You’ve heard it likely thousands of times throughout your life: “The early bird gets the worm.” I suppose that it’s true; especially with elk hunting. I recall one September, being frustrated that “my mountain” suddenly hosted triple the amount of pickup trucks, and therefor triple the amount of competing bowhunters. Opening day found [...]
As deer season faded away and winter settled in, I started to get excited about wild pigs. I live in an area with a large population of feral pigs, but there is little public land that offers a good chance of hunting success. So, it is best to know someone with a hog [...]
I’ve spent a lot of time bowhunting mountain goats but my most memorable hunt was in 2018 when I flew into a remote lake using a friend’s floatplane service. I’ve done many solo fly-in hunts and I find that the stresses of the world melt away when the floats lift off the water, leaving me [...]
Hunting is all about firsts. The first morning, the first bow, the first shot. Growing up in Central Pennsylvania, in a bowl of mountains, meant we were destined to be outdoors. My dad hunted and provided for his five kids with venison on the table as a main staple. He shot recurves and [...]
“Dennis,” my guide whispered in my ear, “I think you’re going to have to go in on him on your own. He doesn’t seem to want to budge, and none of my grunting, cow-calling, or brush-raking has succeeded in getting any response from him at all.” I could hear the frustration in Eric’s [...]
The blacktail doe appeared from below and behind my stand, a new approach. It was the last day of the season and does are legal in the deer de-emphasis unit where I live in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. I dropped the string! Such was the season a year earlier. By the end of August [...]
He stared at me, straight through me it seemed, as I crouched in the soft undergrowth, nearly in fetal position gripping my longbow behind a primitive blind made of dead sticks and pine bough tips. The odd mesh of sticks and pine needles may have seemed a bit strange to him, but more [...]
It was a hot, humid, early July morning in 1981. I was 13 years old and spending the week with my grandparents on their farm in southern Maine, and had just returned from the stock pond with several large bull frogs. I was cleaning my game on the front lawn, which still was [...]
Bowhunting with a traditional bow is tough. Add a baby and it’s even tougher. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. I’m fairly new to the world of traditional archery, having hunted just four deer seasons with stick and string. I’ve been pretty lucky for the most part, filling tags every year and [...]
I have always been a stay-all-day hunter when it comes to turkeys. Due to my ability to comfortably stay in the woods after the peak gobbling time in the morning is over, I have on several occasions carried a gobbler out of the woods during the middle of the day. The odds are [...]
