Hunting Javelina with a Swap Bow…
Gosh, I hope this works. All of the equipment is completely untried, but I wanted to share this experience. I’ve never recorded a hunt before. I’m using my Imagineer camera and the new Pretend 300 digital flash drive with unlimited recording time. If your equipment won’t get the picture, try adjusting the amount of whiskey in your glass.
My Trad Gang swap bow arrived just as I was leaving to catch an Imagination Airlines flight to Texas for some javie huntin’. I barely had time to open it up, string it and grab a dozen arrows with a spine I thought might work.
Bow in hand, I then headed around the house to the airport. I had no problems getting on my flight, even carrying the bow, which I propped between me and the PETA representative who had gotten the seat next to me. Made for some interesting conversation.
Anyway, got to Texas and my rancher friend said there was lots of good stump shootin’ in the back 40,000 acres and by the way, the javies had become such a pestilence that he had an open permit for unlimited control hunting, so if I ran into any, have at ‘em! And don’t worry, there’s no bow weight limit in Texas!
I shot around a bit, picking off mesquite stumps, sticks and what have you. The bow shot real nice… smooth pull and a perfect weight for my bad shoulder. I think I could shoot this one all day. It’s one of those snaky selfbows, which I’ve always wondered about but have never shot. The 1416 arrows I grabbed worked great, though I lost one tip when it stuck in a hard dried mesquite branch.
I was thinking of heading back to the ranch house for a break when I heard some shuffling and snuffling in a mesquite clump just off to the side of one of the water tanks. I decided to do a stalk and see what was up.
(Soft whisper) Man I never knew it could take so long to cover 50 yards of sagebrush and mesquite, but I’m tucked in behind the edge of the tank. Time to slowly look out and see what’s going on…. Oh, my gosh! That’s gotta be the largest bunch of javies I’ve ever seen! Whoa! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… Eleven of ‘em! That’s exactly how many arrows I’ve got, given one of my dozen has no tip. They’re about 15 yards out. That’s my maximum distance for shooting at javies. Wonder how many of ‘em I can get. If they mill around instead of running right off, I might get lucky and get several….
(Still whispering... real soft...) Real slow and easy now… nock, draw, release… Wow! What a quiet bow! And it’s a solid hit. Quick but steady now… nock, draw, release… and another one is down! Keep going, Dick… and again… and again…
(Normal voice) Well, that’s just unbelievable! I got ‘em all! That’s gotta be a whole new kind of grand slam in javies! Boy, is my rancher friend gonna be pleased. We’ll have a lot of work to do dressing them out, though. What an experience.
The new Trad Gang Swap Bow by John Scifres is really, really nice and got a wonderful break in. John, you done real good, man, and I surely do thank you. This will be one unique bow on my rack.
Here are some pix:
Now this was the tough deal, propping all those javies up so I could take a shot of each one individually and superimpose them to provide this shot of what the group would be like....
And, Kelly, in case you missed it, you can mark John's bow as received by me