Autumn joy may come from sitting quietly in the woods, watching the birds, squirrels and, hopefully, a fine white-tail buck or doe.
Being in the forest when the critters don't think anyone is watching is a main attraction of deer hunting. Bowhunters get the first crack at those deer, as they did Saturday when archery season opened.
We were eager to get bow season started at Camp See-No-Deer, the little woodlot where a few of us have permission to hunt. The landowner allows archery only. You can't be packing heat, even during gun season, so it's a sweet hunting spot for us.
It's warm-weather hunting the first couple of weeks. One of the boys tweeted last opening day that he was swatting mosquitoes while waiting for something tasty to walk by. He and your faithful outdoors reporter are the two hunters at Camp See-No-Deer who use traditional archery gear, either a wooden longbow or recurve bow.
Our friend Daniel is the true traditionalist. He makes his own longbows, his own arrows, and doesn't use a tree stand. Ground blinds fashioned from fallen trees are his preferred concealment. If the ground is moist, Daniel will stalk a deer.
I'd say he has $20 invested in home-made bow and arrows and routinely bags more deer than the rest of us.
Traditional is the only archery path I've known. I started hunting with a recurve years ago and never picked up another kind of bow. A buddy got me started with archery when he invited me over to shoot. He had a compound bow, a longbow and a recurve. There was something about that recurve. I loved its graceful shape and the way it felt in my hand. The wooden bow shot like a dream, even for this novice. The next week I had my own recurve.
Before archery, I hunted deer with a shotgun for a couple of modern-gun seasons but never killed a deer. I loved the hunting, but gun season was too short. I took up archery to enjoy Arkansas' five-month bow season. Another reason was that the landowner at Camp See-No Deer told me I could hunt there if I ever started bowhunting.
It took two months of practice before I felt my shooting was accurate enough to hunt. I started in mid-season, around Christmas.
Right off I learned how exciting it was to see deer when you're hunting, to watch deer come your way knowing the moment of truth may be near. Those first few seasons my heart raced whenever a deer walked my way. I hyperventilated if one stepped into range. I was hooked on bowhunting.
A recurve or longbow is such a simple thing. Truly a stick and a string. Sitting in the tree stand, the bow feels light in my lap. The hand-made wooden arrows a bowhunting friend makes are true works of art. Hunting with a recurve or longbow is a close-range deal. Fifteen yards is a long shot for me. Ten or less is better. Being close enough to see the detail in a white-tail's fur and the texture of a buck's antlers is the adrenalin rush for me.
Another thing I noticed was that shooting a traditional bow is like riding a bike. Once you learn, you don't forget. I don't shoot much in the off-season. When I start practicing in August it only takes a few arrows to get back in the groove.
It's hot these first few days of hunting. There will be frost soon and color in the trees. After leaf-off, the woods will be bare, and we'll be feeling flecks of snow.
I'll be in the tree stand with my recurve, watching the critters go about their business at Camp See-No-Deer.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
nation.
Sports on 09/29/2015