My mind wandered recently on a late-season hunt, a late-season freezing hunt. I was concerned with the odd decision to hunt with a recurve, not only on such a brutally cold day, but all season in general. A few hundred yards away a buck was browsing his way toward me on the frozen ridge we happened to share. I didn’t know he was there yet though, nor was he aware of me, but he soon would be. I sat patiently and confidently, having read the woods and signs, and felt the wind, sure that if something were to move that day it would use the cluster of pine trees in front of me on the otherwise exposed ridge as potential safety from the cold and wind and ghosts of last week’s rifle hunters. When I released an arrow at that buck, a few hours after sunrise, very little had to do with luck. Yet, as I sat in the early darkness, I was mostly wondering about the old bow propped against my pack.

“A recurved bow, that’s what that is.” Those are the words of my grandfather after I pulled a Bear Grizzly out of a cloth sleeve and strung it up. “Boy, that brings back memories,” he said. “I remember hunting in New Hope, with Mickey, back then you could hunt anywhere, anybody would let you, now that spot’s developed though, and probably too rich for my blood,” he continued. “I shot a bow just like that one, Bear right?, Well I remember shooting a squirrel with it and seeing another squirrel run down and bite the arrow. Man, that was long ago, probably 50 years.” He didn’t hunt much anymore, but stared on as my aluminum arrows waggled down the lawn, punching a target nearly 25 yards away. That long deep stare was more than a modest curiosity, it was the distracted face of reminiscing.

That particular Bear was purchased on an internet traditional archery site, for pennies compared to its true worth to a hunter. I also purchased a single string, a stringer, and handful of aluminum arrows, as well as a cheap pipe cutter to tune them, and before long I was thumping straight shafts into a hay bale with regular consistency. The total price was negligible, especially compared to the modern archery world I was leaving behind, and something I think most people hoping to get started in archery could expect to afford. The biggest novelty to me at that time was being able to break it down and tune it myself, something I used to rely on somebody else to do for me. This bow offered more of a vague-ery, I tuned it to fit me and my style rather than an existing exactness. I learned more about the physics of archery and geometry of bows on that Bear than I did my entire decade and a half of participating in archery prior to that. My German Shorthair enjoyed hikes most when I brought the old Bear with me, chasing shafts plucked into rotted stumps at guestimated distances until my fingers and his paws were sore. The scrapes and scratches added to the limbs on those hikes and hunts, mixed with the ones already present when I purchased it, creating something of a wordless storyline on the bow’s glass limbs and lacquered handle, but a storyline nonetheless.

That old Bear was reckless and adventurous. I moved branches with it, propped up a cow moose’s leg to help me skin her with it, and even occasionally caught my balance with it. I could tune it myself and recognize its sounds, the sweet ones, and the ones that beckoned for attention, but what I think I loved most of all was the heartbreak it gave me. It was never automatic or guaranteed, not if I didn’t do my part, and many times I put myself close to game to only wind up on my knees with my head bowed in penance after an arrow sailed harmlessly over something’s back. But that brought me reflection, and more practice, and a drive to be closer, so that each success might be that much sweeter, and proof that such success can be had pretty regularly with traditional equipment, provided I did my part. That bow knew everything about giving me lessons in archery, and probably life.

“Check this guy out,” a father whispered to his teenage son when I went to an archery shop to shoot 3D targets. They snickered as I pulled a takedown longbow out of a Navajo-patterned sleeve and strung all 64″ of it. I struck up a conversation with them between rounds, as they patiently awaited the attention of the hustling shop owner. It turned out the son was interested in bowhunting, and his father was an opening week rifle guy trying to get his kid started. I watched from my lane every now and then as the shop owner showed them accessory after accessory needed to get the teenager started in archery. Their eyes grew as big as the fabled pie-plate target, and the father said they’d have some saving to do before he started a pensive walk out. On their way past me I stopped them and mentioned that I had an older Bear recurve at home as well as a bunch of arrows, tips, tabs, gloves, whatever, certainly enough to get them started and they were welcome to use all of it. Sure it had some bumps and bruises I told them, but what doesn’t? “It has mojo,” I said. “Even took down a small cow moose in Wyoming for me, plus some deer, and God knows what else before me,” I went on. “If nothing else, it’ll get you in the woods this fall, with a little practice, flinging at squirrels, rabbits, and maybe even a deer.” The father eyed his son with a furrowed brow but the son said nothing. “I appreciate it,” he said, “but I think he knows what he wants.” They left the shop, and took with them, I imagine, the possibility of those early morning and late archery afternoons and rutting bucks chasing impatient does, and the swoosh of geese overhead in that autumn sun; sold not on the experience, but the manufactured image of the experience and an idea of what was necessary, and what looked good.

I’m too young to know what the “good ‘ol days” of hunting were like. The days of little camo and not many options in a bow may not have been that good for everyone, for all I know. I imagine it was mostly filled with guys complaining that they couldn’t get close enough to shoot a deer, or weren’t accurate enough to hit one when they did get close. What I do know, however, is the modern age of hunting and I know that my first decade and a half were spent being more concerned with the products I used being exactly those that were advertised as the latest and greatest every year and wondering what the other guys at the shop would think when I opened a bow case full of “that”. Hunting, actually, was an afterthought, though I was often successful. Rarely were stories swapped about our hunts or adventures in those younger days spent in the shop, it was mostly all tech-talk.

This isn’t to say that business and products are a bad thing, but there seems to be a trend in hunting that steadily creeps towards commercialization, turning the pursuit, and unfortunately the game pursued, into products. Wherever there is money to be made, rest assured that somebody will be there to expose it for the potential profit it’s worth, and rightly so. However, when it comes to hunting, that commercialization, to a point, has distracted many hunters, young and old, away from the beauty of pursuit and woodsmanship and time spent afield and steadily into the pursuit of product to show off, whether it be material or antlers, hiding behind the guise that what is best advertised is “necessary” to be a hunter. I’ve seen it firsthand. My pretty fiancé, intrigued by hunting, has passed many deer that, painstakingly for me, have walked right under the stands I spent an entire offseason scouting locations for in order to put us in a tree close enough for a shot. Her reason for passing being the pressure her brothers put on her to only shoot a “big” buck, and her idea of the picture that ghost buck would produce for social media. Unfortunately for her the spoils of pursuit are lost, in favor of trophy and a certain kind of success, and she may never get a chance at that booner after all. And I may never educate her, or her brothers, on the beauty of the woods because of this.

Traditional archery has kept a lot of us honest. This isn’t to say that one needs to shoot traditional to experience the adventure and chase of hunting at its nearly purest form, but where the business of hunting has taken a certain direction, traditional archery maintains its self-limiting path. Sure there are some deviations, but even within the beauty of our bows there is a pursuit for aesthetic appeal in our equipment that is often forged by hand. Traditional archery isn’t generous or forgiving, it makes you earn every inch you desire, much like life. The weight we pull is the weight we hold, and sore shoulders and calloused fingers tattoo us with the success we earned and therefore deserve. It keeps us outside in the fading light and weaning thermometer all season long to consider every inch that our arrow misses from its mark so that when the chance finally arrives, our shaft flies straight and hits its intended spot. For me, it keeps my boots on mountains and head in cornfields as I try to come a little bit closer to understanding how wildlife, and therefore all life, works. It manufactures an appreciation to the pattern of life and has given me the ability to both look and see. And why is that so important when there are easier ways? The simplicity that requires such hard work and focus is the same in the aspects of all of our goals and pursuits, there are no shortcuts or easy ways for many of us; it is the source of understanding and our hardworking values, it is the feeling of accomplishment and realization that the work that goes in often what we were looking for all along, so that there is never an end to such searching, only an unquenchable thirst to keep going.

Is this a rite of passage, a pseudo-enlightenment that we attain with maturity, or is there a gradual drifting from experience in favor of appearance? It’s hard to say. It’s a rare kid who doesn’t want the latest sneakers to show off to his friends. You could probably even compare that to a young buck sprouting some antlers and showing them off. For many of us archery comes full circle. We picked up our first stick and string bow and flung some unmatched arrows, frenzied when one hit what we were looking at, until one day we found ourselves yet again picking up that simple stick and string, gaining an understanding of it and the world around us and the values we built as individuals. Much like our own lives, therein hard work produces results. There is little to rely on, when it’s all said and done, but ourselves and the effort we put forth.

The thermometer outside this morning said one degree, and the weather man said it was approaching minus 18 when I left the cabin in the frozen moonlight. That is an unusually cold temperature for this area, but with the season closing I opted not to give an inch to the woods, I would be relentless until the end. I followed the cracked blacktop to the tree line and navigated by landmarks, moonlight, and snow, finding the small tree-root-shelf I had been looking for, mid-ridge, a couple of miles down the heavily sloped draw. My hunting partner was still asleep back in the cabin and would wake a few hours after day break on that morning, wondering why I went out in such cold. The wind picked up at sunrise and what little skin was exposed on my face was in pain from the cold. My eyes watered, causing little ice beads to form on the tips of my eyelashes. Ahead of me though were four spindly legs sifting through the snow and pine thicket coming toward me, and I shifted my weight to bring myself onto my knees, sitting on my heels. The heavy green wool pants given to me by an old Maine bear guide who outgrew them, were semi-frozen in a matrix of material, dampness and ice. Through the trees a small buck appeared, nose occasionally to the ground, head swaying, sifting for calories in the dense cocoon of cold we were sharing. He appeared just over the hump that is the vertex of this drainage, breaking my comatose daydreaming on the values of traditional archery. Shortly, I thought, he will be well within bow range, provided he doesn’t see me, and he won’t. He stopped in front of me, digging at the snow, for quite some time. With a frozen arm I slowly tightened my woolen mitt around the bow handle, raising it vertical as the stiff deerskin glove wrapped around the string. I flexed my right hand into a fist repeatedly, trying to loosen the frozen or shrunken hide meant to protect my fingers. The buck quartered in the pine, giving me a better view, showing me that he had six points and a heavy winter body, but a body long past the glory of the rut, one focused on survival and reaching the end of these last few brutal months. The feeling of hesitation unfortunately arrived, as it always does, as I considered when to draw. He continued to paw, chomping on ice balls and rock I imagine, as nothing living, other than me, was out that day. Time warped and he was broadside. Through bulky layers of wool I pushed the bow forward, drawing with my string hand, struggling to find the corner of my mouth with my middle finger over a heavy face wrap. He still stood broadside, uninterrupted by my presence and framed in the glowing cleanness of fresh white snow; always such a surreal moment, holding full draw at the peak of anticipation, just prior to dropping a bow string in that exclusive silence. The tip of my broadhead shivered around its mark until the sphere of silence was broken by a gentle thud. The buck dropped his belly to the ground and spun 180 degrees, stopping then staring in my direction for a moment before trotting back into the pines. A curtain of sparkling snow shimmered in the sun as it fell from the pine that my arrow struck. It was too cold to reflect for very long since my warmth was broken by the surge of adrenalin, causing a deep shiver to overcome my body. I freed the arrow from the bark and secured it back into its quiver, noticing brownish stains on the fletchings from a deer taken a season ago.

The cabin was a hike away but a warm welcome thought despite my feelings on the transition of worlds that happens when I cross the front door. My mind wandered again, thinking of the words of Fred Bear, “Hardships are quickly forgotten, intense heat, bitter cold, rain and snow, fatigue, and luckless hunting fade quickly into memories of great fellowship, thoughts of beautiful country, pleasant camps, and happy campfires.” I strapped the old modest recurve to my pack so I could keep my hands tucked deep into a hand warmer. The heavy ice-ridge provided a steep slide down to the old creek, now partially stopped by ice and ancient beaver dams. The antique current showed me the way home.