I’ve been shooting compounds since 1982. This year I found out several friends were planning to hunt with recurves. It got me thinking about getting one too.
Once the season started and I wasn’t seeing the number of deer I normally see in my public land spots due IMO from the EHD breakout NJ was experiencing so I decided to get the recurve. I had only seen 12 deer total while hunting from September through November. I figured if I got good enough I could hunt winter bow with it and was willing to not fill a tag for the first time in at least 25 years. I bought an EXE Scream 21” ILF riser and paired it with Long Galaxy Bronze Star Limbs. I am shooting uncut GT Hunter 400’s with 225 grains up front and 4-4” feathers with Nockturnal lighted nocks and Original Muzzy 100 3 blade heads.
I got the bow the week before Thanksgiving and below is my first ever group the morning after getting the bow. I practiced shooting most mornings about 50 shots before work. After a few weeks of this and having most shots in the ten ring at 10-20 yards I was confident I could kill a deer with the recurve. I hunted with the recurve starting the end of the first week of December exclusively. I would have been able to shoot a doe on New Year’s Eve morning if I had the compound but the 5 deer never came closer than 27 yards. I wasn’t comfortable trying it with the recurve.
With last weeks snow I took the climber out and scout hunted. I set up where I found a ton of tracks. I set up with my back to where I expected the deer to come from and would be able to have the longer bow limbs run parallel to the top section bars of the climber. Of course a dropped antlered buck walks in from the front of my stand which was the direction I least expected based upon the sign. He came to 15 yards and with the front cross bar of the climber I couldn’t come to full draw with my normal form. I canted the bow which I had done in practice but had to lean it more than I practiced with in the past. I promptly missed 3 shots at 15 yards. He never moved more than a few feet and eventually just walked off. I was never nervous and was confident I could make the shot but the angle took me enough out of alignment that I guess my eye to arrow form was off. After he left I got the biggest adrenaline rush probably since my son shot his first buck at 11. He’s 23 now and just started with the Navy so this year I have been missing my hunting partner.
Fast forward to Saturday. Now that I have a spot picked out I go out early to pull my hang on stand from a different part of the park but with the temps in the teens and a heavy rain the day before I can’t unlock my lock from the tree and I left the stand dangling. Fortunately a friend had given me an old API Bowhunter Climber a couple years ago for my son. I threw the top piece in my truck and I climbed the same tree as earlier in the week. I now could shoot where the buck had come and my original plan for behind me. Fast forward to 5:35 and I am so cold I am going to climb down early. I have two hoods over my watch cap pulled over my ears and I hear something. With the reduced hearing I think there is a deer on the other side of a holy tree next to me. I reach back for my bow on the hanger and as I am pulling the hoods off so I have a better field of view I see a doe standing on the trail behind me and too my right! I am able to get up without it or the trailing doe seeing me. I have to turn around and start to come to full draw only to be so stiff from the cold the arrow falls off my shelf. I was able to get it back on quickly and now the doe stepped out to 18 yards very slightly quartering away. I execute the shot and end up sticking her in the shoulder blade. She runs down the hill and turns in front of me to stand almost exactly where the buck was earlier in the week and I promptly miss a finishing shot. She then runs up towards the trail she was originally on but now on the opposite side of my tree and I miss again. She runs another 10 yards and stops and looks back. I come to full draw and realize I now have limbs in my way and let down. I decide to sit figuring I have nothing to lose with her looking right at me and I execute a perfect hard quartering away shot at 20 yards that stops on the opposite shoulder.
I see her run up the hill with both arrows sticking out. As it gets dark I lose sight of her and decide to come back in the morning. I find great blood starting about 10 yards from the second hit, then at 60 yards I see a bed with a lot of blood in it and panic thinking I just jumped her. I reach down and touch it to find it’s frozen. I continue on the trail and find her about another 40 yards. I am so pumped now with this success and new found confidence I think I may give up the compound.
Topic: First deer with a recurve (Read 1548 times)
