It is "that" time of the day, when the shadows lengthen and the wind calms, when I envision the movement of an elk as it manifests itself from the intense desire that has always been within me. I watch, and gauge its movement, anticipating its path, and decide when the opportunity to shoot will come to me
I was slipping out from the drawn-out awards program at the Pope and Young Club’s banquet in Phoenix two years ago when a good friend, Pete McKeen of K&P Outfitting, asked me to stop by his booth. “Hey, I have a slot open at Skinny Lake in 2016 if you want to come [...]
After my fourth notice from Wyoming Game and Fish in as many years telling me that I once again had missed the unit I really wanted to draw, I considered my options for a bowhunt out west. Being from the Midwest I scraped enough money together most years to be in some of [...]
Eight doe antelope streamed by 12 yards from the shooting hole in the ground blind, heading straight to my decoy. I jerked the black face mask down over my face in the sweltering 99-degree heat. The buck had to be close. Losing patience, I lowered my head to peek through a slit in [...]
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not much different from the average hunter. I, too, occasionally love to take a buck or a bull that would demand the envy of everyone, to know that I have matched wits with the smartest animal on the mountain and won. However, for the most part I just [...]
Many archers like to use a back quiver for roving or the 3-D range, but dislike them for hunting. Their reasons are numerous: My arrows rattle around and make noise. My heads get dull from banging together. When I bend over, my arrows fall out. Withdrawing an arrow flags game. My exposed arrows [...]
When you’re daydreaming it never seems like it ought to be all that difficult to get an arrow into a decent mule deer, but the fact is very few animals are what you would call easy with a bow and arrow. I shot a decent one a couple of years ago, but I [...]
Chick, chick…chick, chick…chick, chick: the sound carried clearly through the dreary October morning air, closing quickly to within a few yards. With the beat of my heart the only other sound I could hear, the 10-inch aspen in front of me began quivering frantically as a grinding noise echoed through the woods. Focusing [...]
Listening, really listening, is an art form that takes practice. Some of the sounds we hear in the woods are nothing more than distracting noise that we sometimes try to ignore, some of the sounds are native to the environment and are enjoyable, even entertaining, and some are so subtle that we have [...]
It was just after 5 p.m. on Halloween when I slipped into the tall grass on the edge of a 30-acre cut corn field. A strong wind gusted from the north and gave me a clean entry from the southeastern edge of the field. The noise of my steps was covered, and my [...]
