Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Bowhunter

I DESPISE THE WORD “harvest” as it pertains to the taking of a big-game animal. We don’t harvest deer, elk, or any other animal. We kill them, shoot them, take them, or whatever. But harvest? No. It’s simply a politically correct “dodge” for the truth about what we do. Occasionally that word will slip through onto these pages, but for the most part we edit it out. However, the word harvest does apply with respect to the way you can collect information from this publication. Put simply, you can harvest knowledge that has been grown and cultivated through the experience of your fellow bowhunters. We learn most of what we know from others, but some of those “others,” and many of you, are self-taught; learning by making mistakes, experimenting, analyzing,…

THE 7X8 BULL WAS less than 30 yards away when he jumped the fence. The thing that saved him was a half-dead pine tree with too many low-growing snags to let me shoot through. I watched the elk turn broadside — still 30 yards away — and let go a deep, three-note bugle. Now he was in the wide open, but completely safe. I did not have permission to bowhunt beyond the five strands of barbed wire, and I tried to calm down as the unsuspecting bull wandered over a ridge. As usual, I was hunting elk on a checkerboard of public and private ground. I found state, BLM, and U.S. Forest Service tracts after careful research. More research gave me contact info for several landowners between the scattered public…

WHEN I REFLECT on the majority of the deer that I have har vested on public land over the past three years, I can attribute most of my success back to a single morning I spent in the stand during the fall of 2017. I didn’t see any deer that morning, but I did watch dozens of wood ducks drop into the timber several hundred yards away. I occa sionally take a morning off of deer hunting to chase ducks, so I decided to investigate the spot for a future hunt. While I never did kill any ducks out of that particular hole, I did locate something that greatly impacted the way that I target whitetails: A beaver dam I had previously heard about sitting near beaver dams when bow…

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had those grinding, incredibly tough hunting seasons that leave the foul taste of tag soup in our mouths. Worse yet, we probably know a few annoying guys who seem to get it done on big bucks year after year despite our struggles, and secretly wonder, “What are they doing differently?” Well, after interviewing some of the best whitetail hunters around, the answer seems quite clear: The devil is indeed in the details, and it’s the difference between us telling about “close calls” and putting bucks on the wall. So, here’s our experts’ “Top Six” overlooked details to help you put the devil on notice and a big whitetail buck on your tailgate this season. DEVILISH DETAIL #1: UNDERESTIMATING A BUCK’S SNIFFER Although most hunters…

THANKS FOR THE ADVICE Dear Bowhunter , I recently read Technical Editor Joe Bell’s response to a reader’s question about bino systems in Ask Bowhunter (July 2020 issue) and I enjoyed it immensely. I have followed Mr. Bell’s career for years — in fact, Joe bought a story from me about a Kodiak Island hunt I did years ago when he was working for another publication. I’m glad to see he landed in a good spot with Bowhunter Magazine… I went with the Alaska Guide Classic bino system, because it seemed to be the best fit for my gear. I modified the AGC though, which may interest you. I went to a saddle shop and had them sew leather on the back yoke to make it somewhat stiff. It’s now…

IT’S AMAZING HOW OFTEN a close encounter shakes out in an elk’s favor. My hunting partner, Tyler, and I had been bivy hunting in an over-the-counter unit in Colorado for five days, and every day we had one opportunity to make something happen. We’d had three encounters that were ripe for a shot when other hunters walked in, and we even had a cow and a calf nearly run us over as they beelined it down a hill. When she stopped at 18 yards, I was already thinking about backstraps when she took off again, seconds before my arrow would have been on its way. Pressure from us and other hunters eventually pushed the herd onto nearby private land and out of our lives. Other than the distant bugling, it…

JUST THREE SHORT YEARS AGO, THE RELATIVE LIMITATIONS IN THE ASSORTMENT OF LIGHTWEIGHT, PURPOSE-BUILT GEAR FOR SADDLE HUNTING MEANT LOTS OF DIY-RIGGING, EQUIPMENT-MODIFYING, AND SOLUTIONS-EXPERIMENTING. AND WHEN IT CAME TO PRODUCT ORDERS BEING FULFILLED, MANUFACTURING CONSTRAINTS OFTEN LED TO LENGTHY WAIT TIMES TO GET THE BEST STUFF. WHAT A DIFFERENCE 36 MONTHS MAKES… Today we have lots of choices in quality, comfortable saddles, from functional value-oriented models to the extremes of luxury and customization in some feature-rich versions. Diverse options, from the lightweight minimalist to the spacious, abound in platform choices — and there are more creative, premium stick options now than I ever could have imagined (let’s hope in high enough quantities to prevent them from becoming precious commodities again this fall!). And don’t even get me started on…

The lead antelope hesitated at 30 yards and stroked his horns on a cholla cactus — an early sign of the rut. His mature buddy was facing away at 35 yards. Slowly, he turned and followed his smaller rival. He stopped broadside just past 32 yards, looked at the blind, and then started to walk away. I locked my eyes on a spot behind his front leg, my longbow came back smoothly, and without a conscious decision the string slid from my fingers. Antelope are a one-of-a-kind animal. There are five species of deer, and five recognized species of caribou, but only one antelope native to North America. Hunting them is always a joy, as their season starts prior to the opening day of deer and elk in Colorado. Most…

There is no room in your house more sacred, guarded, or personal than your bedroom You expect to be safe and relaxed there without interruption. Although elk don’t express themselves quite so eloquently, they do count on the same attributes of a bedroom setting as we do. It’s the one place they settle to dismiss their wandering lifestyle of moving between grazing areas and dodging hunters like you and me If you can uncover bedroom qualities in your elk-hunting area, it’s the ideal place to plan an ambush by either waiting at the bedroom door, or invading the boudoir for a surprise meeting. That’s where I found myself on a recent elk hunt in a general Montana unit known for some of the lowest archery success rates in the state…

Let me take you back to the day Sleepy got his name. It was September 17, 2016; a blue-sky evening. A cool breeze was hitting my cameraman and me in the face as we waited for a big muley buck to appear from his daytime hideout. He showed up along a fenceline an hour before sunset, and a single bound carried him over, barely ticking his hooves on the top wire. He glided to a stop in the middle of an alfalfa field where he began to graze. As I begged the muley hunting gods to send the buck my way, I watched as his knees buckled; his chest hit the ground, followed by his rear, and then he bedded right in front of us. Relaxed and chewing his cud,…

As the enraged bull charged toward me, leaving the cover of timber behind, I readied my bow. Crouching low behind a small rock pile, many thoughts raced through my mind. I thought of the Sheepeater. Had he hunted this ridge? How far could he shoot, and how close would he let this bull get? What would he think, seeing me here, bow in hand, all these years later? An amazing find several days earlier started this journey. Upon reaching the top of the ridge, after an exhausting two-hour hike, I paused to recover when something in front of me came into focus. “Craig, did you see this tree?’” I asked my hunting buddy. It was old. Much older than its neighbors. Its roots had been unearthed through countless years of…

The 6x6 broke away from the large group of elk and started in our direction. Cameraman Jim Thompson and I were hiding in the shadows above the dry creekbed in hopes of ambush ing an elk headed to wallow. The bull continued in our direc tion, on course to walk by at less than 15 yards. Closing in, he veered off, crossing the dry drainage. I ranged him at 40 yards, but he had no intentions of stopping. I let out a soft mew with my mouth, stopping the bull in his track as I hit full draw. Everything was perfect, until the ar row impacted the bull with a loud crack and little penetration. Months of preparation had led up to the very moment my arrow lodged in the…

I mean, it obviously beats the alternative. No matter how many aches or pains show up in the joints, we all want to live to see another day. And generally speaking, it isn’t hard to get older. It just happens. Of course, there are a lot of funny old sayings about aging. Like, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself,” or “Old bowhunters (or fishermen, or insert whatever fits) never die; they just smell that way.” Or how about, “Getting old ain’t for sissies!” Anyway, sometimes we try to joke about death and getting old until it gets too close. Then it isn’t funny anymore. In 2019, three people that were a big part of my bowhunting life…

QUESTION I’ve been considering going to a lighted nock, but I’m wondering about the pros and cons and if the nocks are worth the expense. What is your advice? T. Heltegen, via e-mail ANSWER Thanks for your e-mail question. The answer is, yes, lighted nocks are worth the investment. In fact, I recently changed my arrow-building philosophy because of the effectiveness of lighted nocks. For years, I used bright-colored Bohning vanes and wraps on my arrow shafts for two reasons. One, the wraps enhance the adhesion of my Heat vanes, which I put on with a three-degree helical orientation. Second, the bright color helped me, and the television camera, track the flight and the impact of my arrow. That is very important, especially with today’s fast arrows. The downside of…