A little known member get's his first bow kill and it's a buck.

He promised to tell the whole story later tonight. I'll just say he's PoorGuy Archery Approved.

 

Sweet!

I will wait here impatiently.....................







still waiting







cmon man! what is taking so long.



Wayne

 

Several times! :D

 

My long story to my first bow kill

There’s a reason for the delay and here it is (skip to THE KILL for the short version)…

My story starts June 1980 as I grew up in inner city Philadelphia with a father who was very intelligent, but waved bye bye to manly things way before I was born. I didn't even know what hunting was till I moved to central Pennsylvania at age 13 (literally). That is when my passion for the outdoors began. 13 years old and I’ve never actually seen real grass… sad. Despite being quite the yo yo yo city slicker, I took to “the sticks” very quickly. I soon realized I should have been born on a farm. Despite my personality shift and the group of “hicks” I grew up with, I never took to hunting. I did a few rabbit hunts, helped gut and skin a few deer, but it never stuck.

Now we jump to November 27, 2006. I get a call from Ben / PA, my long time friend. He calls me on this Monday evening stating I need to take off the following Monday for the first day of rifle season. I laughed my butt off as my boss walked by me. She heard the conversation and said, “You’ve never taken a day off. You’re going!” There I am first day; and I scored a monster 8 point 5 minutes after sun up. I now know I’m a hunter for life. Man what have I been missing?

We now jump a year later to next hunting season. There again is Ben / PA. “You think you like rifle hunting, I think you’re going to love bow hunting” he says. “Yeah, sure Ben. OK. Guess I’ll give it a try.” So he GIVES me his bow and goes and buys a new one for himself. Now I have no problem with free stuff, but I was just handed a 1993 Browning and it’s 2007. I’m appreciative, but will this really do the job? I shoot this thing and I think it shoots as fast as a speeding turtle. I reluctantly agreed to give it an honest shot, but I told him I would most likely not even draw on a deer as I didn’t think it could puncture skin… Archery season comes and goes, I don’t even see a deer, which makes me happy as I didn’t think I had the equipment to finish the job, BUT I’M NOW HOOKED. SHOOTING A BOW IS SO MUCH FUN. I know I need to get a bow. Rifle seasons comes, I kill another wall hanger buck (9 point this time on the 2nd day of the season), a doe, and a button buck.

I’m strapped, times are tough, and I’m in one of the toughest times of my life. It’s now July of 2007. So where does a single guy get a decent bow when he’s hard on his luck? You got it; the current owners of this site ran another site back in the day and sold it to make this wonderful site a lot of us call home. We need not name names here, but it rymes with buntingnet.com. Ben / PA again steps up and calls me and says he found me a deal from a hell of a guy named Mike Hunsinger (sorry if I misspelled that Mike). So I get this great deal and I’m practicing my butt off every day. When I say practicing, I mean I got the ok to put a bag target in the yard of an insurance office next to a major road way. Not exactly the publicity an insurance office wants, but I pulled it off. Anyways, I’m just hammering arrows with this bow. I’m psyched. IT’S A TAC DRIVER. NOTHING is going to ruin this bow season. “I AM A KILLING MACHINE WITH THIS BOW” is running through my head. Labor Day weekend comes and I take a 5mph spill on a dirt bike. A month later I can’t even draw my bow! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! My season is done. The doctors don’t know what to make of it. Tests, tests, and more tests reveal I have a torn labrum in my shoulder, which needs surgery, and a fractured foot in five or six places that requires me to wear this silly looking boot. Heart broken I put my surgery off for a few days so I can still hunt rifle. Life isn’t the same. I want to shoot my bow.

2009 Archery Preparation

Spring 2009 rolls around I scrounge up the money to buy a Copper John Dead Nuts 2 Scimitar site from Gander Mountain, hell of a deal. Now I’ve got a great bow, a beautiful site, and horrible form. I need practice. I start practicing and PoorGuy Archery tells me I need a new string and cable. My bow isn’t safe. They’ve taught me everything I know so I give up my bow for what feels like an eternity. I get it back and I’m hammering away. I’m loving life again. Shooting my bow is like nothing I’ve ever done. I’m ready for archery. I move back to Central PA and join the Bloomsburg Archery Club. I figure a team shoot will get me ready. Two days before my league ends its’ first week, my site suddenly breaks and I haven’t shot yet! I’M SCREWED. I’ve got no money to travel to PoorGuy archery to borrow a site, a good 45 minutes away, let alone pay for a site in town. What the hell do I do? I call around to the few people I met at the Archery Club. They all think I’m an idiot at this point. Finally the President of the club calls me and said he’s got a back up I can borrow. Three weeks go by and Copper John has sent me a new windage to fix my bow. Long story to the customer service, but they meet my level of expectations as does their site casing. The taps on the mount however do not. Anyways…

The next four weeks I’m practicing hours a day and shooting my team shoot. I did a good 20 day stretch and people at the club love my dedication. They vote me in as a full blown member. More practice and I’m getting decent. I have 6 shooters on my team and I usually come in 3rd or 4th on my team. PoorGuy Archery has moved me light years ahead of where I should be (thanks by the way). My team finished 2nd out of 6. We were one win behind the leaders; but I’m ok with that, because our season ends the week before PA opening archery. YESSSSSSSS! IT’S HERE! FINALLY! TWO FULL YEARS OF WAITING! I’m a freaking fat kid in a candy store with unlimited credit. I’m a poor kid at Christmas and his parents suddenly hit the lottery. You get the picture… I’m excited!

2009 Archery Season is here… I’m getting a bow kill darn it!

I’m in my stand about 45 minutes before light. It’s finally here. All the preparation is going to pay off. Ben / PA has put me up in a food plot we worked our butts off to plant and I’ve got fresh oats. TODAY IS MY FIRST BOW KILL. I planned on sitting all day so Ben / PA tells me I should bring the bottom to my new climber stand I just purchased (Gorilla Grey back for $180 to the door was a steal. I gotta write a review for it soon…). As I’m settling in my stand I realized we never installed a bow hanger. CRAP. HERE I AM FOR A WHOLE DAY BOW SIT; I CAN’T POSSIBLY HOLD MY BOW FOR THE WHOLE DAY. CAN I? I finally figure out that I can hang both my pack and my bow from the lowest screw in step. I’ve regained my composure. I’m sitting in my climber and I realize I could reposition it slightly and be a hell of a lot more comfortable for an entire day. Except I bumped my bow with my elbow and it falls from the tree. It’s slow motion with the volume turned way up. Tree limb whack, another limb, whack whack whack. All the way down the pine tree and then I hear it. A FRIGGING ROCK. PLEASE LORD LET MY BOW BE OK.. It’s still dark. I climb down, I can’t see anything. I take it back to my stand and I’m fiddling. The string is frayed in new places, my arrow draws off the rest, serving is falling off my bow everywhere, and I have knicks in my cam with burrs into my string. I FIGURE I COULD GET ONE SHOT OFF, BUT I’D HAVE MORE SUCCESS THROWING MY ARROW. MY SEASON IS OVER! I have no money for a bow, string… anything. I’m completely tapped out. I call Ben / PA. I’m heart broken. I’m ready to give up archery. I’ve put in more time and money into this F’ing sport and I keep getting kicked down. I can’t take it anymore. “Ben / PA, looks like I’m filming you tonight” I say. Despite having no time Rob / PA takes me into PoorGuy Archery and fixes me up. Dremels out my cam, reserves the string, tightens this, that and the other thing, and suddenly my season is salvaged. THANK YOU LORD AND POORGUY ARCHERY. As a thanks I attempted to film Ben / PA for the evening sit. My season is salvaged, I can wait till Monday.

Monday, 10/5/09 I’m killing something today.

I’ve had highs and lows on this crazy roller coaster ride of bow hunting. I need a bow kill. I don’t care what it is as long as it’s legal. Buck, doe… it doesn’t matter. I NEED a bow kill. I bust my butt to get out of work. I’m in my stand slightly before 5:00 pm with last light around 7:00 pm. It’s not as early as I wanted to be there, but it will surely do. The text messages start. I start asking my experienced friends when I can be considered a “bow hunter.” I’m in my stand at 4:50 pm on a Monday? Is that enough? I’m leaving work early to hunt. That’s gotta be enough right? Suddenly I get a text, “it’s after your first kill.” Jokingly I ask, “do button bucks and/or spikes count (not legal for me to shoot)?” My buddy Doug says “No, it has to have at least six points.” I respond with “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

part 2 "The Kill"

THE KILL

6:00 pm comes, “magic hour” as Ben / PA calls it. Sure enough I hear what isn’t a squirrel coming right up the trail behind me. Perfect! He’s falling right into my trap. He’ll follow the trail till he gets to the T, at which point he’ll give me a quartering away shot! If he goes left, he’s dead. If he goes right, he’s dead. Ah, it’s a Y buck on one side and spike on the other. Not legal to be an official bow hunter. I’m gonna have to wait it out. Crap. A few minutes go by as I’m watching him over my shoulder and the corner of my eye. What’s this, I just saw 4 points on the right side. HE’S LEGAL! Small, but legal! I DON’T CARE, I NEED A BOW KILL!!!! Ben / PA and I picked out a fabulous spot on Google Earth. This is going to be a BBD (big buck down) text message to everyone. “20 MORE YARDS AND YOUR MINE. Wait, what’s this, he’s going off the main logging trail and walking directly behind me in the brush where I have no shot “NOOOOOOOO!” I suddenly realize he’s been slowly walking for at least 5 minutes. I decide that I need to do something to take my mind off him being right behind me. “I wonder how long has he been here? Is it a millennium yet?” I can’t move to check my phone clock. I’ll start counting. One one thousand, two one thousand. I get up to 7 minutes and I give up. “It’s going to just build up the tension if I get to ten minutes. Better stop now” I tell myself. He crossed behind me and stopped moving. Did he bed? Did he finally wind me? WTF????? It’s too much. I start counting again to calm the nerves. Three minutes go by, nothing, five minutes go by and HE’S MOVING. THE frigging buck has somehow used his ninja like smoke screen and made it back to the main logging trail. “HOW?” I’m completely confused and still counting. Ten minutes go by. The hell with this deer. He’s obviously not on my time table. I give up counting from what I can put together as a 25 minute wait with him no more than 20 yards from me at all times. My first arrow kill is going to be a Gold Tip XT through my own skull. He’s slowly moving back up the logging trail. Now he’s behind thick cover. With my bow already in my hand sitting on the hanger, I remove it and pull it in front of me and he stops. He’s looking all around. Nose in air. Did he wind me? Did he see me? “DID MY IMPATIENCE RUIN ME?” He keeps looking in my general direction. CRAP!?!? Is that another deer I hear coming in from the other direction? DOUBLE CRAP, I’ll get busted if I draw. WHAT DO I DO? Do I shoot through the brush and risk a deflected arrow? Why the hell didn’t I wait until he was behind the thick thick cover before I moved? Then there is silence. A moment of clarity. If deer are coming, I most likely have a few minutes. Suddenly the next 10 yards went by in .0001 of a second. He’s out in front of me BROADSIDE. My sequence which usually goes through a ten second draw is cut down to about two and I let loose as reflex. WWWWWWWWHHHAAAM. Left to right I know I hit the heart; but it looked high. High lung? WHY THE HELL DID HE JUST FALL TO THE GROUND? Does it even matter? Suddenly he lets out a moan. The only way I can explain the sound was from a video I once saw when a doe was caught in a wire fence for quite some time. A guy walking in the woods throws a jacket over her head, and flips her over the fence. It’s that sound with three times the volume. Suddenly he’s on his feet. “2nd arrow quick! Don’t let this one get away!!!!!” I quickly string a 2nd arrow, but he falls a step after he gets up. He manages to crawl with his front two legs. My worse fear has come true. I have just wounded a deer and I CAN’T GET A MERCY SHOT OFF because he’s behind the thick brush. I’m never archery hunting again. How could I do this? The horror stories are true. Then he stops. I think about slinging an arrow through the thick brush, but it’s over. He’s not moving. I’VE JUST GOTTEN MY FIRST BOW KILL. YEEEEEEESSSSSSS. In size he compares nothing to my other two bucks, but he is by far my most appreciated dear. I AM NOW OFFICIALLY A BOWHUNTER.

Thank you to Ben and Rob for making this come true. I owe both of you and can’t wait to repay the favors and kindness you have both shown me.

My best guess from start to finish the buck was within 20 yards of my stand for about 40 minutes. What I thought was a high lung was actually a spine shot. I completely severed his spine and my arrow stopped on the opposing rib cage. I’m only shooting 63 lbs and I almost got a pass through with my G5 Strykers. Very nice. After I hit him, he rolled and snapped my arrow in three. I apologize for the blood pictures. I’ve seen enough to know how I should take them, but I’m down to one camera and it stays at work. I had to gut it, help another guy track a buck he hit at the club (going back tomorrow as we figured we were jumping it after two hours). Then it took me two hours to write this post. Anyways, here are the pics:

Ok, so I have no idea how to embed these pictures so they're attached until someone can explain it to me...

 

Congrats!!!

 

Congrats Steve, it'll definitely be a night you won't soon forget!!!! Welcome to the ADDICTION!!! :D

 

Good deal, congrts on the first.

 

Congrats on a GREAT buck, Steve!!!! Great story .... albeit I pulled a muscle trying to read it all :D

(Rob, it almost looks like to the one that you see from that stand you killed your doe)

 

Congrats!

 

Well done, Congrats!

 

congrats steve,your first bow kill,

 

Yeah Tony it's quite the story. It kind of sums up why this guy is special to me. All the details aren't there; but three years of hard work just for one deer. I'm appreciating this to it's fullest.

 

Steve, awesome job man. You should be ecstatic.

Brett

 

Good buck Steve! Congrats on your 1st deer!

 

Great story and great job on your first bowkill!

 

great detail in the story! congratz

 

Congrats Steve!

 

way to go Steve!! Congrats!

 

Well Done sir!!!