What was your first traditional bow harvest?

[bornagainbowhunter]

My first big game was a smaller whitetail buck about 6 or 7 years ago, can't remember my actual first critter.  Like BWD I didn't harvest them, just killed them.

[Manitoba Stickflinger]

I can't say!!! Our Department of Natural Resources up here is so pathetic that if I mentioned shooting a songbird 30 years ago when I was 6 they'd likely be at my door today issuing me a fine.

That said, my 1st big game kill was a cinnamon colored black bear when I was 14 or 15. I killed him with a 55# Mamba and home made cedar arrows. Hit him in the spine with the 1st shot (trying to drive an arrow down through his back from a treestand) and then emptied my quiver after that. Funny thing was, my quiver held 8 arrows! It looked like a war zone.

[Mike Bolin]

Pushing 20 years ago now, a 300#+ (bottomed out a 300# scale) black bear in Quebec. First animal with a stick bow was also my first animal to scocre enough for P&Y....19 2/16". Needless to say that after that I was hooked! 55# Widow MAIII with a 600 gr. 2219 with a Magnus II with the bleeder blade. Less than 50 yard recovery with a tremendous blood trail. Mike

[Mike Bolin]

Here's a pic of the rug with my old MOAB, not the bow I took the bear with. Mike
   

[str8jct]

After seeing the 1st post by Hunter709, I guess mine would either be a carp or a gar with a borrowed Indian Archery recurve, but I have always considered it to a raccoon with a Ben Pearson Cougar.

I was using an electic trolling motor when I shot the fish, some may not consider that a traditional kill.

[joevan125]

I just took up trad archery last March and killed a 8 pointer last fall and i thought that was my first trad kill.

Go back 32yrs and for Christmas that year my Grandmother bought me a recurve and 3 arrows.

About 2 weeks later i shot and killed a squirell and my Granny helped me clean that little critter and she fried it for me that night.

As i type this i have a huge smile on my face because every time i stepped out her door those squirells would head for the next county.

[NDTerminator]

Carp back around 1967.  Started bumping off cottontails about that time too...

[Chris Shelton]

When I was 15 years young, I harvested this old guy(estimated about 5) on public ground in Western Maryland.  Goes to show how bad our herds genetics are, good thing we dont eat them there antlers,lol.  I was lucky in the fact that it was the first time I had ever set afoot in the woods as a traditional bowhunter.  But I was more than ready to make that perfect quartering away 22 yard shot!  The day before I was shooting milk jugs in the air!
 

[muley40]

My 1st was a whitetail doe in 1973 with a Redwing hunter, Micro-flite arrow MA-3 broadhead, but I did kill a leghorn chicken with a Pearson bow and woodshaft and Bear razor when I was kid living on the farm, the old man took the belt to me for that kill,

[Mudd]

(QUOTE)Manitoba Stickflinger "Hit him in the spine with the 1st shot (trying to drive an arrow down through his back from a treestand) and then emptied my quiver after that. Funny thing was, my quiver held 8 arrows! It looked like a war zone."

That's so hilarious!!! It reminded me of my 1st deer killed with an arrow....( no!!..not gonna say it!)....lol

I had a huge buck walking up the trail that was going to pass directly in front of me at about 5 yds, in front of him are two(2) small bucks.
 
When I say small, picture in your mind a couple of fawns with spots almost but not quite faded off.

I just knew I couldn't kill that big buck because my heart couldn't take it.

I was standing on an old tree crotch board stand made out of an oak board cut in half and put together in the middle with a large gate hinge. The ends were "V" notched with the blades off of a hay sickle attached so they made the point in the center that stuck into the tree when pushed into it by the pressure of stepping onto the board. Safety harness?.... What's a safety harness...lol They hadn't been thought of back then.

Crude? Yes!

Effective? Yes!

Safe? Not even close!...lol

I digress.. back to the story.
 
I didn't want to feel like a complete failure so I decided to shoot at one of the small boys before I fell out of the tree.
I just needed to get the bow out of my hands.
I took the shot spining the little buck and running off the monster.
I think I must have gone blank because everything up to the next conscious thought was blurred. As my mind started clearing up I was trying to turn the deer over and it wouldn't roll over. I was puzzled. I could see my arrow sticking out of his back and there was enough of it visible that I knew it hadn't gone thru the bottom of the deer and yet it was obvious that the deer was stuck to the ground by something. I put down my bow and using both hands I managed to get it turned over. I became even more puzzled at that point because I saw what was left of a broken arrow sticking out of the deer and the other half poking out of the ground. "What the HEll!" came out of my mouth. I grabbed the end in the deer and pulled to reveal the fletching.. my fletching!!!!
I had trained myself to go onto auto pilot shooting mode and in the excitement of everything I had actually shot twice without realizing it. That's correct..no conscious memory of the second shot.
BTW this was the smallest deer I've ever taken but being my 1st it didn't matter that I could put all 4 feet together and pack it out like a 6 pack..lol No! It wasn't even field dressed...lol

[twitchstick]

I think it was cottontail with the old Ben Person Power Jet Bow about 25 years ago. It might have been one of the thousand parie dogs on my wyoming front lawn.

[rickshot]

bunny when I was 10...but it was self-defense.

[twitchstick]

Mudd thats funny!      

[overbo]

Use take a high heaven(sumac tree) and string it w/ fishing line or kite string and get a stick of goldenrod for a arro and tear spring peepers UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Arwin]

Sorry about the lack of a shirt, this was in the early stages of deer hunting before the wife got used to deer blood on clothes and riding home in the car, LOL!

 This button buck was my first traditional harvest and was also only the second deer I had taken up to that point.

 My wife dropped me off on public land at 5:30am a couple days into the early October bow season. I spent all day still hunting and checking out the land.

 I decided to head for a corn field right before dark.  As deer began making their way from the oaks to the corn, this guy ran down the corn rows with a few doe. I had deer all around me and was trying hard to stay undetected.

I was shaking really bad, but was able to stand up and shoot my 1976 50# Bear Black Panther Hunter. I missed low but he just stood there. The second cedar arrow buried up to the fletch and I was standing there in shock. Everything happened less than 15yds in front of my face.

 I walked into the tan colored corn stalks and found my arrows. Then the most perfect blood trail you could ask for, the corn was painted crimson for 30yds and a white belly could easily be seen.
 Still one of my most favorite hunts.

 

[BradLantz]

11 points
Adcock pre-ACS TD longbow
52# draw, 500 gr arrows, 3 blade Thunderheads
18 yard shot - double lung - 75 yard recovery

 

[Kenneth]

my first trad kill was a rockchuck/ground squirrel about 6 or 7 years ago.  My first big game was an 80# dressed weight sow hog I killed with my Bear Montana longbow in CA back in 2006.

[bear1336]

Tree Rat 1957 first deer was a Doe in 1963.. Man I am getting OLD..

[ryped]

Mudd,

That's a good story, I'm glad I didn't think about the hay sickle blades, but it probably would have been better than old road signs all over the woods.

[Don Stokes]

First big game was a whitetail spike buck, around 1977, taken with a Shakespeare Silver Sovereign recurve, 45# draw, and aluminum arrows with Bear razorheads. Bowhunted small game and fish as a kid, not sure what was first. Probably a frog or lizard.