Yogie wrote:I'm really slacking this year, been out only twice with my bow and really wasn't into it then. Came home the first evening with a nice 8pt., a friend hunting with me also took a nice 8pt.
By the time we got things in order and I got home and showered it was 1am in the morning....
I remember when all this used to be fun....
what happened.
This Saturday after work I decidied it was just to nice to bow hunt so I sand blasted another 54 blade to paint.
Seems I get in a tree anymore I sit there thinking about other stuff I should be doing. Guess it's time to take a brake or maybe pass things on to Grayson and let him do the hunting from now on.
Yogie, you and I have talked about this before. I know everyone is different but about 20 years ago I too was not as excited about hunting as I had always been in the past. The thing that drew me to bowhunting was the challenge of getting close and making the shot, which hunting with a bow requires drawing a bow and making the shot while the animal is only yards or feet away, without being detected. When I first started bowhuning in the early '70's, I didn't even know anyone that bowhunted. Everything I learned I learned by trial and error, but it was very exciting.
Over the years my hunting ability improved, equipment improved with the addition of compound bows with let-off, sights, lighted sights and releases, etc. It didn't take much effort to scout out an area and put up a stand that would produce a shot at a buck. Any deer that passed within a 30 yard radius, I just had to line up my front and rear sights and pull the trigger and I had a dead deer. It was pretty easy and the challenge that I had enjoyed earlier was for the most part gone. With it was the satisfaction I used to get from attaining a goal that was difficult to achieve.
In an effort to rekindle that challenge I thought maybe trophy hunting would be the answer. I poured myself into trophy hunting for the next several years and took some good bucks. However, trophy hunting requires a lot more work and it seemed that I had enough work in my life and didn't really need more of it.
One day at the grocery store, I found an issue of Traditional Bowhunter Magazine in the rack and bought it. While reading that magazine I found what I was missing. In my mind, bowhunting using traditional equipment
had to be a challenge. That next hunting season I began hunting with an old Bear Recurve that I had purchased many years ago. Later, I bought my first custom made longbow.
Hunting with traditional equipment
is definitely a challenge, at least for me. Learning to shoot a stickbow with no sights accurately is no easy task. Bowhunting had to be learned all over again. The set-ups that worked in the past didn't work with traditional equipment. Shot distance was greatly reduced and I found that hunting lower in a treestand work better giving me a better shot angle since my shots were at much shorter distances. Hunting closer and lower meant that I had to set up entirely different that I did with my compound. I had to find areas to set up where the deer would funnel past closer by to afford me a shot and I had to learn how to set up with some cover to hide my figure which was more exposed at a lower height (which isn't easy).
What I guess that I'm trying to say is using traditional equipment has raised the level of satisfaction that I receive from bowhunting and any buck I take. That's something I wasn't feeling when using my compound bow during the last years using it. As I said, everyone is different and what has breathed new life into my bowhunting may not work for you but it is something to think about. I work with guys that hunt with compound and even crossbows but when I get a decent buck with my longbow or recurve ( I switched to a recurve 3 years ago) they can't believe it. They struggle getting a buck with their equipment and seem to marvel that I am able to bag a buck with my bow. Makes me feel kind of good. I've worked with a lot of guys that bowhunt but have never worked with anyone that uses a stickbow. My feeling is that placing restrictions on my equipment takes me to another level and as long as I feel challenged, I think I'll have the drive to keep hunting.
I know that you are a good hunter and you always seem to fill your tags quickly, heck, you bagged a nice 8pt your first time out hunting this year. I can't help but think that you are where I was in the above story. If I were to just go out to the woods, whack a deer and have to haul it in clean it, cut it up and wrap it, I'd be thinking about how much work it is too and I might be questioning if I really needed extra work (you know I'm really kind of lazy). If it didn't take much more effort to bring in a deer than it takes to go to the grocery store to buy a freezer full of meat, I might think twice about waking up early and sitting in the cold to fill my freezer. What drives me the the challenge that I face in trying to bag a nice buck and the restrictions I put on my equipment increased that challenge. I hate to see you loose your hunting desire because if you don't have that desire, Grayson probably won't either. Your love of Cubs has rubbed off on him but my guess is if you didn't have that love, he wouldn't be to interested in Cubs either.
Rick