hung the hide and tossed the quarters into the deep freeze (set to refrigerator temp). We worked on the meat, hide, and antlers again tuesday night until about 10:00, and some last night.

We have made jerky and sausage, hamburger and steaks. So far we've sampled the jerky and sausage and it is to die for! The part of the hide we saved is in the final stages of preservation. And I've ordered a chrome skull from bass pro to mount the antlers on (actually 2, one for that big buck I took with the flintlock!).

I cannot wait to share this experience with the next generation of hunters, which in this case is my step daughter. Since my own kids have no interest in hunting, it's my only chance to pass on my knowledge of the sport. In a few weeks she'll be down with her crossbow to claim her first hundred pounds of meat!