My First bow season

My first season bow hunting for deer was absolutely magical, but if it had ended the way it started, there wouldn’t have been a season at all. Shaun had been into bow hunting for a while, and I watched the guys shoot but I stuck to my guns! This was way before I became a firearms instructor…seems like that was sort of in my DNA now. I went bowfishing with him but just held the light mostly or occasionally fell asleep in an awkward and embarrassing position in the boat, also I occasionally drool a tiny amount.

Anyway, Shaun wanted to get me a bow for our anniversary which is Sept 16, but he decided to get it early because he wanted me to have at least a month to practice and build those muscles before the season opened in October.

We had heard RAVE reviews about a bow shop in Nacogdoches and I had just transferred over to SFA to finish up my undergrad so I was excited to go. When we walked inside there were a bunch of dudes in there standing around talking, and we made our way up to one of them to help us. They were talking hunting, food plots, and hunting gear and my husband told the tech he was hoping to buy me a bow after finally gaining his attention.

This got the whole group’s attention, while there are plenty of female bow hunters, in 2008 we still weren’t nearly as plentiful as the guys. But I wasn’t a bow hunter yet. To my absolute horror (because I’m insanely nervous/anxious and awkward when doing new things) one of the guys that was in this group and turned was none other than Dr. “Deer” Kroll, who at the time was somewhat of a celebrity in the Forestry Dept which I had just transferred to. I was already nervous and the archery tech started asking me questions that I didn’t know the answers to at that time and I was becoming WAY intimidated.

It was made worse by the fact that the tech, who was trying to measure my draw length by getting me to stand a certain way and hold my arms out but without ever communicating to me why or demonstrating, finally became frustrated and dropped the tape asked, “haven’t you ever held a bow before!” It was rather loud and he was rather exasperated. Every guy in the group laughed except my husband who was trying to explain and demonstrate for me so I could be measured. My shoulders sagged, my chin dropped, and I clenched my teeth to fight back tears and told him I had been around them but mainly just tagged along and I apologized for my lack of understanding. He was gruff and short with me, probably wanting to get back to the celebrity and the conversation, he ended up not having anything in my draw length anyway and we got out of there pretty fast. The hubs knew I wasn’t feeling it, I felt a little humiliated and kind of wanted to punch that guy in his adams apple.
Fast forward a few days to a little archery shop in Palestine, long closed now, my husband called and asked if they had anything in my draw length and the guy said he had both new and used bows that I was welcome to come try. When I arrived, the guy greeted us so warmly, we told him we had called about a bow in my draw length and then I just told him I had sort of had a humiliating experience with another bow shop because there was a miscommunication of me literally not knowing anything. He remeasured me to make sure my draw length was correct and literally baby stepped me through every little thing. The how and why of all the important parts of the bow, the necessary equipment, and found us a used Bowtech Miranda bow that he set up right then and there for me and let me get comfortable shooting it.

I practiced every single day, most days twice a day, until we got my draw weight maxed out and I was accurate.
Shaun and I hunted A LOT during bow season and either didn’t see anything or didn’t see anything legal or in my bow range. The last week of bow season he was working nights and the kids were all at my mom’s which was near the deer lease. I finished my Monday lab early and made it to her house in time to beg her to let me go hunting. The absolute craziest thing happened when I drove up to the gate. I was sitting there in the truck putting on my release and a doe came walking up and jumped the fence right beside the truck. She walked on the other side of some tall bushes and briars and began to browse like the truck wasn’t RIGHT THERE.
I decided to see if I could slip out of it and stalk up close enough to her to get a shot. I eased the door open slightly and slipped out of the driver seat. I hunkered down leaving my fingers in the door as I eased it closed but not shut, I eased the back door open and carefully slipped my bow out and hid behind the back tire with her between the shrub/brush pile, then the truck, and me. I was trying to get control of my breathing, my shaking, and my heart rate! I could hear her moving down the lane at a leisurely pace stopping to nibble random things. I crept out from behind the truck watching her and moved from concealment to concealment thankful for the dense carpet of pine needles to quiet my steps. I managed to advance, always keeping trees or bushes between us so she couldn’t see me as I stalked closer to her, but I was running out of foliage. I eased barely around the last tree just enough to range her because I still wasn’t, and honestly still am not great at guessing distances, and started to shake even harder when I realized she was only 25 yards! I eased back, slowly lowered the range finder down, and drew back as I slowly eased out behind the tree. She walked a couple of steps forward browsing on some foliage and was perfectly broad side.
About the same time I squeezed the release, she spotted me, but at that distance she didn’t respond fast enough as I had already let the arrow fly. She ran off and I watched until I could no longer see her and waited several minutes, not because I was cool and collected and knew I’d made a good shot and needed to give her time. I waited because my legs were shaking, and my heart was racing, I couldn’t breathe and my ears were pounding. I slowly crept to where I shot her, looking around for blood and my arrow and I found both. According to my arrow I had made a great shot. I tried to wait longer and slowly tracked the blood and ended up jumping her because I didn’t wait long enough.

I backed out and went back later and was unable to track her.
I was heartbroken and felt so dumb. I knew better. This was not my first deer. It was just my first with a bow. It was incredibly cool that evening thankfully, and there was a hard frost that night. After telling the hubs and wanting to cry, we got up the next morning and drove out there and I took him to where I shot her, where I tracked her to, and where I jumped her. My husband has blood hound DNA I think, and he managed to find her blood “trail” (maybe a drop here or there) immediately and her in a mere few minutes! It was plenty cold enough to save the meat and after we celebrated, and I cried happy tears, and Shaun swore she had to be deaf and blind, we loaded her up to take her back and process her. I knew she couldn’t have been blind because she A- jumped the fence and B-finally spotted me! I was excited and feeling confident with a cooler full of venison!

Fast forward to Saturday which was actually opening day of gun season. Even though the moon was full we still went out before daylight and got in our stands. I call this the butt-crack of dawn, later when I was introduced to duck hunting I began to experience the pre-butt-crack of dawn. We both decided to stick with our bows and as I started off in the direction of my stand, Shaun told me that since the moon was full, it was more likely for the deer to move later in the morning since they likely moved in the middle of the night. So he wanted me to sit as long as I possibly could. I took that as a challenge to stay longer than he could, and it paid off.

I was sitting in my “lucky ladder stand” that morning and listening to what sounded like deer chasing each other near my stand. Suddenly, a decent sized buck popped out long enough to get my attention and then right back in the thicket. I was excited and a little bummed because I wondered if I wasn’t watching the stupid squirrel dance up and down to my left would I have seen him sooner. I was also figuring that was probably my one and only chance at a legal buck in my range.
I’m sure it’s not physically possible but it felt like I held my breath for about 20 or 30 more minutes so I could hear better, and a different buck popped out and started quickly walking across my area. I had to use the concealment of the trees to rotate my body around on my ladder stand and into a shooting position so he wouldn’t bust me. I’d rotated all the way around from right to left with my bow up and I was running out of space. He was about to go behind me where I wouldn’t have a shot. I hooked my feet into the sides of the ladder and twisted around as far as I was comfortable with and drew back hoping he would stop, he seemed intent on passing through like he was trailing something, so I did what all of those hunting show dudes do. I gave him a MEEEHHHH.
He stopped with a stomp and jerked his head up looking right at me just like the doe, but again, I was ready, he was slightly quartered but I knew I’d hit him based on the wild way he leapt up. As he was trotting off, I actually saw the arrow come out and fall and could tell it had blood. Instead of having a repeat of Monday, I sat, and I sat and I sat, I was shaking and doing the heart pounding breathless thing anyway. About 30 minutes had gone by and Shaun came walking up and asked me what the heck I was doing because it was well after 11 by this time.

I told him I was waiting on the buck I’d just shot. He looked at me incredulously as I began to recount the story to him. We waited another 30 minutes and the ole bloodhound went to work. We were both trailing and at one point sort of lost blood and decided to circle in opposite directions from last blood. Shaun yelled to me when he found him, still in disbelief, not because he was a monster deer, he wasn’t, but because I had had an incredible week hunting! Bow hunting for me has been both exhilarating and down right frustrating when what I can see is outside my bow range and way in my rifle range, especially when the freezer is empty. I still love the challenge and especially the food! I’m still grateful to the hubs for introducing me to archery hunting too and for buying me that first bow!