My brother, Mark Mitten, just got back from the Lakota Reservation in Brule’ South Dakota with his friend Shane LaRoche. Shane is a member of two contemporary Native American bands called Brule’ and AIRO. Shane filmed Mark on his hunt for American bison.
SD just had a big snow fall which piled the white stuff 3 feet in the valleys, but the wind blew most of it off of the tops of the ridges. After finding the herd they watched as two mature bulls wandered away from the main body, so the stalk began. The first attempt failed as Mark and Shane got bogged down in the snow drifts allowing the great buffalo to flee. It took them awhile to locate the animals again, but eventually they got another chance. Leaving Shane back on a parallel ridge, Marked crawled 150 yards away to set up near a sage bush as the buffalo approached. With Shane looking on and filming, and the tribal game warden positioned several hundred yards away pray and singing the buffalo song, Mark rose up as the noble beast turned to look back toward his partner. He drew and launched his 795 gr birch arrow tipped with a stone head from his 75# Great Northern Bush Bow. The arrow was fletched with turkey feathers, and had a self-nock, while the stone head was secured with whitetail deer sinew. Shane could hear the arrow’s impact through the cold clear prairie air. The buffalo went down in less than a minute and the celebration began. The huge breeding bull sported a beautiful hide and sharp curved horns. Mark was told that this was the first bull taken with a stone head on these lands in over 100 years.
The arrow glanced off the rib and got 18 inches of penetration through both lungs. The head looks in good shape and may be ready to use again. Mark claimed his little wagon got a lot better traction on the way home loaded down with prime meat, cape, and skull! Mike
Topic: Stone head vs bison -new pic p. 6 (Read 2428 times)
