This has been a tough year on my family. I started the year requiring back surgery. I then end up with an infection due to the surgery and was back in the hospital. Then late this summer my 22 year daughter was diagnosed with cancer. She had two surgeries and everything is great now. BTW prayers are answered!
During the time that my daughter was going through her fight I saw what being strong was! I know that I don’t have the strength that that little girl (young lady) has. I could not get myself in the woods. I did not want to leave my wife alone and to tell the truth I did not want to be alone myself.
During that time I keep my mind occupied by researching traditional archery. I decided to add taking a deer with a recurve to my bucket list. So I did my research. I talked to many bowers and traditional hunting friends. I also utilized many of the traditional forums.
So I started putting my bow together. I decided on ILF for flexibility. I had not place to go to get “fitted” so I thought this was the correct approach.
I got limbs, riser, string, arrows assortment and tip test kit. In a few days I had my bow and arrow combination setup. I then started practice. Standing in the yard I got pretty good – after a few arrows each time. So I started my “first arrow” practice. I have had to do this before when having shooting issues with compounds. That is I shoot 1 arrow from an elevated stand until I gain confidence in my first shot.
So then I started taking my recurve to my hunting stand along with my compound. Before leaving my stand I would shoot my recurve. During our gun season I decided that I needed to either make a commitment to the recurve or stop taking it. So I headed out to the stand with just my recurve.
It was our Kentucky gun season and the bucks were rutting. Good scrapes and very nice rubs around my stand. I had been getting pictures of some very nice bucks. Two that I had considered my “hit list” bucks. They were both in the 160 range. My gun hunting friends could not believe that I was heading in the woods with just a “stick and string”.
That was my weapon of choice. I wanted to be committed to my recurve and I was ok with watching the deer walk if not in range.
So off I went. I had not been in the stand for 15 minutes until I heard a deer walking. It was a good two hours prior to sunset and we had not been seeing too much movement too early. It was dry and I could hear for a long way. I had not even nocked an arrow yet. So I got the recuver ready. Through the woods I could see antlers coming. I thought this will be a good deer with a recurve. Then when he got closer I saw that he was the deer I had been calling to as the “rocking chair buck”. I had figured him at 150 inches from scouting pictures.
He walked up turned broad sided and stopped. He looked the other way. Perfect, except that we was 27 yards away. A bunny shot with my compound but not so fast my friend because my weapon of choice today was my four week old recurve. I watched as the buck started to feed around. He was moving closer. He worked his way to 25 then 22 yards. Then 20 and he turned broad sided and was at 17 yards. I calmly drew my recurve. I got to my anchor point and relaxed for a second and let it go. The arrow hit its mark. I watched the buck run off with my pink fletching in his chest. I was not too sure of the placement but thought it was low and in his chest. I got down and marked the blood trail. I did not want to disturb the other hunters and knew I could get help the next day. So I left. That experience was the most remarkable thing I had ever done as far as hunting goes. I have taken many whitetail, a couple bull elk, antelope, muledeer and bear with a compound but this was crazy!
We found the buck the next morning. He had crashed where I had heard him go down. He scored somewhere in the mid 160’s.
Putting hunting with a recurve on my bucket list was the best thing I could have done. It had rejuvenated my hunting and added the thrill back. I know luck when I see it. I know I still have a lot to learn about this particular weapon. But watch this buck and waiting for him to get within 20 yards was amazing!
See post below for more of this story.
Topic: BUCKet list buck => 160 inch KY buck (Read 8531 times)
