Thanks to Al over at SoCal Bowhunter for bringing this one to light.  Since I haven’t been hog hunting in so long I’m not sure I remember what a wild pig looks like, I figured I’d share this pretty cool video clip.  The hunter has four cameras set up, and edits the shots to show not only the traditional “down the barrel” view, but also provides a “reverse view”, looking back up past the hog to the archer.  It’s a neat trick, and really graphic depiction of what a broadhead does as it goes through a pig.  The shot isn’t ideal, but it’s still effective as you’ll see at the end of the clip.  Check it out!

Practice may not make perfect, but it makes you better.

Here’s a little departure from my Texas land-buying adventures (or lack of adventures, since the most exciting thing all week was that huge steak dinner).

I’ve had a couple of folks ask me about what they need to do to get started bowhunting for hogs.  It’s a good question, because taking after wild boar with stick and string is a pretty serious commitment.  You need the right equipment, the right mentality, and a good dose of luck to successfully hunt hogs with archery gear.  I wouldn’t rank one of those factors above the others either.

The thing is, I’ve sort of danced around this topic on the blog.  I absolutely do not consider myself an archery expert, and my very limited success as a bowhunter probably speaks volumes to that.  Ask me about rifles and rounds, and I can carry on at great length.  But archery tackle… well, that’s another story.  I’m not deeply steeped in the technological aspects, nor am I any great shakes in the practical side.  I shoot a bow, and do pretty well on targets… but that’s sort of it.

Enough disclaimers?

If you want to bowhunt for hogs, there are the obvious gear recommendations.  I can tell you this much.

You want a bow that’s delivering significant energy to the target.  The thing is, there are so many variables that go into the amount of energy a bow delivers, that it’s kind of hard to call out a specific recommendation.  Personally, I’ve found that my recurve, at 52# draw with 140 grain, two-bladed broadheads will pass through a smallish hog (100lbs), but did not fully penetrate a bigger sow (150+).  Those are the only two hogs I’ve hit with the recurve, so my sample is pretty small and certainly not definitive.  But it does tell me that a 52# trad bow, at least in my configuration, is acceptable but not ideal.

On the other hand, my compound, a Mathews Drenalin at 70#, is more than sufficient… on paper.  I’ve only actually hit one hog with it, a 180 lb. sow.  With a boiler-room shot just behind the shoulder, the arrow, tipped with a 100gr. Slick-Trick broadhead, passed almost completely through.

You want a well-constructed broadhead.  That could be boilerplate from any archery or bowhunting site, but it’s important.  Hogs are tough, and they have big bones.  The boars, especially the older ones, have a cartilage “shield” behind the shoulder that can be pretty danged thick too.  A broadhead needs to be able to break those bones or penetrate that shield in order to be effective.  I’ve found, in my relatively limited testing, that the Magnus Journeyman broadhead is about as tough as you could ever ask for.  I hit a cinderblock almost dead on with one at 20 yards, and didn’t chip or bend the blade.  The Slick Tricks are pretty tough too, although I’m not completely happy with the wound channel and blood trail I’m getting from them.

By the way, the general concensus seems to recommend against mechanical broadheads.  I guess the word is that they tend to open prematurely on contact with big bones or cartilage, and may not penetrate enough to do the job.  Theoretically that makes sense, but I can’t say for sure.  My limited experience with other hunters using expandables has been mixed… but that’s sometimes more a factor of the archer than the broadhead.

But that’s about as technical as I can get about gear and gadgets.  You can check out some great sites, like Bowsite.com for better and more detailed info.  That place has more than most folks would ever want to know about archery and bowhunting, as well as gear and gadgets.  There’s also some really good information over on MyOutdoorTV.com.  Check out the How-To  section.

But getting the right gear is only part of the equation.  The other part that seems to get largely overlooked is the proper preparation of the hunter.  I mean, really, gear is gear.  It’s a pile of inanimate objects that are only as good as the person wielding them.  So what can I tell you about wielding them?

Practice. 

Shoot your bow as much as you can.  Try different angles and shooting positions.  If you’ll be shooting from a treestand, then practice from a treestand (or ladder).  If you’re shooting from a ground blind, then practice from a ground blind.  And practice at many ranges, but make a point of shooting from as far away as is practical.  You don’t have to (or want to) shoot long range at animals, but practicing on long-range targets makes you immensely better at real, hunting distances.  You really want to shoot until your accuracy is so consistent that it’s boring.  And then keep shooting.  Add 3-D and field courses to keep it interesting if you can.

Archery is all about technique and form.  You have to be unconsciously consistent, and this is especially critical for a bowhunter.  If you have to think about your anchor point, or check the level to see which way the bow is canted, or dwell on how to release the arrow without jerking it… well, you’re going to miss opportunities.  This is a game of muscle memory, patience, and restraint.  If you’re going to shoot at live game, especially hogs that are almost never stationary, you can’t take time to mentally step through the shot.  It has to come automatically.  The only way that’s going to happen is through practice.

And now, for the one thing that doesn’t get nearly the emphasis it deserves… learn to track.

There is one certainty in bowhunting.  The animal will probably not fall right over dead when you shoot it.  If you make a really good shot you may see your quarry go down in relative short order.  If all the stars and planets are aligned, this will happen where you can see the hog (or whatever you’re hunting) drop.  In this case, give it some time to be sure it’s expired, and then go collect your prize.

However, the more likely situation is that your prey will take off at the shot and disappear.  You are going to have to be able to blood-trail this animal… sometimes for hundreds of yards.  Blood-trailing isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t always easy.  It takes a sharp eye, common sense, and lots of stubborn perseverance.  There are also a handful of tricks and techniques.  I can’t begin to cover all of this in a simple blog post.  It would take a book or two, plus an awful lot of time in the field to really drill this stuff in.  But here are a few basic pointers.

First, never rush it.  You’ll hear this all the time, but most hunters (especially newer ones) forget it in the hazy excitement that usually follows the shot.  Sit down and take a breath.  Get your head together.  Even if you saw the animal go down, sit tight and wait a while.

You have to understand that an arrow doesn’t kill like a high-powered bullet.  Bullets smash everything up with hydrostatic shock, and can shut down an animal’s key life functions without actually hitting the heart or lungs.  Arrows kill, primarily, through blood loss.  This sometimes takes a little bit of time, depending on where the arrow hit.  (I’m not going to get into the arguments about humane kills here… I know what I’ve seen, and I’m convinced that a well-placed broadhead is every bit as humane as a bullet.)  If you go after the animal too soon, it may very well jump and run… and then you’re stuck with a tricky situation and an alarmed animal.

If you’re absolutely sure you made a good hit on the heart or lungs, or if you saw the hog go down, give it about 20 or 30 minutes anyway.  My brother’s practice is to go smoke a cigarette, but I don’t recommend that for obvious reasons… particularly for those of us who don’t smoke.  But you might consider other ways to pass the time.  Maybe grab the ubiquitous cell phone and call someone who cares, and tell them about the hunt.  If you can do so without crossing the animal’s path, you might wander back out to the car and have a soda or a sandwich.  Or, if there aren’t any other options, just sit back and count the birds.  Enjoy the rest of the day (or evening).

If you’re less sure of the hit, give it more time.  A rule of thumb is to give at least four hours for a marginal lung or vitals hit.  If you think you may have made a gut shot, you might give it twice that long.  In that case, mark the spot where you shot, make a mental map of where the animal went after the shot, and go home.  Don’t stay, because if you’re like most people, you’ll get impatient and start after the animal too soon.  I’m here to tell you, even with a fatal wound, a marginally hit hog can go a long, long ways.  If you push it too soon, you will very likely lose the animal.

A note here.  There’s a general school of thought that suggests an exception to the “wait-a-bit” rule.  In the event of a deep muscle hit, like a ham or high-shoulder, some experts actually recommend pushing the animal.  The theory is that this will increase bleeding, and if the broadhead is still inside, will increase the damage the broadhead inflicts as it jostles around (I’m here to tell you that the things a razor sharp broadhead does while bouncing around inside the body cavity are simply scary!).  Personally, I’ve only tried this twice and in both cases, I lost the animal.  In at least one case, the wound was obviously not lethal.  In the other case, I’m not as sure, but the deer I was after jumped up and finally disappeared into the swamp after two days of hard tracking.  Either the gators got him, or he got away.  I’ll never know.

There are always variables.  Rain or snow can hide a trail, so if these are imminent, you may have to push the limits a little bit and get after your animal sooner than advised.  If you’re hunting in the hot weather, meat spoilage is a real concern… especially for hogs.  There’s a fine line between taking a chance on letting a dead animal spoil, or pushing one too soon.  And I can speak from experience that it sucks to lose an animal to the heat after a tough tracking job.  But it sucks just as much to lose one altogether because you lost the bloodtrail.

But most of this stuff has been covered before, and better, by other writers in other places.  It does pay to read up. But following up the shot comes down to the overworn adage… when in doubt, back out.

How do you get better at trailing?  The single best answer is experience.  You learn this stuff by doing it, and at a point you’ll find yourself noticing things without even looking for them.  Learn to identify the freshly bent blade of grass, the scuffed hoof mark that indicates a limp or dragging limb, the erratic trail of a sick animal looking for a place to lie down.  You can get a lot of this just by tracking healthy animals, which is something I used to do a lot.  There are other obvious benefits to spending this kind of time afield, by the way.

There are other things you can do as well, if you’re so inclined.  Never seen a blood trail before?  Go to the store and buy a package of bloody hamburger.  Get the blood and go out in your yard, or in a park somewhere.  Walk slowly along and drip some of the blood on the ground, and then go back and take a look at what it did when it hit.  You’ll notice some obvious things, like the way the splatter tends to go in the same direction you were walking.  Hell, if you’re really bored and ambitious, make a game of it.  Have someone create a blood trail and then try to follow it.

Remember that an animal doesn’t just bleed downward.  Blood from a wound will wipe off on brush and grass.  A lung wound will often spray blood as well, and that sprayed blood is a good indication that you’ve made a good, fatal hit.  The same for an arterial hit, as the blood will pump with each heartbeat.  Of course, in either of these cases, you’ll probably be following a short trail.

Learn to identify different kinds of blood.  The bright red of an artery is quite a bit different from the dark, almost black blood of a liver shot.  Bubbles usually indicate lungs, of course, while stomach matter tells you the sad tale of a gut shot.  It can get tricky.  Muscle blood can also be a pretty bright red color, but a muscle hit seldom indicates a quick kill.  Play the shot back in your head the best you can, and try to re-imagine where that arrow hit.

Just as important, remember that a lack of blood doesn’t necessarily mean a poor hit or a miss.  Hogs are notoriously poor bleeders, particularly a healthy, fat one.  Even a big wound can close up quickly as the fat and skin move over the hole.  If you are sure you made a good hit, you’re going to have to go on confidence and bushcraft to track that animal.  Don’t give up just because you’re not finding puddles of blood every two feet.

At any rate, if you’re going to bowhunt, whether for hogs or anything else, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of learning to track.  This is, in my opinion, far more important than the kind of equipment you use.

For a kind of cool tracking experience and lesson, check out Bowsite.com for their Interactive Blood Trail challenges.  These are series of real-life photos that show you clues in each phase of the trail.  It’s not quite a substitute for the real thing, but it is a really great way to learn what to look for and how to proceed through some of the trickier parts of the puzzle.

My little brother is hunting whitetails… and doing quite well at it!  The sorry thing got me all fired up with stories of all these deer under the stand before I came out for the opener, and then I barely saw a deer after two days in the stand.  A week after I leave, he’s whacking deer again!  And then this past Saturday, he did it again!

Now he’s sending me trail cam pictures of another really nice buck.  Of course, the best I could hope for would be to get back there after Christmas… and I can guarantee that if he hasn’t killed that deer by then, it’ll be long gone from the area.  Just my luck.

Oh well, a boy can dream…

The coons showed up first.  Two juveniles waddled through the palmetto and cat claws, and fruitlessly surveyed the clearing for leftover corn.  As children do, the initial objective was quickly set aside and they began to chase one another around, finally making their way down the trail to the creek’s edge.  There ensued a wrestling match worthy of the WWF which ended with one of the critters falling over the steep edge and into the black water.  With a splash, the little coon bounded up onto the opposite bank and ran chattering through the brush.  The other jumped in, swam across, and followed.  In my mind, I could imagine the injured party screaming, “Mom!  Joey pushed me in the creek!”

And the other one trotting right along behind him, hollering, “He started it!”

The scene went briefly quiet as the sun rose over the woods, and the morning sounds began to filter in.  Cardinals sang their morning song.  A wren chirruped and flitted from branch to branch.  A woodpecker giggled insanely from atop a lightning struck pine.  A flock of resident Canada geese rose up from their roost by the highway and sailed overhead honking and cackling.  As full morning light filtered through the trees, a squirrel came out of his nest to chatter and curse at some intruder.  Crows joined the chorus with their harsh voices.  A neighbor’s dog began to bark… at the crows, the squirrels, or maybe just to be part of the cacaphony.   And over and through it all, cicadas put in their incessant buzz.

Then the Sunday traffic on Interstate 40 grew from the occasional rumble of a passing car to a nonstop roar, punctuated by the whine of Japanese motorcycles or the throb of Harley Davidsons.  The Wilmington International Airport began its daily flights and the birdsong was drowned by the drone of private planes, followed every hour or so by the roar of the big US Airways or Delta aircraft.  It was a harsh reminder that the weekend was over.  Folks were going home.  Tomorrow, I’d be going home too.

I forced the manmade chaos to the back of my consciousness, delegating the sounds to white noise, and tried to focus on the woods around me.  A pair of squirrels were browsing the ground below my stand, scurrying from spot to spot with quick, jerky movements.  Stop and start.  Stop and start.  Their bushy tails undulated like fluffy snakes as they alternately scrabbled for food and then sat upright to gnaw on their treasures, black eyes shining alertly.

Otherwise, the woods were relatively quiet except for the occasional falling of a leaf… each one hitting the ground in close approximation to the sound of a deer’s footstep and causing me to catch my breath and freeze.  I expect I must have looked a little like those squirrels, except they were tuned in to predators and I was tuned in to prey.

A couple of hours after sunrise, I was still on high alert.  The squirrels had quarreled their way back into the oaks and disappeared.  With the exception of the distant, barking hound and the ubiquitous cicadas almost drowning out the highway noise, the woods were quiet.  Quiet is a completely relative thing in this setting, but once you’ve established the baseline for ambient noise, everything else makes sense.  What you’re listening for is a change to the rhythm… a break in the white noise.

The break came.  It was behind me, over my right shoulder… in probably the most inopportune place.  I heard the crackle of leaves, or maybe the snap of a small branch.  Whatever it was didn’t belong, and it was close.  I tried to turn my stiff neck to see without moving my body.  In the extreme edge of my peripheral vision I saw a blurry shape.  No squirrel or coon… a deer.  My heart leapt, pounding up into my throat.  I’ve been in this position more times than I can count, but it happens the same way every time.  My ears start to hum, my heart buzzes like a rattlesnake’s tail, and my tongue gets kind of thick in my throat.  My face goes from hot to cold and back again.  And then everything goes into slow motion.

I eased around slowly, doing my best to appear motionless as I moved.  The deer didn’t seem to notice.  Finally, I’d turned my body enough to get a good look.  It wasn’t a single deer.  There were two.  Copper penny red in their summer coats, they browsed nonchalantly along the creek bank.  I’d ranged the area earlier, and knew they were both well within 20 yards.  If I could just turn enough to make the shot, I’d have no problem.  Unfortunately, the stand had arm rails on either side which blocked my movement.  The only way I could shoot would be to stand up.  In order to do that, I’d need the deer to move a little further, or at least bury their heads in brush.

I sat poised, hoping for the impossible when I saw the old doe following the younger pair along the well-used trail.  Unlike the reddish youngsters, she was obviously an older deer.  She didn’t quite have the swayed back, but her neck sagged a bit and her belly hung low.  Her hair was grey-brown, with pronounced grey and white around her face.  She’d be a good doe to take for management, even though the younger animals would probably make better meat.  Honestly, though, it didn’t matter to me.  I’d shoot the first one that gave me a good shot, and that’s the bottom line.

Unfortunately, with three pair of eyes less than 20 yards away, standing up and aiming the bow without creating a small stampede would pretty much be an impossibility.  I doubted I could even turn the bow toward them without standing, but making a shot in that position simply wasn’t going to happen.  All I could do was watch and hope.  If they’d cross the creek and head to the food plot, things would suddenly get simple.  All I needed to do was be patient, and then take the chip shot when it presented itself.  But first they’d need to cross the creek.

The youngsters stepped down the bank, and my hopes soared.  But just as quickly, the lead deer turned and began browsing back toward the recently cut woodlot behind me.  The other followed, and I watched in dismay as they slowly made their way in the wrong direction, steadily increasing the range.  My last landmark, a stump at 42 yards was coming up quickly.  Once past that, I’d have no shot.

The old doe was still close, though.  She wasn’t really feeding.  Some maternal instinct kept her alert, and while she never looked directly toward me, she was constantly looking in my direction.  Something beyond me had her attention, but as long as her eyes were turned in my general vicinity there was no way I could move.  Her ears swiveled, first toward me and then back toward the youngsters.  There’d be no fooling this old woman.

I stayed frozen, but the awkward angle was beginning to pull at my lower back.  Already aching from the long flight from CA to NC, the strain was too much.  I had to shift.  I tried to keep it subtle, but the metal stand gave me away with a slight creak.  That’s all it took.  The doe snorted and bolted as though she’d been hit with a cattle prod.  In a flash both she and the younger deer were bounding away across the cutdown, white flags flying as they disappeared into the distance.

I cursed, probably out loud, and eased back around in the stand.  I hung the bow back on the hook, and took a few deep breaths.  I think I’d forgotten to breathe through the whole experience, as usual, and my chest felt tight.  Disappointment threatened to darken the whole weekend, and I had to remind myself that these weren’t the only deer in the county.  Shut up and sit still, and wait to see what else comes in.

An hour later, nothing else had come.  The sun heated up the dense greenery, drawing out the moisture, and the humidity became oppressive as the thermometer rose.  Sweat ran down my face and trickled from my armpits down my ribs.  Hunger rumbled in my belly, reminding me that a breakfast bar at 07:00 is no replacement for a real meal at 10:00. The morning hunt was done.  The success of the weekend would hang on the outcome of one last evening hunt.

I guess it’s fortunate that, once the disappointment of the missed opportunity receded, I recalled that this trip wasn’t just about killing a deer.  Sure, hunting the archery opener with my little brother has become an annual tradition, but there was more going on here than the effort to poke an arrow through a whitetail deer.  It was about spending some time with my family.  In addition to hunting, I had the opportunity to see my mom for the first time since Christmas, and I also got to play with my great-nephew.  I probably won’t be seeing any of them again until the Christmas holidays.   It was good to visit, and venison or no venison, I had a great weekend.

But if it had only been about killing a deer, then the sun set on an abject failure as I climbed out of that stand for the last time that evening without so much as aiming an arrow at a North Carolina whitetail.

Just a real quick update.  Should’ve taken a picture or something, but only got a few minutes of video this morning, and forgot the camera when I went back out tonight…

Which is just as well.  This morning was so slow, I didn’t even see the ubiquitous bushytails.  The turkeys didn’t pop out of the brush to get my heart racing, the doves didn’t swoop in and wood ducks didn’t squeal overhead.  In fact, except for the roar of I-40 in the background, it was a pretty damned quiet morning.

This evening started with promise.  The afternoon heat dropped out a bit and a breeze came up.  It was light, but between that and the Thermacell, it was enough to manage the starving hordes of mosquitos.  Hurricane Irene didn’t do a lot of damage here, but all that rain got the skeeter population up and running!  I can’t say it enough, but thank heavens for Thermacell!

About an hour before sunset, the squirrels showed up.  I get a kick out of watching their antics, even though they can sure get the pulse up when they hop on a branch during a quiet lull.  I kept waiting to see them scatter as the bucks came rolling in, but the deer never showed.

So day one is down, and the deer are quite safe and unscathed.  Thankfully, NC now allows Sunday bowhunting on private property, so I get another chance tomorrow.  I’ve got high hopes, although I’m pretty sure at this point that the “game cam” pictures my brother keeps showing me are actually taken at a deer farm down in Texas.

More to come…

In my mind, I’m going, to Carolina.

Actually, it’s not in my mind at all… it’s for real!  With hurricane Katia pretty safely out of the equation, the way is open for me to fly back “home” for a weekend of family visiting and whitetail hunting.  Saturday is the NC archery opener down there, and my little brother swears he has a bunch of deer all staked out on his place.

By this time tomorrow, I should be on the ground and sweating in the southeastern NC humidity, and by this time Saturday, I hope to be skinning a fat deer (and also sweating).  Buck or doe… it doesn’t matter too much to me!

I’ve been warming up the Mathews, and feeling pretty good about my shooting.  I’ve sharpened up my Slick-Trick broadheads All I really need now is a cooperative deer (or two) to stroll under my stand.    I’d prefer that they stand slightly quartering away, between 17 and 22 yards… but I’ll take a slightly less opportunity should it appear.

And yeah, I expect that ol’ Murphy is kicking back, laughing his butt off at me right now.  But I’m stoked, and ready to break Murphy’s Law for a change… instead of the other way around.

Not sure I’ll have a post tomorrow or Monday, but I’ll bring updates as soon as I have them!

I owe a nod to the Suburban Bushwhacker for the title idea, and I promise not to steal it on a regular basis… but it’s perfect for this.

A minute ago on the Outdoor Channel, I just saw an ad for a very cool gadget.  It’s like an automated skeet thrower, except it’s designed to throw special, foam targets for bowhunters.  Even if you don’t plan to wingshoot with a bow, it’s a heck of a way to build familiarity with your equipment, and a ton of fun.

Of course, you could shoot regular clays with your bow and I know a lot of folks do.  My little brother is pretty damned good at it.  But for most of us, you waste an awful lot of clay targets for every one you actually hit.  That adds up to a pretty penny for one person’s practice.  Imagine a bunch of guys breaking out the bows and the clays.

Instead, the foam targets are reusable.  And opposed to slinging a frisbee up in the air over and over, the machine throws for you.

I like it.  Of course, the cost of something like this is going to put it out of the average Joe’s reach.

If you’re curious, check out the Laporte Archery website, or check out the video below.

Color me ambivalent.

This article from the Wall Street Journal was forwarded to me by a half-dozen friends and acquaintances over the weekend.  The piece features Mike “Hawk” Huston, a pretty well-known traditional archer and bowhunter, who uses flint broadheads and trad gear to hunt big game.  According to the article, Huston is part of a growing cadre of bowhunters who are eschewing modern technology in order to up the challenge of the hunt.  From the article:

Prehistoric hunts are back partly because technology has made hunting a bit of a yawner, say some of the sport’s aficionados. The proliferation of gear like high-powered sniper rifles and “compound bows”—which use carbon fiber, metal wire and a set of pulleys to fling an arrow almost as fast as a bullet—took much of the sport out of hunting, they say.

As a result, more people now want to hunt with “a piece of handcrafted artwork that’s functional,” says Ted Fry, the owner of Raptor Archery in Hood River, Ore.

I can absolutely appreciate the idea of increasing the challenge, especially as it motivates hunters in game-rich areas to switch from firearms to archery tackle.  I do it myself, and I’m happy to admit that the challenge is one of the reasons I do (the other key reason is the extended hunting opportunities that archery opens up).  I’m hardly bored with firearms, but there’s an inarguable thrill to using archery tackle.

At the same time, I’m a little concerned about any trend to raise the challenge in hunting, because any time you make hunting more difficult by decreasing the effectiveness of your weapon, you’re increasing the odds of wounding the game.

In fishing, a similar trend had fishermen going with lighter and lighter tackle, until they were practically fighting big game fish on little more than threads.  It was a test of skill and finesse to fight and land a fish without breaking the line or stripping the reel.  But when the fishermen failed, the fish got away, and if proper tackle was used, the hook would work out of its mouth or corrode away quickly.  Not a lot of impact, at least until the big game (marlin, sailfish, etc.) fishermen realized that the stress of these extended battles often killed the fish.  The popularity of ultra-light fishing waned, although it’s still in practice.

Hunting is not quite the same as fishing.  A flubbed shot, whether from flint broadhead or extreme long-range, often results in a wounded animal.  The animal may eventually die, or it may be crippled… some will recover… but none of those are outcomes the ethical (there’s that word) hunter should be striving for.  Instead, there should be a conscious effort to improve the odds of a good kill, rather than reducing them.

I get the argument, before any of you trad guys start in… a well-placed shot with hand-knapped broadhead is just as effective as a bullet, etc. etc.  I don’t think that’s actually accurate, but I get the argument anyway.  But a poorly placed shot with truly primitive equipment is a disaster for the animal and the hunter.  The margin for error becomes so small that the whole practice is questionable.

But in the big picture, I think that hunting with primitive tackle is a lot like long-range hunting.  There are a handful of people who can do it competently and ethically.  With the right amount of skill, practice, and restraint, I do think it’s a valid method of hunting.  My biggest concern is that, as with any trend, the more it grows the more we’ll see unqualified hunters taking the field.

I’m open to ideas.

One of the programs I watch from time to time on the Pursuit Channel is Backland Experiences.  Hosted by Scott Anderson, I generally enjoy the program because it isn’t particularly over-hyped, and the sponsors’ products don’t dominate each episode.  Oh, they’re there, of course, because they have to be, but they’re mostly kept to the background and intermissions.

Today I was watching an episode in which Scott hunts along the Red River in Oklahoma.  Usually, he hunts with a compound or long bow, but on this trip he was using a Tenpoint crossbow.  He explained that, a week prior to the hunt, he’d had an accident and injured his left arm.  Unable to hold and draw a bow, the crossbow allowed him to get out and hunt. 

This was all well and good, and in the end he had his shot and missed it.  However, at the conclusion of the episode, he spent quite a bit of air time essentially justifying his use of a crossbow.  It was almost an apology to his bowhunting viewers, and it really made me wonder… are crossbows still that widely despised?

I’ve never had an issue with crossbows.  I think they’re as valid as any other modern hunting tool, and I also think they’re a good alternative to compounds or traditional bows in situations where firearms are a bad idea.  They can be extremely accurate, relatively quiet, and bolts will only travel a limited distance. 

I’ve listened to the arguments against crossbows during archery-only seasons, and to be honest, no one has been able to sell me on the idea that they should be excluded.  Besides the fact that you can hold the weapon at full-draw, crossbows really have no advantage over a modern compound.  In skilled hands, a compound bow will pretty much outshoot a crossbow, both for range and accuracy. 

But I’m not going to rehash the entire crossbow vs. vertical bow debate.  It’s been done to death.  I really just want to toss it out there.  Does the elitist bowhunter attitude still prevail?  I really thought we’d have moved past that by now, but apparently I’m mistaken.  Is it really necessary for an outdoors TV host to justify or even apologize for choosing to use a crossbow?

Here’s a Friday morning quickie for ya…

I haven’t mentioned MyOutdoor TV in a while, but I still go over and check them out regularly.  It’s a good source for a variety of hunting and outdoors programs, and a fun way to while away some spare time in the airport, or when the hotel doesn’t offer any outdoors channels and you just need to get that fix.  I even watch at home sometimes, just to see what’s out there.

Anyway, one of the features of the site that’s been growing since its inception, is the How-To section.  There’s an entire series called Wade’s World Hunting, hosted by Wade Bourne, in which he offers tips on everything from marksmanship to backcountry safety. 

One of the tips that’s just been posted (and the one that spurred me to make this post) is on practicing your archery from the sitting position.  This one stood out to me, because during my recent NC bowhunt for whitetails, I felt really awkward trying to draw my bow while I was seated in the treestand.  I realized it was something I hadn’t practiced.  Fortunately, it didn’t cost me a deer on this trip, but you can bet I’ll be practicing for the next time.

Check it out.  Even if you don’t enjoy regular hunting TV programs, the How-To section is worth a glance.