Wow, great to see someone asking about John.
He's one of the best whitetail hunters not many folks outside of the immediate area have ever heard of. I've known John since I moved to Indiana 25 years ago, have spent a bunch of time with him and wish it was more.
I always say John is the best "natural" whitetail hunter I've ever met. Dad was more analytical minded, and had a bit different approach, but John can just think like a mature whitetail buck. I used to ask him questions about his setups and really it boiled down to feel. He just knows how a big deer acts and what he will do.
Haven't seen John for a little while. As he's getting older he's shooting lighter equipment, last I talked with him he had killed a dandy buck with a bow in the 35-40 lb range.
He shot an old Bear mag handled recurve for many years. I recall high 50s-60 lb draw wt. He shoots split finger instinctively and always set up real close. He hunts strip mine reclaimed land mostly and that is thick cover. He shot different boradheads, but aluminum arrows mainly that I recall and zwickeys alot of times.
John worked for the mine, and retired from there, and spent many years operating a big dozer for reclaim. He knew that ground before it was strip mined, during stripping, and as reclaimed. He could visualize the terrain under the grown up jungle as he saw it in all the versions. I always thought that helped him predict the deer movement.
Man I've got lots of stories. He's just deer killing machine. One time he had shot a real nice 4 1/2 yr old buck in the late season in Illinois and wanted someone to go back over there with him couple days later to look for his arrow. I think he wanted to relive the hunt a little too. I rode over with him and we went in there to his tree. There were several does and fawns, he said, and one fawn was evidently coming into early heat and the buck was harassing her a bit. The deer were going through like 50 yards out in the timber so he took a blunt arrow he had along and half draw lobbed it over the deer and it rattled off in the trees on the other side. The deer spooked right to him and the buck ended up under his tree and he shot it at like 5 yards. The tree was like a telephone ploe and I remember asking him how he didn't get busted. He said "Well I had good cover", this was like a 20 inch circumference tree with a grapevine as big as your finger growing on it. He acted like no big deal. Typical John deal.
One hunt in Texas he had a bow limb break on a lighter takedown recurve, maybe 50 lbs. He had a heavy backup set of limbs, say 60 lbs, but couldn't draw it. He put the 50 lb limb on the bottom, the 60 lb limb on the top. Killed a bobcat with it a day or two later. Said "Well the tiller looked OK". 😀
John is a great guy. Soft spoken, super humble. One hell of a whitetail hunter.
I'll dig around for some pics.
Great trip down memory lane.
R
Topic: John hale, Southern Indiana Bow Hunter (Read 6320 times)
