Pull out your Old-Timers pill and take one if need be. Think back to your first season bowhunting (if you can), and tell how you went about it. Then, tell how you will go about it this season. (Kinda see just how much you intend to do differently.) Just for fun. Bobby
1986 I believe was my 1st year bow hunting (12 years old). Anything that had 4 legs was getting shot at. I was very cautious my 1st year hunting. Opening morning I had a spike walk by at 10 yards but I passed on him because he was walking. I wish that same scenario would happen now, he'd get shot and put on the wall. That spike had what I believe were at least 10" spikes, biggest spike I've ever saw! Forward to the present, only doe's/doe fawns and P&Y bucks now. On a side note If I see a huge spike, a huge fork and a huge 6 they would get arrowed too to go on the wall being their unique. I still enjoy hunting just like It was during my 1st year, I just go about It a little different.
My first year bowhunting was 2006. I had one treestand that i moved around every few days to spots i "thought" were good. I saw alot of 1.5 year old bucks and does in field at far ranges, and i ended up taking my first deer ever from a ground blind.
1987 Teenager and I was a complete mess. Sleeping in my stand (permanant) opening day Archery season. I glance up and here comes a fork down the trail right at me. I swear I thought it was a dog I had no idea what a deer looked like in the woods. Anyway My release was in my pocket I dug it out cliped it to the string, stood up and when the deer was about 20 yards went to draw back my Darton bow that I now use for Bowfishing and damn near fell out of my stand. My legs went rubber and I was shaking soo bad my arrow was literally tapping the riser. Clang, clang, clang and the deer stood there looking at me. He knew he wasn't in trouble he STOOD THERE. lol I shot over his back and he ran off. I was soo disappointed I wanted to quit the sport. Only difference now is I can hold my excitement where I can make a clean shot. Thanks God. I had to drive around the state parks and get use to seeeing deer close. Thats how I got over the buck fever.
To me, deer seasons are like women. I mean, I'm not going to compare one from 55 years ago to one in 2009. You just got to take each and appreciate it for what it is. Some are better than others but I haven't met one I'd say was bad.
Mr. Mil, not exactly what I was looking for, but you just summed up all of my hunting seasons in that statement. Bravo.
I had no idea what I was doing back in 1992 when I first started hunting. I remember a friend of mine from the highschool football team and I went and got our hunting licenses together. We begged a parent from our school to let us go out on his little farm and hunt next to a pond. I had an old .3030 Winchester lever action rifle and climbed up into a little wooden blind. I wore blue jeans and a big hunting jacket. It was in the mid 20's and within 2 hours I was freezing b/c I didn't know how to layer my clothes. At the 3 hour mark, I thought I caught movement coming out of the woods and got extremely excited. But it was my friend quitting because he was freezing to death. My first few years of hunting continued just like that...wander into the darkness aimlessly searching for a tree to sit up next to with the hope that I would see and kill a deer. I remember going entire seasons not even seeing a deer. I also remember climbing pine trees and hiding out underneath large tree roots to ambush deer. I killed them from those positions even though I really had no ideas what I was doing. It was an adventure each and every hunt. Luckily I was blessed and started learning from my mistakes in the woods and have become considerably more efficient. I still feel like I am a young teenager, filled with the dreams of seeing a monster buck walk through my shooting lane! I LOVE this stuff.
I gun hunted for 2 years before I started bowhunting. Everynight I came from from school and I would see this 9 point buck come through right before dark. This was late December I asked my dad if I could take me brothers bow and hunt him. I bought a tag and went out. I shot him the first night out but didn't find him until the next day. That by far was the easiest hunt I ever had. There was a few years between deer after that but now I tend to plan a lot more, scout harder.
My first year hunting was done so entirely on persimmon and acorn trees with the occasional crop field thrown in.
I got a bow when I was 15 (thats a while ago) I wore a groove in my dad's lawn retrieving arrows from bales of hay. I couldn't believe that arrow could actually kill a deer. I started hunting in a big oak tree on the edge of a clover field. The first deer that came by was a doe fawn. she stopped right next to the tree. I shot her in the back and she went about 150 yds. My bow was set at 35# I hunt a bit different now! I'll never forget that first one though.
First season I was 14 (1998). I had gun hunted the first two seasons, and decided to get into bowhunting after watching a friend of mine shoot his bow at our club the previous fall (weird motivation I know). My dad didn't bow hunt, but he bought me a bow (he has always supported me in anything and everything outdoors when I was kid), and two climbers, and off I went on my own. I, like many first timers, wandered around looking for "sign." I hunted field edges mostly, but I ended up having about three shot opps on NICE bucks (ironic since I haven't repeated this feat since), but something always went wrong, and it was usually just dumb mistakes). I didn't get my first until I was 17. I've changed a lot in the past 10 years, and especially in the past two. I'm scouting more, hunting smarter, paying attention to scent, learning to read topo's for locating hidden gems that I may overlook otherwise. My deer sightings have about tripled, and although I still make occasional dumb mistakes, they happen much less than they did 10 years ago.
I didn't own a tree stand so I would hunt out of trees I could climb and then stand in - literally. Also spent a lot of time still hunting very thick cover. Rough start, but some good guidance and it eventually turned around. Funny to think back on it now though. Could never understand why I never saw a lot of deer.
When I first started out bowhunting, myself and two good friends thought we were gonna kill us some deer. That may not be exactly how it unfolded. We had no idea what we were doing, but we tried like hell. For the first 5-6yrs I shot a bow, I never shot the BH's because they were too expensive, and I wondered why I missed all the damned time!!! :huh: :huh: Once I realized there was a little more to it, I was off to GA in the Army, and I saw only one deer the whole time down there that I would have considered shooting. Finally home, I hunted very little in 2000, and in 2001, I arrowed my first deer, over 10yrs after I started. I learned a lot of hard-luck lessons along the way, missed some GREAT opportunities, froze up on a few shots, but it seemed like once I figured it all out, it all sort of came together. We started out washing our clothes in TIDE detergent, trying to hunt with a bow the same way we did with guns, but it just ain't the same. Once I learned a little more about technique, we placed a few stands, scouted a little, learned about scent control, the wind, etc, and became more successful. None of the 3 of us had a Dad that hunted with a bow, so we were "Novices" for a LONG time. Since that first kill, things came together, and I put two more on the ground that first season, tagging out. The following season I followed suit 2 of 3, ending that season with a muzzleloader kill, and from that day forward, I have not hunted deer with a gun/MZL again. I just don't get the same "THRILL" from it. Now it's an OBSESSION, that goes dormant 8 months out of the year, but each time I'm shooting my bows, there is that thought in the back of my head that each shot must be well-placed because there could be an animal at the business end of that arrow in the near future. I'm not going to claim to be an archer, just a hunter who uses a bow.
