Evolution of a Bow Hunter: Part 4.

The year of disappointment would be the title of 2009.  But I guess there was some good that came out of it when I look back.  It started in the spring when I was looking for new arrows for my crossbow.  Evidently Barnett and other manufacturers decided not to make 16 inch arrows anymore. My Barnett crossbow only shoots 16 inch.  I had about six left from last year but after a summer of shooting 3-D targets down at the tree farm you eventually lose some.  Especially when shooting at the antelope that was at 55 yards. 

 

Shooting 3-D targets at the tree farm.

After searching the internets for people who make custom crossbow bolts/arrows, I finally found a guy in West Virginia who makes stuff for my things.  His web site looked pretty legit and was reasonably priced.  The only problem was that he is used to making 20 inch instead of 16 inch.  It is more complicated than just cutting 4 inches off.  I found out you need to check the balance of the arrow.  It is literally rocket science, not kidding.  So he had me send him an arrow that I liked and he would match it.  I believe it only took a couple of weeks and they were in the mail.  They were the best arrows I've ever shot.

               

The arrows came the Thursday before bow season started.  Not much time to practice and get used to them, but I managed to shoot them so I was comfortable out to 40 yards.

The first Saturday of the season that year my friend Lucas shot a 4x4 in velvet down in the Kathryn Valley. Lucas had been seeing a lot of big deer down there on his trail camera.  And I mean a lot, there was a couple of 5 x 5's and numerous 4x4's.  So we decided I should try it out.  After I obtained permission to hunt down there we decided to check it out and see how bad it would be for me to get down there.  It is right along the Spring Creek that comes from Clausen Springs and runs into the Sheyenne River.  Of course the spot we wanted to hunt was not close to the road.  It was probably 200 yards downhill through two rock ravines and a bean field.  Getting down there wasn't bad, it was the getting back up the hill.  Sometimes gravity sucks. The hunt was pretty uneventful.  We only had a couple of basket bucks and some does come by.  But this is when the adventure started.  

It was darker than the ace of spades and of course we did not bring our flashlights.  They were in the shaggin wagon 200 yards away.  About halfway through the bean field my chair started to give out.  I would go for about 10 feet then it was just die.  So he got behind me and pushed.  It doesn't really work very well trying to push something uphill especially when myself and the chair weigh around 400 pounds.  After about a half-hour of this, we decided to drive the van down to us.  The only problem is tractors are about the only things that go down and up this sidehill.  Just like me, the shaggin wagon came down easy but going up was another story.  We eventually did make it as I am here to tell the story, after giving her the onion a couple times going across the rock ravines.  I'm sure the bottom of the van was nice and shiny after that little episode. Geesh. I never hunted there again. In fact, Don B and I baited down there another time and my wheelchair overheated again going up the hill and he had to push. That was the last straw.

A couple years before this one, around my main hunting spot the deer numbers had been down a bit.  But this year they seemed to be on the rebound.  My new trail cam was getting quite a few pictures every day.  Surprisingly also some big ones, at least they were big for me.  Most of the big ones were a half-mile away in another shelterbelt.  A friend of mine had a trail cam in there and he was getting a lot of good bucks coming in.  Eventually he shot a 4 x 5 out of Herman's belt.

I probably sat around 20 times north of the house and saw deer every time.  But nothing to get too excited about early in the season.  For some reason around here they are nocturnal most of the time.  The belt I hunt in is what you call a travel corridor.  This should be good for bowhunting but not so good when they come around in the dark.  Especially the bucks, most of them on the trail camera were coming by around midnight.  I've decided that the only good time to hunt around here is during the rut when the bucks are looking for love in all the wrong places.  They tend to let down their guard when their twigs and berries get the best of them.

Now comes the first disappointing part of my hunting season.  Cody wanted me to hunt on a spot he has been hunting all fall because there were big bucks.  And when he says there are big bucks, you can guarantee that they are big.  He had been getting pictures of three big 4x4's and one monster 5 x 5.  All four of these deer would be a trophy for anyone bowhunting. 

I finally decided to go over there and try it out a couple of days before rifle season.  Looking back on it now I should've been there all season long.  The only problem is getting in and out of the spot, which is about 10 miles away from the house.  I believe I was there on the Tuesday night for the first time, just three days before rifle season.  Cody helped set me up that first night in a little tree grove above the Maple River and right beside a soybean field and corn field. Just like clockwork the bucks started coming out about a half hour before sunset.  For some reason the bucks were still in their bachelor group. Usually this close to rut they are on their own by now. The three 4x4's came out in front me around 100 yards and started making their way towards me.  When they were in shooting range I noticed Mr. Big bringing up the rear.  He was big, probably the biggest I have ever seen while hunting.  The only problem was that now I had eight eyes looking around and it was only a matter of time before one of them got spooked.  After about 15 minutes one of the 4x4's noticed that I shouldn't be there and started to stomp and snort, which is never good.  Then in a blink of an eye all I could see was white flags running away.  But at least I knew they were there and decided to go back the next day.

The next day I got there a little earlier just to make sure I didn't spook anything out on the way in.  This night there were some does that came by early and got chased away by some turks.  Then I saw the turkeys go up to roost, which is one of the loudest things you can hear in the woods.  They are not the most graceful flyers.  After all of the commotion I saw the biggest of the 4x4's coming right towards me.  He was only about 20 yards away and didn't notice me so I decided to wait to see if Mr. Big would show.  He never did though and it was starting to get dark.  After a little conversation I had in my head about whether I should shoot him or not I decided I would take the shot.  I based it on rifle season starting in a couple of days and the spot gets hit pretty hard.  The only problem was he was quartering towards me and that is not the shot you want to take but I did anyway.  My arrow went into his front right shoulder and angled back to his left rib cage.  When he turned away and ran I could see my fletching sticking out and it looked like there was about 8 inches of the arrow in him.  I had a gut feeling right away that this wasn't going to turn out good.

After about an hour Cody and his dad Keith came out to help look for the deer with my dad.  They searched for about two hours that night.  There would be a good blood trail for a while and that it would disappear.  Then they would find it again and it would disappear again.  We decided to back out and come back in the morning.  The next morning Keith, Trauty and Tito went back to pick up the blood trail in the daylight.  They tracked for a couple of hours and noticed that he crossed the river.  They drove around to the other side and found the arrow, which had blood about halfway up. They noticed a couple of the blood puddles, hunks of tissue that looked like parts of lung.  There was also bubbles in the blood which is always a good sign, but evidently not this time.  The last speck of blood they found was in the middle of a bean field about a half-mile away from where I shot him.  But we did not give up.  That afternoon Tito went back out with a dog and tried to pick up the scent again, but even this did not work.  There is no worse feeling for a bow hunter then not being able to find your deer that you have shot.  I was sick about it for about, well hell I'm still sick about it.  I even punished myself, I did not go bow hunting for the rest of the season. The buck was found the next spring by Cody and some friends coincidentally just north of The Springs. Evidently he doubled back and died within 100 yards of where I was sitting.

Like I said before this was the year of disappointment and here comes the doozy of them all.  All fall I've been working on a rifle mount that adapts to my chair.  Finally in September we got it dialed in pretty good.  With help from Don B. who made the trigger after collaboration of minds (story of trigger). There was also a lot of trigger time with the old Ruger .22 with Tito, just to help get used to shooting a rifle.  Earlier that summer I bought a Remington Model 7400 .243 Semi-Automatic rifle for deer/coyote/antelope.  It took quite a while to get the hang of shooting a rifle because I hadn't done it for a while.  We also had trouble with the rifle not grouping.  After quite a bit of trial and error we found out it was the rings on the scope.  But we got it dialed in a week into rifle season.  For some reason I was busy the second weekend of rifle season so I only had three days to hunt.  And wouldn't you know it, I only needed one day to screw something up.

 

Shooting the 243 with the new adaptive trigger.

I knew there were bucks around the farm so I decided to hunt right here instead of going anywhere else.  I had my mom set me up the first night.  For where I set up the longest shot should be around 150 yards.  It is in between two shelter belts with a field in between, that year it was soybeans.  I was only sitting for about half an hour when I first saw the does starting to come out of the belt and starting to feed.  I believe there were around 11 of them.  All of a sudden I noticed some commotion in the belt and it had to be a buck.  It was real quiet that night and there was no wind.  Pretty soon I could hear him grunting and rubbing down some trees.  Then he appeared out of the belt with his head held high.  He was a big 5 x 5 with bright white antlers.  I can still see him when I close my eyes.  Anyway I got lined up on him and pulled the trigger and nothing happened.  I was perplexed.  Just the day before I shot around 10 times and the trigger worked every time. 

The buck was chasing some does and getting closer around 120 yards.  This was when he gave me another shot, so I pulled back on the trigger again and nothing happened.  At this time I was starting to get pissed.  I started looking over the rifle and trigger and it seemed like everything was good, but evidently not.  He went back into the belt and I was cussing myself wondering what the heck was going on.  Then he came out and gave me another shot around 100 yards.  I took my time and pulled back on the trigger and nothing happened again.  Don't they say bad things come in threes?  By this time it was getting dark so I decided to go back to the house.  I called up Don B. and he came out to check out the rifle.  He gave it a good cleaning and the only thing we could figure was that the action did not shut all the way for some reason.  I went out the next two days with Ham hoping the buck would come back but he never did.  I only saw one deer the next two days and that was on Sunday about 30 seconds before legal shooting hours were over and of course it was a doe.

I need to backtrack a little.  In the fall of 2009 I went hunting out west for the first time, chasing speed goats a.k.a. antelope a.k.a. pronghorn.  Friends of mine had been putting in for rifle tags in a unit down by New England for the last five or so years.  They had been asking me for a while if I wanted to go out with them, but I wanted to wait until I knew I had my rifle set up working.  It didn't matter though because I did not draw a tag but at least it gave me motivation to get the rifle mount working.  My friends usually make it a bow hunt that turns into a rifle hunt. They usually bow hunt the last two or three days of the bow season and then switch to rifle for that season.

I believe my mom and I got out there the Tuesday before rifle season.  A couple guys got there earlier and did some scouting in the area.  That night we all met up in New England and talked strategy.  During the scouting they found a couple herds that numbered around 30 animals.  When we figured out where they were located, we invited over a couple of the local landowners for supper in the trailer house that my friends had been renting.  The two guys that help us get on land, look forward to the group coming out there every year just for the meals and good times.  I believe we had a paddlefish fry the first night, reuben sandwiches the second night, lasagna the third night and I do not recall the other nights.  Those guys get a kick out of my friends, they can't believe that they actually want to try to shoot an antelope with a bow.  Anyway, during the meal we found out that we could get on the land where the antelope were.  We decided that I would set up in a portable blind in an alfalfa field that still had round bales in the field.

The next afternoon I drove down from Dickinson where I was staying and met the guys at the field.  I believe I was set up by 3 p.m. and decided that I would sit by myself with a decoy placed at about 30 yards away.  It was a pretty nice day to start out.  It was around 50° with a little wind out of the northwest.  After sitting for about a half hour I could see one herd to the southwest.  They were in between me and a big butte in the distance.  They were around 300 yards away.  I could tell they could see the decoy but they had no interest at all.  There was another group to the east, this was a group of just three antelope. Probably all bucks. They were across the road from where I was sitting and seemed to meander around aimlessly.  They never came in either. 

Hunting pronghorn is a total different ballgame compared to what I was used to hunting, whitetail. Especially when there is a lot of moisture around and they don't need to congregate at waterholes. They can go anywhere when it is wet, like it was that year.

The coolest thing that I saw was when the pheasants started flying in to the alfalfa.  There were probably 20 bales in the field and every bale had at least two pheasants on it. I'd never seen that many pheasants in one area in my life.  I could have shot a couple roosters that walked right in front of me.  I tried to put a count on them but I had to give up after losing count four or five times. I look a lot smarter than I really am.

The pop-up blind I was in.

Around 6:30 the weather started to change from sunny to cloudy with a cold rain.  The light breeze turned into a gale force wind and now was coming out of the southwest, directly into my face.  Every once in a while there would be a big gust of wind that would spit dirt in my facial region.  During one of these gusts one side of the pop-up blind caved in.  That was really handy. Good times. So I backed my chair into that corner to help support the wall so the whole thing did not collapse on me.  By then I knew my hunt for the night was pretty much over. The antelope had vanished. I don't remember how long I had to wait for the other guys to come and pick me up, but it was long enough.

I later learned that when the rain started the guys decided to go in for some grub in a warm bar in Bowman I believe. You see, they figured I wouldn't want to quit just because of a little weather. I ain't no quitter. They were right. But warm food and a cocktail sounded good when I got loaded into the shaggin wagon.

 

Dustin, myself, Lucas and Kevin.

I believe that night was the first night of snow in the state.  Just some flurries but just some is too much. After the meal and a couple games of poker I went back to Dickinson, looked at the forecast for the next couple days and it was not good.  I woke up the next morning and the wind was out of the west at 20 mph, gusting over 40.  The big American flag out my window looked like it had been starched.  I decided I wasn't going to hunt that day.  Hopefully the next day would be better.  The other guys didn't do much hunting either that day.  They ended up in Bowman.  And there's only about one thing you can do in Bowman.  The next day was even worse than the day before.  I didn't go out hunting again on the trip.  I had to leave on Thursday and didn't really want to bow hunt during rifle season.  Nobody got one with their bow that week.  But they were five for five in filling their rifle tags. 

All in all it was a great trip and I hope to get back there again with a rifle tag. I for sure got the itch to hunt the wide open spaces of western North Dakota during that hunt. Pronghorn are just neat critters and their meat is some of the best table fare there is. It doesn't suck. Please do yourself a favor, take care of the meat immediately and cook it medium rare.

That brings me to the 2010 spring turkey season.  Don B. and I both drew tags and decided that we would try and hunt together.  I don't believe he had ever been turkey hunting with a bow before.  I had one tag a couple years before but never filled it.  Before the season started a friend of ours Barry, who did some camera work for a local hunting show called, "Wildlife Pursuit," asked me if they could try and film my hunt.  I was all for it.  We just needed to figure out the time and place and we would give it a whirl.  Don B. and I drove around out in the sand hills along the Sheyenne River on a couple scouting trips and spotted quite a few gobblers.  We decided on a spot that we knew we could get permission and just needed to line it up with Barry the camera dude.

It was in the middle of the week when everyone's schedules lined up.  We burned out of Enderlin around 3 p.m. to meet Barry.  On our way down to the hunting spot Barry called us and said get down here in a hurry they are already gobbling.  So we gave it the onion.  When we got down there the turks were "bugling" (inside joke) in every direction.  Barry had all of his camera equipment set up when we got there.  When I was getting out of the van he came running over and said put this on.  It was a Wildlife Pursuit hat.  He filmed me getting my crossbow attached to my chair and getting into the blind.  Now we needed to figure out how to fit three guys and two cameras in one blind. This was happening while turkeys were bugling all over.  After we figured everything out we started to call.  Actually Don B. was our designated caller. He knows how to lure in the ladies. It is more like seducing.

After about four minutes of calling we heard a couple of gobblers bugling that were starting to head our way.  The two toms were headed right towards our decoys which consisted of a couple of hens and one jake that was riding a hen.  They were coming in directly to our left and my only shot was straight in front of us.  They got so close that we could hear them walking in the dry grass beside us.  We could even hear them puff themselves up.  The only way we could see them was through the viewfinder on the camera.  They were only a couple feet away.  They hadn't gobbled for a while but we could still hear them walking around but they would not go in front of the blind to the decoys.  I just told myself that they are going to gobble pretty soon and to not jump or get startled.  Kind of like when a rooster gets up at your feet while walking through tall CRP.  I didn't want to look like a fool in front of the camera because one of the video cameras was fixed on me the whole time. All of a sudden wouldn't you know it, they both bugled at the same time, both of my arms went up and my head snapped back.  Then we all got the giggles but the turks did not seem to mind.  After little while they started to go back from where they came from. Don tried seducing them again, they would answer but they would not turn around.

We didn't have to wait long for some more turks to come by.  This time it was three jakes.  Barry asked me while we were getting set up what I wanted to shoot, a tom or a jake.  I said whatever strolls by.  The three jakes didn't take long to come into the decoys.  They actually circled the decoys.  The only problem was when I had a shot Barry could not see because of the diagonal frame on the blind.  And when he could see them I could not get a shot.  I was holding on the biggest bird waiting for Barry to give me the OK.  Finally he gave me the go-ahead and I shot and I missed.  I shot low.  It looked like I might have shot one of the legs.  They flew away giving us some time to cock the crossbow again.  After some discussion on how the heck I missed the shot we decided to keep calling.  It did not take long to get a response.  This time there were three different big toms.  We played with them for quite a while but they would not come in either.  By this time it was getting pretty dark and Don B. decided he had enough time to try and spot and stalk before the daylight ran out.  He never got a shot at them but when he and Barry were going through the trees they spooked up about 100 deer and 15 to 20 turkeys.  That was quite a sight to see. There was game running everywhere. 

But the hunt was not over yet.  When Don B. was on his way back to the shaggin wagon he saw a couple jakes and thought maybe one was the one that I wounded.  One of them ran and the other just stood there so he decided to take a shot with his bow.  It was a 55 yard shot but we practice that distance all of the time.  After he let the arrow go he heard a big crack and he thought he must've missed.  He went down to check his arrow and the big crack was when it hit a dried out log.  But when he grabbed the arrow he felt blood and then he noticed some feathers strewn around.  Anyway, his spring turkey hunting was over but it was for a good reason. He cleaned up my miss. Thanks.

I went out a couple more times by myself.  Those times I was hunting along the Maple River east of Enderlin.  I always saw or at least heard some birds but nothing ever came in.  I think I educated quite a few birds that spring.  The last day of the season we drove around east of Anslem in the sand hills but we did not see a single bird.  So turkey tag soup was on the menu for 2010. Turkeys and me do not get along.

The summer of 2010 was filled with many shenanigans as usual. There was a lot of baseball, shooting 3-D targets and a little fishing.  I hadn't been fishing for at least a couple years.  There were a lot of different reasons why.  The main reason was most of my buddies that I used to go fishing with had now moved on with their lives and just don't have the time.  The biggest reason why I hadn't is because since I had gotten my last wheelchair, I hadn't gotten around rigging up the new fishing rod holder to the chair.  But after some friendly persuasion from Big J a.k.a. bullheadmaster, I started working on it.  I drew up some plans that I thought might work and gave them to Don B. to engineer the holder.  A couple of days later it was done.

               

These fishes were taken in the Minnesota gill hole.

I only went out a couple of times fishing over the summer.  I planned on doing a lot more but there always seemed to be something going on or somewhere I needed to be for that to happen.  The first time I tried my new rod holder out was at the Casselton Reservoir with Big J.  We met there one fine afternoon and decided to give it a whirl.  The fishing rig worked really well.  I even got to show him how I do my patented double hook set.  We caught quite a few fish that day, nothing huge but it didn't matter, all that I cared was that I was fishing again.  I even caught a good buzz that day. We met some of the locals and ended up at Bowtech's garage, Jason is his name. That was neat.

 

This is the from 2nd Annual Fishingbuddy Bullhead tournament.

The second time I went fishing during that summer was for the First Annual Fishingbuddy Bullhead Tournament.  It was held on a Sunday afternoon at the Sheyenne Diversion in West Fargo.  There were about a dozen fishingbuddy members that showed up.  The fishing wasn't that good but the company and friendships made were worth battling the 90° heat and 30 mile an hour winds. The night before Tyler a.k.a. moosehunter09, his wife and I pre-fished at O'Kelly's. There was karaoke. I dropped the mic like it was hot. Stuff and things happened. I am not saying, but I am saying this could be why I almost overheated and stroked out on the shores of the Sheyenne.

Most of my adventures after this blog entry are in my blog somewhere. I might add a couple more stories to this but then again, maybe not so much.

Thanks for reading, Clint.