Two Ways To Deer

FATHER, SON ARCHERS EMBRACE OLD, NEW

— The collar of a nice dress shirt poking from a camoufl age jacket gave a clue that Mickey Sweeney had come straight from work to the woods for an evening deer hunt.

Mickey and his son, Daniel, had their bowhunting gear and camo duds stashed in the pickup so they’d get to their tree stands in a hurry.

Why waste time changing at home when the forest in autumn and a chance at a white-tail deer await?

The father and son team from Lowell have been bowhunting together for decades, ever since Daniel was 6 and sat in a stand with his dad high in a tree.

These days Daniel, now 32, is the most avid hunter of the Sweeney archery duo. The pair get together and hunt frequently. When it’s time to step into the woods, they each do their own thing in more ways than one.

Mickey might take the tree stand on high ground in a fallow field. Daniel may take the low road to hunt an acorn flat by the water.

A stroll to the tree-stand finds Mickey carrying a modern compound bow. Daniel totes a longbow and wears a leather quiver with the fletching of homemade wooden arrows sticking out the top.

Both styles get the job done during Arkansas’ archery deer season.

Mickey got his bowhunting start with a traditional recurve bow and eventually gravitated to a compound bow, which most archers prefer.

Daniel hunted with a compound, but chose the traditional route seven years ago and took it to the top level.

Nowadays he makes his own longbows and crafts his own arrows.

Two of Daniel’s longbows rested in the pickup bed, ready for action Tuesday evening on private property where they have permission to hunt.

A longbow is as simple as hunting gets - just a long stick with a tight string secured at both ends.

“I built this one with a redoak board I bought at Home Depot,” he said, showing the longbow. “The string is made out of Dacron and the grip from a piece of leather I got at Hobby Lobby.”

It took some patience and lots of trial and error before Daniel fashioned a longbow that performed well.

In his quiver, the homebuilt arrows with sharp, metal broadheads are for deer.

“They’re not real fancy. I know I’m going to shoot ‘em and break ‘em,” he said.

One or two arrows have blunt heads for hunting small game like squirrels or rabbits. Daniel is proof that bowhunting isn’t just for white-tails.

Mickey’s compound bow makes use of advanced archery technology. Cams and cables make the bow easy to draw and hold, which goes lighter on a sore shoulder that occasionally flares up.

Longbow users draw and shoot in one fluid motion. There’s no holding the string at full draw, as with a compound.

Most compound bows have sights. These are absent on longbows and recurves.

Compound shooters can usually arrow a deer from a longer range than traditional archers, say, 20 yards for a compound bow and 15 yards or less with traditional.

There’s another aspect to Daniel’s bowhunting that’s unique. He’s left-handed, but has learned to shoot righthanded as well.

His longbow has leather arrow rests on both sides of the grip so he can shoot either way. The rest sits on the knuckle of Daniel’s index finger as he grips the longbow.

WILDLIFE SHOW

Their gear may diff er, but the experience is the same for the father and son. Deerdon’t top the list of reasons they hunt.

Both relish the time sitting quietly in a tree stand or a blind on the ground. It’s seeing wildlife acting like critters do when they think no one’s around.

Take Tuesday evening. Mickey was in his stand 10-feet up a tree in the fallow field. A raccoon came waddling along, right under Mickey’s stand.

The ’coon stopped and put it’s front paws up on the bottom rung of the ladder stand, sniffed the air and scooted on its merry way.

“That’s the first raccoon I’ve seen that didn’t look up at me,” Mickey said when we got together back at their truck at dark.

Daniel saw a bobcat on one deer hunt. Mickey enjoys seeing pileated woodpeckers and hearing their cackling song.

When they’re not hunting, both men are substitute teachers at Rogers High School. Mickey is a retired RHS agriculture teacher who now subs at the school. Daniel subs while searching for a full-time teaching job.

The two missed a couple of deer seasons together while Daniel was in the U.S. Army, serving in Afghanistan in 2003-04.

When the deer months of October and November rolled around, Daniel missedhome. He missed hunting.

“It was awful,” he said.

The soldier made do by diving into the pages of hunting and fishing magazines and, we’re honored to say, the Outdoors section of this newspaper.

He shared all with his fellow troops. “They about wore them out,” Daniel said.

These days he’s making up for lost time as one of the most dedicated hunters to be found. Daniel bowhuntsfour or five days each week. He goes bird hunting with some pals in Kansas and does some fi shing.

Both father and son enjoy Arkansas’ lengthy archery deer season. Hunting opened Sept. 15 and closes Feb. 28 offering more than fi ve months of bowhunting.

“There’s no time pressure to get a deer,” Mickey said - no matter if the hunters come straight from work or spend a whole day in the woods.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 11/01/2012

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