Bow Hunting vs. Gun Hunting

               

               A lot of people might think that there are not many differences between gun hunting and bow hunting deer.  There are a wide range of differences between the two.  Starting with the earlier season, bow hunting starts in Wisconsin around mid September.  Bow hunting typically last around three months where as gun hunting is only a nine day season starting on a Saturday and ending the following Sunday with thanksgiving in between.  With bow hunting you must be a different kind of hunter then when you are gun hunting.  The bow hunter needs to have a much sharper set of skills including patients, stealth, the ability to disguise oneself, the understanding of the deer’s mating seasons, being able to compose yourself at close range with these animals.  You need to remember that the woods is their home not yours.  If I was to sneak into your house and stand in the corner of your living room would you see me.  Or if I was to hide behind a curtain would you sense something out of place and grow cautious.  Better yet, if it was dark and I was a smoker and you were not, would you smell the cigarette stench in your house and realize you’re not alone.  This is what I believe happens every you are approached by a deer In the woods.  I can’t count how many times I have been picked out by a deer’s sense of smell while I was up in a tree, in full camouflage, not making a movement or a sound.

                 This doe approached me from a long distance away and when she reached the peak of the hill I was set up on she stopped at about thirty-five yards and put her tail up as a warning.  Her head was pointed ninety degrees away from me when she began to sniff.  With every sniff her nose was directed closer to me.  Finally her nose stopped her precisely on top of me when she let her eyes guide her from there to easily spot me.  A gun hunter can shoot at a deer from a great distance away.  It is much less stressful to shoot at a deer through a scope over one hundred yards away and if you don’t believe me, try it from twenty.  This is not to say that you won’t get any closer to a deer during gun hunting.  When gun hunting, the deer are being shot at non stop so they tend to be more skittish and always on the move.  Bow hunting is different.  There are no loud gun blasts echoing through the sky at first light.  You get to witness the deer in their natural habitat and you yourself need to find a way to blend in.  This usually requires more patients as well. 

               Gun hunters often form drives where you get together and drive the woods hoping to flush out a deer for a shot.  When drive aren’t happening you sit in the woods as you do during bow season but the deer tend to herd up and move a lot more due to the shooting.   The best time to witness the deer during their mating season will vary from year to year but in general, you will witness the peak of this activity in the late bow season.  For myself, what makes Bow Hunting much harder, and more rewarding then gun hunting is the level of difficulty.  It’s about trying to prove that I am the superior being.  It is not easy for a human to go back into its primal state and try to get the best of nature.  This also requires one to have the utmost respect for mother nature as well.  I feel that bow hunting is a much more respectful way to harvest  a deer.  Anyone who has played a video game can put the cross hairs on a target and squeeze a trigger.  You will feel more reward besting a deer face.  From close range a deer is able to use its weapons of sight and smell therefore the playing field is more even.  Very few people are capable of sitting out in the weather for five plus hours and remain unnoticed by the wildlife.  Even if you are not a hunter, I challenge you to sit in a secluded woods  and try to get a deer to walk past you within thirty yards.  In that thirty yards you must also find the opportunity to stand up, face that deer, raise a weapon or just your hands, and find a clear vital shot on that animal without alarming it to your presence.  The rush of adrenaline alone is paralyzing and hard to overcome.  The amount of hormones that get released makes your heart beat so hard and rapid it almost hurts.  You may even begin to shake uncontrollably which can almost make you feel moments of insecurity.  When adrenaline take over you tend to forget what has even happened because it seemed to happen so fast.  I have had a half of an hour go by and it felt like five minutes.  When you finally level off after this experience, it really makes you appreciate being able to overcome such a strong emotional and physical response.   This is a connection I feel when I bow hunt and cannot be matched by gun hunting.  

Process Analysis

                          How to be a Crack Shot with a Bow

                There are many steps and concepts involved in being a crack shot with your bow.  First and foremost would be to find a bow that fits your body size accordingly.  Draw Length is important to being able to properly pull back, find your anchor point and steady your arms for a shot.  If you have a draw length too long, the string will end up anchored behind your jaw bone or heaven forbid your ear and surely rake the string right across your face.  Another idea to consider would be the weight of the bow in general.  If the bow feels too heavy for you then you will be opt to feel fatigue much sooner and find it hard to hold the bow steady.  Also, don’t try to act like a tough guy and wrench the poundage of the bow too high.  With a bow, pounds are rated as the weight in resistance to pull the string back.  Start off at a lower, more comfortable pound setting and raise it over time as your muscles build. 

                Next you must decide what type of hardware you wish to add to your bow.  This hardware may include a release, release hoops, peep sight, kisser button, stabilizers, various styles of rests and pin sights.  Some shooters still prefer to pull back a bow with their fingers but the modern day hunter/archer prefers a release and a small nylon hoop to clip into. Peep sights and kisser buttons are devises that assist you in maintaining the same anchor point when aiming with your pin sights at a target on every shot.  Stabilizers promote good balance of the bow and most have shock absorbers on the ends to reduce recoil when the string is propelled forward.  Another tool I have found useful is a wrist strap.  This will allow you to keep your hand/wrist stable and consistent during the shot.  Arrows of course are a must but as long as you are shooting the same size weight and length arrow, they should have nothing to do with your ability to shoot.

                Now that we have the equipment under control it’s time to put you in the shoes of an archer.  For the beginner, I would recommend setting a target at 15 yards.  It’s time to pop that cherry and lob some arrows at the target to get your 15 yard pin sighted in.  For this exercise we will be shooting a compound bow with a release, peep sight, pin sights and a drop away rest.  First you will stand on the 15 yard line.  If you are right handed, put your  left foot on the 15 yard line and point your left shoulder.  Hold the bow in your left hand and you will end up pulling the string back with your right hand.  Be sure to keep a shoulder width wide stance.  Click your arrow into the string in the designated knocking area right between the two ends of the hoop that are tied to the string.  Make sure your arrow is located in the right place on top of the arrow rest.  Next you will clip your release, which is already strapped to your hand, to the hoop which is attached to your bow string.  Raise the bow and point it in the direction of the target.  Slowly ease back the string until the bow has been full drawn back.  In a compound bow you will be able to feel the cams on the bow roll back and a great deal of tension will be let off of the string making it much easier to hold the bow back when fully drawn. 

                Now that the bow is drawn back, try to find a comfortable grip on the bows handle.  Be sure not to grip the stock too tight or twist it in your palms.  This would cause the arrow to travel in an undesirable path and direction.  The key to a good grip is to focus any force the stock has on your hand in the direction of the target.  Some professional archers make the “ok” symbol with their hand, only gripping the handle with their thumb and pointer finger which in turn, allows the bow to tip forward upon release of the string.  The other key factor in good shooting is a consistent anchor point.  This is where the peep sight comes in handy.  The peep sight is a small plastic ring stuck inside the string as a focal point for you.  Bring the string close enough to your face so you can look through this ring and find your pin sights at the other end of your bow.  When you have matched the pin in the center of this peep sight hole and the pin dot is on the desired area of the target, you are ready to shoot!  When you squeeze the trigger on the release, try not to flinch.  Follow through with your shot.  This means keeping your stance and the bow upright as if you were still holding back the string.  Do not break your initial pose until the arrow has connected with your target.  Repeat this process many times until you see a good grouping pattern with all of your shots.  If you shoot 4 arrows at the target and all 4 arrows are shooting high and to the right, move your pin sight up and to the right to adjust the sight accordingly.  This easy process of adjusting your bow sights is called following your arrow.  Using this process and possibly having a friend critique your shooting will slowly but surely turn you into a crack shot. 

Fall Bow Hunting

                There isn’t a more exhilarating adventure for a hunter then a late Fall Bow Hunt.  Bow hunting Whitetail Deer is not a simple nor inexpensive hobby either.  There are many concepts to be grasped through experience and equipment to purchase that goes along with it.  Late Fall for Whitetail Deer means the deer are in Rut, or their mating season.  This means that the bucks are sexually aggressive and will respond well to calls and scents.  One thing my father and I liked to use is Tinks #69 doe in rut buck lure.  This is a little brown glass bottle filled with estrus gland fluid naturally produced by the does when they go into heat.  On the opposite end, the bucks produce a secretion from a gland called the tarsal gland which is located in two locations; around the mid section of the back legs and between the ears on the skull.  Dad and I put these scents around our tree stands to try to attract the bucks close enough for a shot.  If you want to imitate two bucks fighting one would make use of rattling antlers.  Take a matching set of antlers from a previous years kill and crash the antlers together.  Last year I rattled in one of the nicest ten point bucks I'

ve ever seen in my life.  I first noticed him over one hundred yards away and when he heard me rattle he became angry and ran strait for me.  A more popular form of calling would be the grunt or doe bleat.  The grunt imitates a buck and bleat imitates a doe in heat.  My favorite type of bleat call has always been The Can Call.  It is a small, black, plastic cylinder that fits in your pocket and is a very close imitation of the sound a doe makes.  I have had good success using these.  The grunt call come in many shapes, sizes, and brands.  I have had so many over the years I couldn’t even tell you which one I currently am trying. 

                To hunt whitetails late in the fall has many advantages.  By this time the soft woods like maple and poplar have already lost all of their leaves.  Most of the forest floor is covered with delicate watery vegetation that wilts upon the first frost.  This make your vision in the wood much easier.  Early season I can barely see thirty yards in front of me, but in late fall I can see as far as one hundred yards in any direction.  Deer trails are now much easier to see as well.  The trails are beaten clean of any plant life with nothing but dirt and hoove carvings  in the earth.  Due to the fact that the bucks are chasing the does all night, the tracks are much more congested on these trails and often can tell a story of what happened.  One could notice a set of  buck and doe tracks that was drug over a two foot span suggesting she was slipping as she was trying to run away from the buck that was chasing her down.  Since there has already been a frost or two, the sugar beets we planted in our lower field have turned sweet and the deer will trample through them, replenishing themselves of nutrients and energy lost from endless hours of chasing and mating.  Although they like the sweet sugar beets after a frost, nothing will ever be chosen by a deer over acorns.  Luckily at our land you can’t hardly take a single step through the woods without crunching and popping on one of those suckers.  Believe it or not, the deer also prefer the acorns of a white oak over a red oak.  Don’t ask me why.  Its and old saying that seems to have no scientific fact but spend any amount of time in the woods and you will notice the deer spending more time around the whit oaks then the red oaks when milling around for food. 

                My absolute favorite part about late fall hunting is the signs left by the bucks.  I'm talking about scrapes and rubs.  A scrape is an exposed dirt patch where a buck he leaves his scat, urine, and tarsal gland secretions.   He will find a spot, primarily on a field edge and under a low hanging tree branch, where he will scrape away the grass and leaves leaving a roundish dirt spot.  Consider a scrape to be like facebook, mypace and match.com for a buck.  His plan is to come back minimally every twenty-four hours or so to check and see if a doe has visited his scrape and left her scent or “phone number”.  If so, the buck will spend  time trying to locate this doe to mate.  Usually the buck will snap the low hanging branches almost as if hes flagging the spot in case he loses it.  Another action performed by a buck would be a rub.  This is when a buck rubs his antlers on  smaller trees ripping the bark from them.  This is his way of marking his territory and leaving his tarsal gland scent in an area he feels is ruled by him.

                All of these concepts are fairly easy to understand.  Most of the signs that I have talked about are fairly easy to identify if one was to spend time in the woods looking for them.  The most rewarding is being able to witness these deer and the behavioral patter changes in them when their reproductive system takes over.  One early sign that the does are going into rut is when you notice the does make their young “leave the nest” so to speak.  The does tend to travel alone once in heat and you will notice a lot of young deer running around alone and clueless, left to figure out the rest on their own.  The bucks will become stupefied with hormones.  Their tempers are very ill and they will become easily agitated by the sound or smell of another buck in their proclaimed area.  The buck’s neck will become swollen and dark.  His tarsal glands will be wet and greasy from constant secretion.  If any two bucks cross paths while you are in stand you will be rewarded with a rarely seen action of the two bucks engaged in a fight.  It is usually a suspenseful primal excitement that one can only achieve by such an act as freezing your butt off in a tree hiding yourself from captivity.  Even if you don’t like hunting, or deer, or nature in general, I don’t think anyone could keep a steady heart beat while two buck fight to what could be their death.  It is a very real and intense experience I wish everyone could share.   Indeed, late fall Bow Hunting is an adventure.