I don’t even know where to start on this. So full story time.
I doubt anyone truly knows the hours I’ve put into traditional archery. The obsession began when I was a kid and progressed rapidly into my preteen/early teenager years. Without a doubt, I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours with traditional equipment in my hand. I thought it was the coolest thing ever growing up. I was always building bows from saplings and constantly begging for traditional equipment. I will never forget when a family friend, Gary Homesley, gave me my first recurve bow (a Bear Black Panther) when I was probably 10-12 years old and I shot a countless number of arrows from that bow until it finally broke some years later. I had an absolute obsession with archery then and still today, but my hunting skills definitely lacked as a teenager and I never got it done with traditional equipment and unfortunately I didn’t hunt much in my later teens.
Fast forward to my early 20’s when my passion for hunting had reignited especially bowhunting. I hit it hard with gun and a compound at first, but eventually that evolved into just bowhunting with a compound and I’ve been fortunate enough to kill dozens of deer with one since. But most importantly I refined my hunting skills (still learning every sit).
I’ve always kept a few trad bows around (I’ve had dozens of them now) and I shoot them regularly even when I’m not hunting with them. Several years ago I had really dove back into traditional archery hard, practiced an insane amount, and I was unfortunately let down with 3 misses over 2 seasons. Target panic when shooting at an animal was deafening. Like many others, I was always quick to grab my compound and make myself feel better with a kill, but it always ate at me that I truly struggled with the ole “struggle stick” as bad as I did. Every kill with a compound (or firearm) was always followed by “I wish I had done that with my trad bow”. My wife has listened to my self-pity an endless amount. Since those 2 seasons years ago, I’ve hunted with them on and off but was cursed with no good opportunities. Take the trad bow and see deer at 30 yards, take the compound and kill one at 4 steps. Vicious cycle.
This season I had told my wife and hunting partner that this was the year (like I said every year). I would get a few kills out of the way for the freezer and then I would kill one with trad or else. All deer were fair game with the trad bow.
Well it finally happened on New Year’s Day and with a very special bow.
Dad and I decided to hunt together yesterday evening. I set up in a tree that I have killed a few deer out of and always had close encounters in and my dad set up on the other side of the property. Wind was off a little blowing from my right to left instead of in my face, but those are usually my best days when the deer have the slight wind advantage. I was sitting in a little saddle that connected a small ridge with a larger ridge. They usually come from about my 11 o’clock down and across the big ridge and through the saddle I was set up in so it would still work as long as they stayed up on the ridge a little before coming down. About 4:45pm, I hear the familiar sound of a deer walking but directly behind me, exactly opposite of where they needed to come from. I turn my head slightly and in my peripheral I see this buck on its way coming directly at me but slightly to my left. He’s 30-35 yards at this point and I don’t have much cover. As slow as I could I ease my bow off the hanger. He’s coming in on a string but still bearing left to my downwind side. I know I have to shoot before he gets to my 9 or 10 o’clock area or I’ll definitely be busted. He gets to roughly 15 yards (which is absolutely perfect for me) still working toward my left. Now this is a high stem count area so I’m having to try and pick gaps to shoot him in. He walks through my first and probably best gap without stopping and I didn’t want to alert him so I didn’t bleat at him to stop him. Now he’s behind some brush with no shot, but still steadily working and feeding his way along by me. Second gap I let out a quiet bleat, he takes one more step, and he stops. At this point, his neck and a little of his front shoulder are behind a tree but enough vitals are exposed for a shot. I say to myself “This is it, get as close to the tree as you can get, and pick your spot”. I draw my bow, hit anchor, burn a hole into the spot, and feel the string subconsciously leave my fingers like it has thousands of times. I swear time stood still as I watch the feathers disappear into this buck…. And I hit him back about 4-5” more than I would have liked, but pretty good up and down. I knew immediately I had killed him. I was thinking back of lungs/liver. He spins around at the shot and runs the direction he came in from, over the small ridge behind us, and angled away from me (which is the direction I had parked on the other side of the ridge and had walked in from). I thought I heard him crash.
I savor the moment and the flood of emotions, collect myself, and make some phone calls. First to my wife, next to my two hunting buddies, and lastly my dad who was hunting the property with me. I wait a few minutes and get down to find my arrow. I find the broadhead and about 8” of shaft but not much blood on the shaft and no blood at impact. I decide to back out to give him some time and go pick my dad up on the other side of the property to accompany me for the track. I walk out the road I had used to access, down the hill, and start around the base of the ridge toward my Jeep. I get about 75 yards out, it’s dark now, and I jump the deer up bedded just next to my Jeep. He crashes into a terrible mess of blow downs caused by a tornado a few years back. My stomach just drops. I know he will be next to impossible to find in that block of woods. I give it a bit before cranking my Jeep and then I ease out as best I can to get Dad.
Came out of the woods and across a large very overgrown field that we call the first field. I’m talking about chest high briar patches and sage brush and short pine. Thick stuff. Get to where dad is and tell him what happened. Against my emotions, we decide it’s best to wait till the morning due to bumping the deer.
What a long sleepless night. Couldn’t imagine it if this was actually a big buck.
Dad and I come back in just after daylight this morning and we decide to go immediately into the block of woods that I bumped the deer into. We spent about an hour there just grid searching the area but have no luck. So we decided to go back up to where I shot the deer. We search around that area for blood, but we aren’t able to find any. We then move off the ridge where I saw the deer run into and where I jumped him from. After probably another hour of searching, I do find blood. Pretty good blood, but only in one spot. We spend a good little while looking for blood in that area, but we aren’t able to find any more. By this time it’s about 8:45 AM and my dad has to leave to go to work. He decides to take my Jeep back out to the entrance of our property where his truck is and I stay in the woods to continue searching. I decide to go back into the block of heavily storm damaged timber to try and locate him. I spend a good hour searching around all the blow downs, climbing up and down them, literally crawling at times, but I’m not able to find him. Eventually I wound up about 30 yards from the back of the first field, and at this point, I was thinking that I was gonna have call a dog to come see if he could find my deer. Something I have never done before. I knew in my mind I made a lethal shot. I sat down and honestly I just prayed to the Lord that he would help me find this deer. Like He didn’t already know, I told him how much it meant to me and that I would glorify His name through it. I debated climbing back through the blow downs to walk out and around to the Jeep; but I felt like something just told me to climb through the rest of those blow downs and walk to the back of that first field on my way out to the Jeep instead. I get to the back of the first field and I think to myself, finding that deer in this field would be like finding a needle in a haystack. So at this point, I pretty much have given up and I decided that I’m just gonna walk back to the Jeep and call a dog. So I take off across the field and make it maybe 25 to 30 yards into the field and lo and behold, there he is.
Boy, the emotions were strong. Holding back tears at this point, but so much relief to find him. I just lay my bow down and sit next to him for awhile and just soak it all in.
This bow is extremely special to me because my dad had it custom built for me in 2010 when I was a just a teenager. He contacted the bowyer, Nathaniel Steele of BamaBows and ordered me the bow of my choosing. A 64” ASL with cocobolo riser, maple accent strip, and black glass. 53lbs at 28” which would make it around 50lbs at my 27” draw. He slapped my name on it and one of all of our favorite verses: ”Now therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me.“
Genesis 27:3 NKJV
Arrow was a full length .500 spine BloodSport TimberWolf with 50 grains of brass and a 200 grain German Jager 2 blade. Roughly 490-500 grains of arrow. Arrow was broke off inside of him with about 5” of the nock end left in him. Just enough for the fletchings to stay in there.
Blessed to have killed this fine table fair and blessed to have shared the experience with my Dad. One day that I will not soon forget.
Thanks for reading. To God be the Glory.
- Drew Williams (BamaBarebow)
Topic: FINALLY! My first trad kill! (Read 1988 times)
