It's Friday evening, I'm watching the ball game (GO CARDS!!) and I was just thinking about my bowhunting career thus far. Couple of years ago, I was ALL about killing deer. See deer, shoot deer. That was my philosophy. All I wanted to do was shoot deer. Period. Strangely, all it took was 1 year of taking 4 deer to end that. That was not my outlook for the following year. And I shot 2 the next year. My buck and a doe. And I was more than content with that. The next year, I was after a buck. Didn't happen, but it was an incredibly successful year for me. I saw more bucks that I ever had in one season, 2 of which were P&Y's in bow range that I just couldn't get a shot at. And oh yeah, that was all in 1 day. I did finally decide I wanted a doe and made that happen. This year.......this year will be different. I'm after 2 bucks this year. Partially because I've decided that I made a really bad decision last year allowing a non typical 100-110" 9 pointer walk. I'm like......."DUDE! You are allowed 3 bucks in this state....put one on the ground....." This year is different for me though. I have grown to truly love watching deer in their environment not having any flippin idea I am there. I just love it. But I want 2 bucks this year, partially due to the fact that I am very fortunate to be able to hunt Illinois this year. It's kind of intersting to me to look back on my career and evaluate my evolution as a hunter. I look back at the really stupid mistakes I made, how much I've learned, and how much I am yet to learn. This bowhunting ride has been incredibly fun for me, while very frustrating at times as well. But that's what makes it great, right? I personally don't enjoy things that are easy for me. I get bored with it. Bowhunting whitetailed deer is FAR from easy. Very far. So how about it? Where are you in your career? What paths have you taken to get where you are now?
I'm looking for a mature(ish) buck and does, does, does. I'm allowed a lot of does in GA and I plan to take as many as I can. :D
Funny you ask this Don. I was out setting up a couple new bear baits today and while riding the quad I was contemplating this. Actually, I have been thinking about it for quite awhile. I honestly don't know where I stand at this point. If you would have asked me last year, it was all about shooting big bucks.....I don't think thats the case anymore. I guess it depends on where I'm hunting this fall...... In IL, I'll be looking only for a mature/semi-mature buck.....3.5 year old+ Here in Ontario, I believe I'll shoot the first buck over 120" with the bow this year. I guess I've lowered my standard up here because the deer population is much lower than I have experienced....1/2 to 1/3 what it was 2 years ago. Honestly, I don't want to eat a tag up here (must be my ego), so I've lowered my standard. (Which could change by the time season rolls around.) In WI, I'm just looking to have fun. Since moving to the resort here in Ontario for the summers and early falls in 2002, I haven't had the chance to hunt the family land, except late season. We have some great bucks there, just never had the time to go back south in October. Well, this year I'm making the time. I'll only shoot 1 doe there and it'll be the first one to walk by. As for a buck, if I see a 3.5 year old, he's going down regardless of headgear. Heck, I may even shoot a 2.5 year old.....I just want to hunt and enjoy it without any pressure of having extremely high standards. So, I still really don't know where I'm at.
Mobow, This season will be my 27th bow season, 30th overall. It's actually overwhelming where I've come from and unknown to where I'm headed. I've done the traditional thing, compound but instinctive to modern equipment changing yearly. But that's equipment. Personally it took many years for me to recover my first whitetail. Notice I mentioned recover as I know I killed quite a few that I never came to possess. I didn't have the internet to tell me I was doing wrong. I didn't have a mentor to show me the ropes and few books were available to me. I started watching rented videos, reading Bowhunting Magazine and did the best I could. I had mismatched equipment, improperly spined arrows and at times, dull broadheads so I try, try to teach, explain from my mistakes. One thing I still cherish however is the memories, especially calling whitetails. I started using a deer call 25 years ago. A wooden doe bleat and man I wish I had it now. I've bear hugged trees with just a foot platform, stood or sat on branches in Hemlocks, climbed up in fallen trees, and even once dug a pit blind because I read it would work. It didn't, at least for me. I've rattled, made mock scrapes, used an abundance of doe urine, planted food plots and stalked corn fields. I sat in one tree for a whole season, I bounced from tree to tree rarely seeing the same tree twice in another season. There isn't much I didn't attempt in my younger years. As far as animals, I watch 10 fold the animals I now kill. It was just 2 seasons ago that I bought my first doe tag in close to 10 years and that one was to help a good friend out in his management practices. My area didn't necessarily need does taken so, I just chose not to shoot does. It's great management practice but it's hardly in me anymore to do so. In my beginning, I shot at every single deer within range. We had no restrictions on antler size so 4 points were not off limits. I'd shoot at any 1.5 year old buck that would offer me a shot within bow range and at times, perhaps out of my bow range. I didn't know any better. With experience comes knowledge. (Or a learning curve with the internet as we see many inexperienced hunters full of information now). But that's not a bad thing. I wish I had it then as many of the trophy animals I missed or worse yet, didn't recover. I cringe at some of my inexperience/ ignorant attempts at bowhunting. 27 years later now I've been fortunate enough to take plenty of bucks and more than plenty of does. What I find interesting is if I seriously sit and think about each one, I remember all of them, over time. Each one is a memory etched in my tiny little brain. I love bowhunting, I love whitetails. I often joke with my customers when I meet their dogs that I have a love for dogs, then whitetails and then people. I love to do what I do without the expectation of a magazine cover. I love my Rob bucks, the bologna that comes from them and I love to share not only the stories and photos but the bologna/bounty itself to whomever will read, watch or share. The internet has offered to expand those opportunities and not only the stories and the photos but the bologna has made it's way to NC, IL, KS, PA and has been tried from states like MI, VA etc. As much as I would LOVE to take my first P&Y whitetail, it takes second chair to just being out there and loosing an arrow on the first buck that I PERSONALLY CHOOSE as mine, God willing. I've also been fortunate now to take a Bull Elk, a Black Bear, Coyote, Rio and Eastern Gobblers and countless small game and some upland birds with my bow. It's an unrealistic goal to take all of North America's big game animals with my bow or even a deer in every state but it's a dream and it's mine to dream. My next move is a Pronghorn hunt this Labor Day weekend in WY, who knows, perhaps a Mule Deer, Caribou, Moose? ?. Where my bowhunting career will take me is yet a page to be turned, read or written. For now, I just love what we do each and every season and I'll take them one at a time.
Good Representative buck for the area I am hunting. Not the top 5% buck or anything, just a nice looking buck. Down south, anything 100" plus would be dandy. IN, IL and other states, probably 130" plus. Around here, just depends on the specific farm and who I am hunting with. This year, I am looking to lay down some antler. I will have 5, maybe 6 buck tags for the season...and I am going to try my HARDEST to fill at least half of them.
Where am I? Not a day younger and getting older by the minute. I feel I have merely scratched the surface in my endeavors. I have so much more to see, do, and learn. I feel incredibly blessed. I need to be successful, but I measure success on a case by case basis. Sometimes success is simply a touch-maybe a grand photo-maybe it's watching someone else hunt for the first time. I would give every organ in my body to my son if I felt it would make a difference. It won't; I thank God for dealing me the cards I have-I will strive harder to fix other ways. I enter with no expectations-let the chips fall where they may. In my heart I know when I feel "right". The more I experience/practice, the more right I feel.
What stage am I? Honestly.. I dunno. Not even sure that I look at it that way. I've always insisted on hunting for myself.. hunting smart.. and giving it 100% of me when I did it.. everything else just fell in place. And I've done this for everything I've "wanted" to do. As far as hunting is concerned.. I just leave it in the woods at the end of the day.. and let guys over the internet judge how I go about it. Goals? My only goals these days are to film Justin take a good buck on film.. and to shorten my time in the woods even more. Last year I spent less than 60 hours (85ish if you include me filming) hunting before tagging out on 2 solid 3.5 yrs. or better whitetail.. I'd like to cut that total hours in half and tag out in 30.. then I could spend the rest of the year a even happier family man. Nothing wrong with just hunting the first two weeks of the year if you ask me.
This will be my 15th season hunting with a bow. It has been a great ride so far. My first 8 years or so I was pretty content shooting any whitetail buck and a doe each year (didn’t get a deer my first year). Then I starting holding out for bucks that were at least 2.5 yrs old for more of a challenge. Now I am looking for bucks 3.5+ yrs old and with 125+ inches of antler. I don't get a buck every year like I used to but that’s ok. I really enjoy just watching the younger one’s now. But hopefully I will score on a nice one this year as I think I am due. I love the time that I spend in the woods on the deer stand...away from the office...away from traffic...away from people...away from everything...its Serenity.
No stage here. Just hunt every hunt like it would be my last. You never know what's in the hand delt you.
Not really a career if you aren't getting paid. :D I don't believe in all the stages BS, if I want to shoot it, I shoot it. Some years I'll kill 4 or 5 deer with the bow, others maybe 1. I don't look at it as maturing as a hunter, some years I just get more shot opportunities than others.
Ok, first let's get the important stuff out of the way. THE CARDS WON! LOL I do love my Redbirds.....anyway....hm hm.... I love the responses, guys. Rob, that was a great read, and an even better representation of what I am looking for. U and I are alot alike, in that regard. I read through your post saying "Huh, I've tried that one too!" And also like you, EVERYTHING I know about deer hunting, and especially bow hunting them, has been self taught. I feel like I've learned pretty fast, and I'll go ahead and be honest here and tell you that I didn't start finding much success until I found a little known website called HuntingNet.com. Heard of that one I suspect. Just being able to read and learn from the 'salts' taught me.........oh I don't think I can even put into words how much it taught me. And still does. Duke......I love the way you go about it. " I hunt for me, screw everybody else!" That's perfect! And that's how it should be. You give it all you've got. I can relate to that, and respect it. Keep on posting big dog, I love reading your stuff. Oh and Duke.........BS, you can be mine!
Don, this sumes it up for me to. If i were just about having to kill something i would take advantage of the numerous Doe tags i could have in Indina per county. I love being out there, seeing game up close, I passed alot of decent bucks last year and came close multipul times on some slammers, Its about the ride for me as well!!
I'm at the "Undisputed King of Archery" stage. That's probably the equivalent of playing Contra on Nintendo with the UUDDLRLR code engaged.
Im at the: "Not a rookie, but not very good yet" stage. Im like all those prospects the Indians traded for this week :D
My stage right now is more of a property manager than a hunter. Since I bought my property a year and a half ago I am constantly looking for ways to make it better for the deer and wildlife on it. Planting food plots, planting Native Warm Season Grasses for bedding/nesting areas, digging water holes, improving my woods so there is more wildlife food growing there. I would really like to see how big of bucks I can attract to my property. I imagine when the season gets closer I'll turn on the hunting mode again and get serious about wacking one of the big boys and helping the herd out by killing a few does too. As far as the stage of hunter, I will try to only kill mature bucks, I always say if I shoot it I wil get it mounted. I am also enjoying having different hunters share my property with me and look forward to seeing them kill good deer.
John, and from what i seen from your property, your doing an excellent job at it to!! Kudos to you for all the hard work you put in it
