My First Bow Hunt

By Larry Taylor

It was opening day of deer season in 1989 (I think). I had been deer hunting with a gun for the four previous seasons and wanted a new challenge. What little I knew about deer hunting then, I learned from my very little knowledgeable buddies and Field and Stream Magazine. So, about two months before hunting season I bought myself a used compound bow. I think the name of it was a Hoyt or something like that. I got myself a dozen arrows and began shooting. They did not have McKenzie Targets then or anything else around here like that so I got a bale of hay and an old pillow and began practicing. I lost three arrows the first day.

I decided it was time to get some help, so I found a man that I work with that had been shooting for two years. He knew everything about bows. I learned my draw length was too long, my arrows were too light, my bow was out of time and I needed a new string. I also found out why that darn bow was leaving a blue streak down my left arm after just only a few shots. I did not really think shooting a bow should be that painful. I also discovered why my back hurt so much after just a little while shooting.

I went to the local bow shop and had my string replaced, my draw weight lowered and the bow timed. I found I really need a peep sight and a little piece of tubing to keep the sight in the same place every time. Within just a week, I had become very knowledgeable about bows. I also bought some heavier arrows for broad heads after I became proficient enough to have the draw weight cranked back up.

I began shooting every day. Ha! Ha! No blue marks. I was getting better. I could hit a spot the size of a coffee cup at 30 yards consistently about two out of 10 times. So I kept practicing from a distance of about 20 & 30 yards.

It was three weeks before deer season opened and I knew I had to get that bow cranked up. Back I went to the shop, had the bow cranked up and timed again. I went back to the house and had to re-set the sights one more time. Man, this new draw weight made a big difference. I did not shoot as much but I did shoot every day.

Finally opening weekend arrived and I was going to hunt deer with a bow. I was strictly a ground hunter then, so I went to the spot where I had killed my first buck; a six point that scored well. The forecast called for rain that day but I went anyway. My buddy said he would go with me and squirrel hunt since he didn’t have a bow. So, off we went. We were in the woods before daylight .We drove my little Chevy Luv truck right down in the middle of a cutover. It was a pretty good road when we drove in to where we were going to hunt. I proceeded to go to my spot and my buddy went on the other side of the mountain so he wouldn’t bump any deer in the area. I knew there were deer in the area because I had seen them in previous scouting trips.

After about a 30 minute walk, I was in my hot spot standing beside an oak tree when the bottom fell out of the sky. It rained buckets. I did manage to get my poncho on before I was soaked to the bone. Ha! I was hunting rain or not. After about 30 minutes of standing there I thought I saw Noah come by in the ark so I decided it was time to go back to the truck; wise decision. I started slowly making my way back and after about 100 yards I thought I was seeing things. There about 10 feet from me lay a buck, looking away from me. I started counting points (that was the wrong thing to do). It had 11 points with about a 13” spread. My hunting instincts took over. I knew in my mind I could shoot this buck. I drew my bow, centered my 20 yard pin on his left shoulder, telling myself to calm down, and released. The arrow went right over his back. He never moved or turned his head. I really began shaking then. I got another arrow, knocked it and put my 20 yard pin on his shoulder. I aimed a little lower this time and released. D*** it went right over his back again. My hunting buddy forgot to tell me that at that distance to use the 40 yard pin. This time the buck jumped up and faced me. I thought he was going to charge me and I did not have time to knock another arrow; not that it would have done any good.

The buck decided it was time to go to the other side of the mountain. I could have jumped on that buck with my hunting knife and took him out before he knew what stuck him, but who would have guessed that I would have been that close to a buck with a bow. I finally quit shaking enough to realize that I had my first encounter with a deer using a bow. Man did I have a story for my hunting buddy when I got back to the truck. He is not cutting my shirt tail off for missing a deer; not without a fight first.

Did I mention it was raining buckets and we drove “down” into the clear-cut? Well, I managed to make it to my truck and to no surprise my hunting buddy was already there. He did not have rain gear on either. I was wandering why he was not inside the truck. The truck was locked and he had left his key inside. That will teach him. He looked like a drowned rat and twice as mad.

When I got to where I could see up the road to the top of the hill, all I could see was red Georgia mud running down the road. My buddy wanted to know why I had taken so long to get back to the truck when the bottom fell out of the sky. He said, “Anybody with any sense knows you can’t bow hunt in the rain. Feathers get wet and arrows don’t fly right and the deer just lay up when it is raining this hard”. I just laughed and told him he had a lot to learn about this bow hunting and that I really wasn’t that wet. Not as wet as he was anyway. Well, if I had been somewhere else and someone had told me that they had driven that little Luv truck out of that hole under these conditions, I would have called them a liar.

We loaded the truck down with rocks, backed up as far as I could and stomped the gas pedal to the floor. We both bounced our heads off the ceiling of the truck all the way to the top. After we unloaded the rocks and started down the other side (loading and unloading those rocks got my buddy over his mad spell), he wanted to know if I had seen anything. Boy! Did I see anything? After I related the morning events to him he called me a bold faced liar. Well me being a redneck too, the first flat spot I came to I stopped the truck, got out and dared him to open his door. I won’t go into that part of the hunt since this is a long story anyway, but you can figure out what happened. I hope you really enjoyed my story.