As I knocked the homemade river cane arrow my buddy had made from me onto the string of the 1952 Bear recurve I realized this would be a different hunt. I have always wanted to try and take a deer with a recurve, but due to convenience and limited hunting time, I have always taken the compound.
But, this eve was different as I slipped into the damp woods and started covering some ground. Any legal deer would be fine with me and I wasn't going to shoot past 15 yards, so this would be tough. I covered the first part of the property and really didn't come across any real fresh sign, then came upon several diff sets heading the same direction in the muddy path. I followed them and soon came to the valley where I spotted a large doe and 2 smaller ones on a distant hillside, on the adjoining property. They were feeding contently, then got skiddish when a medium sized buck appeared down wind.
After a few min of him playing grab-, they had enough and as luck would have it started my way! I figured they would cross at a common spot and started heading that way to cut them off across the semi-open grassy hillside. I was 1/2 way across the hillside when I saw him, the buck was 75 yards below me and headed right to me. I crouched own in the knee high grass (mixed briars) and laid the recurve over, and tried to hide! After a few minutes I see him coming up the hill to me on a string, oh no, I sure wish I was behind a cedar!
His rack appeared over the tall grass at 15 yards and I readied the bow as he moved through a patch of briars. I couldn't believe he didn't spot me yet and as he cleared the briars I came to full draw, then all hell broke loose. As is often common during this time things went to slow motion. The last 1/2 second before I released his body tensed and he started to lunge. I released the arrow, but he had the 1/2 second advantage and the full bore lunge pulled him out of harms way as the arrow sailed harmlessly past him and into the black hole of the tall grass, never to be seen again.He bounded up the hill and blew 3-4 times and as I sat there smiling wide, I knew the game was over for this eve.
But, WHAT a game it was!
Good luck if you are out and about.
Wess
