I wanted to post a picture and a short story of a bear that my best buddy's son shot last night. It's been a while in the making and his Dad and I couldn't be prouder.
Garrett took my archery class three years ago and built a longbow. From that point on he was hooked on Trad. His dad shot a compound for a lot of years and still does, though he occassionally shoots a recurve now as well. Mostly, he just watches his son hunt.
Two years ago, we went to Ontario for TradExpo West and Garrett picked out a 48# Cook Mountain Longbow. He's shot it ever since. We've done a lot of nutria and small game hunting since that time and Garrett has become quite a good shot and hunter.
This season he hung a treestand back in some trees on a well established trail not far from a small meadow with apple trees, hoping to get a shot at a deer. Last night a bear came through about an hour before dark and when it quartered away at about 20 yards he zipped an arrow through it.
He called me from his cell phone and told me he'd just arrowed a bear and his mom and dad were at my house. We went up to the stand and immediately found the arrow. Garrett thought he'd hit him a little far back. We bloodtrailed for about 40 yards on a very sparse bloodtrail, then decided to back it out until this morning. I had to work, but got a call from Chris (Garrett's Dad) mid-morning saying they'd found the bear. It went about 80-90 yards total and didn't really bleed a lot until the last 10-15 yards. Big smiles all around.
Way to go, Garrett!
Stan