I can now proudly say that I hunt Trad. Just tonight I joined the ranks of the brotherhood with my first traditional harvest. I'm shooting my Zona T/D #1 and this was my first outing this year since the season opened saturday. Here in Jersey's early bow season the season is only open in certain zones and you must Earn-a-buck by shooting a doe first. I have a few nice bucks on film but hoped to see a doe first.
I got out of work a few minutes early and boogied on up to my brothers house about 5 miles away. Put up the climbing stick and got in the stand by 4:45pm. All was silent until about 6:00 when I heard the shuffle of leaves coming from the laurels on the hill above me. After a few minutes I finally see this lone doe making her way down the trail in my direction. She stops about 5yds out from my tree and mills around. After a few minutes she finally turns broadside. As I begin my draw I realize there is a small leaf right in my path so as I'm about to shoot I lean forward just a smidge and let her rip. I watched the pink and white fletch zoom right over her back by no more than a milimeter or two. She jumps back a few feet and looks around. I quickly get another arrow nocked and ready as she settles down and begins milling around again. This time she moves closer and passes my stand and presents me with a quartering away shot about 3yds out from the tree. This time I silently talk myself through my shot from picking a spot to hitting my anchor and following through. I burn a hole right on the last rib and as soon as I hit my anchor the arrow was away. THWACK!! right where I was aiming! I gave he a good 20 minutes before getting down even though I had heard her go down about 60 or 70 yds out of sight. I began tracking and could not for the life of me find any blood. I found the arrow covered in guts about 20yds out. The shot was far back but angled enough it should have been good. After about 10 minutes of scanning the valleys where I saw the last track marks on the trail I found her piled up. I gave thanks for this wonderful gift and began the chores ahead. Gut her out with a necker knife of my own creation and later quartered her up with a knife by fellow ganger Kevin Halverson. All the while smiling from ear to ear. It turns out the shot was perfect, it entered at the last rib on the right side and exited the left arm pit with the Grizzly 150 lodging in the opposite leg. Love that KME system and thanks to some advise from Ron I got those babies scary sharp. Thanks for listening. Skippy
Topic: Yeah Boy!! First Trad Harvest (Read 1598 times)
