Advice for getting into bow hunting

Ihunt

Senior Member
I really like this: Not about how far you can shoot, but about how close you can get. Man, that's really a great synopsis for why I started hunting with a bow. That and I am not really a good shot with a rifle... too much coffee or something ;)

And total truth about big ones getting passed you... that was the story of last season for me... I am chalking them up to rookie status, unless it happens again this year, then I will just take the claim of bad hunter. HAHHA

It gets easier with time. I’ve actually come to enjoy it. It’s more like a chess match. I have a good stand setup but two years in a row I have watched two different mature bucks come through and walk a different trail about 70 yards away. If one of them walks that trail this year it will be a different outcome for them?
 

splatek

UAEC
It gets easier with time. I’ve actually come to enjoy it. It’s more like a chess match. I have a good stand setup but two years in a row I have watched two different mature bucks come through and walk a different trail about 70 yards away. If one of them walks that trail this year it will be a different outcome for them?

I had to watch two giants on one piece of public go away, because they came in on the wrong side of me. I was bowhunting on the ground. i am a lefty; they came in right over a little ridge, nowhere near where I had thought they'd come from - they were staring me down so I could not turn and make a shot. I had some serious buck fever that day! That was my first time ever seeing a buck in the wild while hunting at 12 yards or so. They snuck up on me like a ninja. My second experience was a huge public land buck that trotted quite quickly across a food plot during the rut - I could not get him to stop and being new to the game I did not want to risk slanging an arrow at a moving target and injuring such a fine specimen. About 10 minutes after he passed by me, my buddy texts me and says "do you hear that" - he was grunting, that deep loving grunt about 150-200 yards away. He was getting lucky. He;s still there. We have trail cam pictures of him so I will be back. THe first two, I have not seen on camera, sadly I think they got whacked on some private land not too far from that section of public. That's the game though.

As for your scenario: being 70 yards away... that seemed to also be my story even when hunting does. It's like they knew, hey there's a hunter over there with a bow, he can't make a 70 yard shot, so even though we laid down a giant trail and sign over there, let's go over here just out of range... like they are mocking me, haha
 
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