So here we go with the bow hunt.

I haven’t wanted to hunt in a treestand for the longest time, mainly because I thought I didn’t have the patience to sit there in the stand all day. The other reasons being I didn’t have the ability to take time off from work.

Last year Pennsylvania decided to open up the Saturday after Thanksgiving for opening day rifle. I thought that as a great thing, since I could actually go and sit in the treestand and not have to work the next day. That being said I went to the Cabelas and wound up getting all kinds of camo and layers so I could stay warm in the stand. Also had to buy an actual hunting rifle versus what I have.

That day came and went as I think I posted about months back. But my father, uncle, and myself talked about bow season of 2020 while I came up to work on the farm with them and when my uncle had been going out to hunt during bow season that year. We set into place that in 2020 we would be up the week ending 11/14 since that’s when I could get time off.

But then Covid happened.

I hadn’t practiced with my bow in months and throughout the year got reminded by my father to get my bow license. Summer came and my lovely girlfriend wanted to get her own bow too and take the hunting class. We got her a Hoyt Klash and got her set up to practice with me. We would go to the range and shoot for a bit and go home. Some Sundays I’d go myself and shoot almost 50 to 100 arrows at 20 to 30 yards, and sometimes 40. At 20 yards the groupings were tight, but 30 and 40 the groupings got wider and wider.

We took the online Hunters Education class, which is a nice change to do versus the old work book in NJ, and passed the 100 question exam. The lovely girlfriend unfortunately could not take the field day exam because her bow’s poundage is set to 25 pounds versus the necessary 35 pounds that is the minimum in NJ. I get my exam done, told that I’ve got good form good groupings, and the like. I purchase my bow license so I have it for NJ and go to PA a couple weeks later to get my bow license.

Throughout the year though I had been placing trail cams and getting thousands of pictures. Literally thousands from the trail cams. I had been doing research to make our food plots better around the property. I had scouted at least 3 different bucks for hunting week.

And so Saturday 11/7, my father and I come to our property under usually warm weather. We notice that deer movement isn’t happening until afternoon and evening, or really early in the morning when no one can see a thing. For the afternoon sit, I grabbed my crossbow and seat and go underneath my treestand. Bad move. A doe and fawn come up to less than 10 yards from me and the doe snorts and stomps her feet at me. Should have been in the stand. I could see a buck at the bottom of the ravine but that’s 100 yards down hill and I wasn’t about to take the shot.

11/8, Sunday. Can’t hunt on Sundays unless the the state says otherwise.

11/9, Monday. Start the day off in the tree stand and literally see nothing. Go to the blind set up by the barn and the food plot, nothing. Meanwhile my father tells me of all this movement by his food plots but can’t shoot because they are too far.

11/10, Tuesday. Start the day off in the blind. Still nothing, but I can see in the distance deer moving in my father’s food plots again. Now I’m a little frustrated due to the fact he’s seeing more activity than me. I switch to my treestand for the afternoon sit. I had several does walk past me and even a buck 8 point buck but was easily 50 to 80 yards away from me and through trees.

11/11, Wednesday. Rain all day. Saw movement from the house but didn’t try it. My uncle showed up.

11/12, Thursday. Back to the treestand. Now I’m using the Tinks doe scent to try to attract bucks. Around 8am I hear a noise behind me and I turn to see a monster buck following the doe scent I trailed to my stand. I stand up to get a shot ready with the crossbow, but instead of going straight infront of me like I thought he would, he went to the right behind thorn bushes and forsythia. After that I lost him. The temperature was low and the wind started to pick up and was going straight through my body. At 10am, I called it quits for the morning and got out the big one piece coverall. 2:30pm the three of us went back out and I took my compound bow and with a new supply of Tinks scent. Around 4pm a nice 6 point buck walked behind my stand seemly to follow the doe scent, and instead of following the scent towards me, he continued to go towards the house and disappear. After a short while a little spike buck who couldn’t have been more than a year old walked by me. With nothing in sight I got out of the stand after getting the all clear from my dad.

11/12, Friday. Beware this part does get graphic. At 545am, I’m getting ready to out, and it’s cold. My trail cam said it was 22 degrees. I left my coverall and orange vest outside over night and come to find out that they are both frosted towards the head. I put them on thinking to myself that its going to be one hell of a cold day. I get to my treestand and get myself set up and start watching the sun rise and keep hearing little birds moving. Around 8 am, I’m leaning against the tree and I text the lovely girlfriend to have a good day at work. She responds and I send something back, and put my phone away as I’m still leaning against the tree facing the open area to my right. I hear something behind me, and I turn to look and see movement of a buck, a nice 5 point, heading my way and well within my range. To my left there’s a big pine tree and small trees he’s weaving between but he’s obviously following the scent of the tinks I have out. I move to the left and start to get ready for him to come into range. In that moment I decide the best chance I have for him not to notice me pulling back is when he’s behind the pine tree but I need to know what direction he’s going. He goes to the left and I pull back, and get set. This is happening so fast that I don’t remember it at all (as of writing all this on 11/14/2020) if I hit my marks fully or not, whether I fully had my sight on, anything. In the heat of the moment, I was set, I was ready, he got around the tree and stopped for the briefest of seconds and I released. The arrow his above the lungs and in the spine and an artery. His back legs immediately stopped working and he went down. He tried to run down the ridgeline and kept sliding and rolling down the hill. At this point, I’m shaking, I’m trying to text my dad and tell him what happened, and tell him the buck was down the ridge by the spring house. He comes over from his stand and after initially finding the arrow that snapped, we start tracking the blood down the ridge, and boy there was quite a bit. I could see him under a tree by the springhouse and as we get closer we see that he’s stuck in the little creek that the spring had created. My father tells me to go down and see if I need to take another shot to provide mercy to him so he doesn’t suffer. I get close and take a shot. Miss. I get another arrow nocked and shoot again. This time it went through the stomach and into all the vitals and was dead in moments. My father comes down and checks on him before we start to get the buck out of the creek and this buck is heavy. He passes me the two arrows I shot the buck with, one with mud, the other with blood on it. It also doesn’t help we have to pull him out of a stream and up a small hill before getting him to an area we can get him to the house. My father makes the trek to the hangar to get the atv before coming back down and field dressing the deer. We tie the deer to the back of the atv and he drives off. I start my trek up the hill after he goes on the atv. It is easily a 300 foot elevation difference from the bottom of that ravine to the top of the hill. By the time I get to the house, I’m winded and pouring in sweat as my father cleans out the deer. I wash off the knives and arrows while he gets the truck so we can bring the deer to the hangar and have him hang there until we bring him to a butcher. When all said and done, its now 1100am and I’m still soaked in sweat after going almost down to base layer. I go around collecting my trail cams and the blind that I have set up before going to the house and relaxing. Since we are in Pennsylvania, and you get one antler tag per year, my hunt was done. While my father and uncle went out to hunt that night I stayed in and packed all my stuff into my car just to get it out of their way. At dinner that night my dad said that he heard the thwack of the bow being released and almost seconds later he got my text. My uncle looked at him puzzled because my father’s hearing is pretty bad and was surprised he heard it.

11/14, Saturday. Dad and my uncle went out into the cold to hunt. Both times nothing.

11/15, Sunday. We headed home and went to the butcher by my place so that it was local.

To finally have the achievement of hunting a deer, makes things different in a way. I feel like I can sit at the “big boys” table with my father and uncle. With this, I have the experience of going and spending hours waiting for the right one to come around. But now be selective of the ones I shoot, like shoot 8 points or more. But I know if I hunt in NJ if I kill does, I’m getting the meat from them.