Sorry for the long post, but as the title says, this has been in the works for a long time, and maybe my experience will resonate with someone lurking out there.
About 30 years ago, I harvested my first deer with traditional gear. It wasn’t a great experience. Despite the many hours of practice I had put in, I spined that small 8 pointer at about 17 yards. I had to get out of the stand as quickly as I could to finish him off. I felt terrible about it and actually stopped hunting entirely for about 10 years as a result.
Eventually, the calling was too strong and I found my way back to the woods with a compound in my hands. I wanted to put as many things in my favor as I could to reduce the risk of that scene playing out again. I also started shooting the recurve again though, but never really had the confidence to hunt with it until recently.
Even though I grew up shooting competitive olympic recurve, I was struggling with trad gear. Truthfully, part of it was (and still is) mental. Even as a young target archer, I developed target panic so badly that I would routinely shoot arrows through my clicker, ripping vanes off my arrows. But there’s no question I was over-bowed when I first started shooting traditional. My practice routine was poor as well. For me, it’s so easy to get caught in the rut of just trying to get better at “hitting the spot”, rather than improving shooting form and the shot sequence to yield the desired results. I was guilty of shooting a lot of junk arrows; just making bad shot after bad shot.
Over the last couple of years, although I was still taking the compound into the woods, I got serious about improving with traditional bows. I dropped the draw weight on my bows. I changed my practice routine, shooting way fewer arrows than I had in the past, but with focus. I did (and still do) a lot of let down-drills to combat the target panic. I read over my shot sequence at the start of each practice session. If I don’t hit anchor, I let down. If I start to feel twitchy, I go back to more let-down drills. I’m still a work in progress, but starting to develop confidence in my ability to execute good shots and hit my mark; at least at close distances.
This year, I am determined to leave the compound at home and stick with the sticks. Last weekend, I almost had an opportunity. I had a group of does at 20 yards; still 5 yards outside of my comfort zone, and I passed. Last night I had a small spike come in to 15 yards. He was very relaxed. I had him broadside for several minutes as I debated with myself about whether or not I should take the shot. I really wanted to see if my dedication was working and told myself that if he gave me a slight quartering away shot, I would take it. He did. I watched that arrow hit within a couple inches of where I wanted, and come out the other side bright red. All the questions in mind about whether or not I could get away with a 3 blade VPA and a 44# bow (thank you Dan and Jared Toelke for an amazing bow) were quickly erased. It was a relatively short and easy tracking job.
My shot execution was not as solid as I would have liked, so more practice is needed. But, to make a long story short, I harvested my first deer with traditional gear in about 30 years last night, and for that, I’m pretty excited.
Topic: Been a long time coming (Read 1909 times)
