It sure was nice to be in a hunting camp with 14 traditional bowhunters. Usually I am the only trad hunter in my deer camps with the rest being compound hunters. The best part of the Solana hunt though was that all the guys in camp were really great folks. We had people from Washington State to Florida and from Southern California to Maine and lots of places in between and every one of them was a terrific person and a good bowhunter. The camaraderie of the TradGangers was the real reason I went to Solana, and I definitely was not disappointed. I was also very happy with the accomodations, food and staff at Solana. Everything combined to make this one of the nicest hunts I have ever been on.
Preparing for this hunt I got in a lot of new equipment that I had barely been about to take out of the shipping boxes and pack in my duffel bags for the trip, much less actually use. Generally, that is a recipe for disaster, and I was a fool for failing to take items that I had field tested before going on a major hunt like this. For instance, I received my latest takedown Shrew Classic Hunter the day before I left and didn't even have a chance to put it together before I had to pack it to leave on the hunt. I do have a very similar Classic Hunter that I just received about 2 months ago that also had a Bow Bolt, foam/carbon limbs, beautiful Macasser ebony limb veneers, buffalo limb tips, and a Texas Ebony and phenolic riser. With that Macasser bow I had shot a doe though the middle of her heart on the day before Thanksgiving on my first shot with the bow at an animal. So I pretty well knew what to expect of the bow. I also have about 8 other Shrews and am very familiar with them. In addition, I had just bought a bunch of Sitka Gear clothing, most of which I had not even tried on before the hunt. More on my "field test" of the Sitka Gear in a later post.
The Classic Hunter I took to Solana also has a Bow Bolt and is the latest iteration by Gregg Coffey based on Ron LaClair's wonderful Shrew design. The Classic Hunter is 56" 53#@29" with foam/carbon/uni-weft/veneered (highly figured Bubinga) limbs with Kudu tips and Macasser ebony and phenolic riser. It is the second best looking bow I own (after my Blacktail Snakebit) and shoots at least as well as any bow I have ever shot. I put the bow together for the first time when I got to the ranch and was delighted with the way it shot. Everyone else in the Gang who shot it really liked it too. This is the first bow that Gregg has put uni-weft into, and it worked very well. The suggestion for the uni-weft came from Bob Morrison -- someone we all know as a fantastic bowyer and all around great guy. Thanks Bob. The new limbs on this latest Shrew feel a lot like my Morrisons, as they should. We are all lucky to have bowyers like Bob Morrison and Gregg Coffey out there who work together to bring us the best in bows. I didn't want to bring a second bow (although it probably would have been the smart thing to do) because of the weight and bulk associated with hauling all my equipment on a commercial airliner and then stuffing it into the car I was sharing with a couple of other guys, but if I had brought a second bow it would have been my sweet little Morrison Mini-14 ILF with "C" foam/carbon/uni-weft longbow limbs that is also a dream to shoot. While I definitely was not the best shot in camp, my little Classic Hunter held its own. At one point I used the bow to "win" an informal shooting contest among about five or six of us to see who could get the first hit on a half a Mountain Dew 20 ounce plastic bottle at 46 yards. So the bow can shoot.
I only got to shoot a couple of dozen arrows from the bow before it was time to get ready and go hunting the first evening at the ranch. Our guide John took us all to the pasture we would be hunting and let us off at our stands over feeders. I took the highest stand that was almost 30 feet above the ground. The feeder went off at 4:30 pm and soon some does and their youngsters moved in. These were the most skittish deer I have ever seen. Any tiny noise or movement seemed to spook them, and they spend a large percentage of their time looking up into the nearby trees, including the one I was sitting in. The deer would spook at almost nothing and run away, then some would wander back in. There was one small buck that came in, but he was too little to interest me in trying to shoot. One time when all I was doing was wrapping my fingers around the string, all the deer jumped and ran away. I couldn't believe that such a minor movement could cause such a flurry of activity. I got to the point were I would not move a muscle unless all of the deer were looking the other way, which didn't happen very often. I finally had to wait until all the deer except two does had left the area. When both of them were looking down, I slowly and quietly drew my bow and aimed for the bottom of the chest of the larger doe just behind her front leg as she was slightly quartering away from me at 20+ yards from the base of my stand. At my release the doe squatted and began jumping forward. My arrow quickly flew towards her moving body and struck her about midway back about half way down from her back. I immediately saw a grapefruit sized blood spot appear where my arrow had entered as the doe ran off. The run was stop and go and she was unstable on her feet the entire time. In about 75 yards the doe stopped and started teetering back and forth. I knew she was about to fall down dead, and she did so there in plain sight of my stand. That was my first shot at an animal on the first day I had ever shot my new Shrew, so naturally I was very please with the bow and with the arrows that I had also just received from Paul Mattson at Badger Arrows. They are the AD Hammerhead Trad Lites with Steelforce four blade broadheads. The arrow passed completely through the doe and was laying on the ground on the other side of her covered with blood. I did hit her partly in the guts, but that did not seem to affect the speed with which she died from the wound. I had been instructed to wait in the treestand until John showed up after dark, so that is what I did. We loaded the deer and headed back to camp. I forgot to take a camera and no one else took a picture of my deer as far as I know, but I guess everyone knows what a dead doe looks like. I think my doe was the first kill of the hunt.
More later.
Allan
Topic: Solana 2010 (Read 15065 times)
