One of my fondest memories is from childhood. Every Sunday, my father would take me to the woods with a bolt action .22 long rifle. It had no magazine, you loaded the rounds one at a time. Open sights. We would take a box of shells, and an empty coffee can to an area with an embankment behind it. He would walk the can 30 or more yards away, and then return to stand behind me. I would try to hit it 50 times. I got to where I could do that every Sunday. So, we started getting snuff cans (Copenhagen) from my uncle for a smaller target. Copenhagen had the metal lid. It made a satisfying ping when I hit it. All of this is to say that I am a decent marksman with a rifle. I like to aim.
Anyone can tell you that this is not an asset when you are shooting shotgun. You don’t aim a shotgun. Well, you can, but it doesn’t work as well. Trust me, I have come a long way to be a decent shotgunner. Bows? For years, if I hunted archery, it was with a compound bow. I have killed more whitetail buck with a compound bow than any other way. A compound bow has peep sights, you see. You can aim the dang thing.
A few years ago, I went with a few relatives to the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, or ETAR. It is known worldwide, and attracts at least 8,000 people and as many as 10,000 to come shoot traditional bows (no pulleys, no sights, no crossbows). The whole event is here in Pennsylvania, and not far away from home. There are courses and competitions. Over 100 vendors sell bows, arrows, accessories, and anything else you might need. People swap things like an old-fashioned rendezvous—you can put a limited number of items on a blanket for swap or sale. People camp there all weekend. I caught the bug for traditional archery.
Anyway, shooting a traditional bow is like shooting a shotgun in the sense that it is instinctive. You don’t really aim. Well, some do, but the instinctive shooters seem to do the best. They calculate drop, distance, and all the rest in their minds from repeated practice. As you can imagine, this is not easy for me, or at least not natural. My asset while small game hunting is that my dogs will keep circling the rabbit until I get a shot that I can make, which is usually when I see the rabbit before it sees me!
After watching the ETAR crowd, I decided that I needed to give traditional archery a try—for rabbits. I would trade in hundreds of pellets per shot for one arrow. I decided to shoulder the burden of doing better, and bought a cheap recurve at ETAR. Golf, in my mind, makes little sense. 3D archery, on the other hand is fun, and I began frequenting various courses. You walk around the course, record your score on each target (They have all kinds of critters—deer, bear, moose, elk, beaver, whatever) remove your arrow from the foam animal, and walk to the next target.
Of course, this was when The Hunger Games was popular, which is important, because there were scads of little girls, not old enough to hunt, who were walking around 3D shoots with pink bows. Every single one of them had been shooting since they saw the first movie in that franchise, and every single one of them could shoot very well. They began shooting instinctively and progressed quickly. They were all better than me and they gave me pro-tips at the range. They encouraged me with such advice as, “Why do you stand like that?” and “Were you shooting at the target? I think that arrow is gone forever.”
So, I just kept slinging arrows with my recurve. On hot summer evenings, I would spend an hour developing muscle memory and becoming more instinctual. Did I ever get good? No. But I got to where a 10-yard shot on a small target would not completely embarrass me.
As an avid rabbit hunter, it seems to me that the vast minority of rabbits that have entered my game vest have not been killed within a range of 10 yards. 20-30 yards seems more common with my shotguns. So, while trying to kill a rabbit with a bow, I often find myself watching cottontails amble by at insanely far distances like 20 yards.
“You’re lucky I don’t have a shotgun,” I mumbled to myself as it went past. Heck, even my compound bow, with peep sights, would be easy to use at that range. I kept trying. I figured that if I could get a rabbit with my hounds using a traditional bow that I would be participating in some really prehistoric stuff. A bond with our Neolithic ancestors that domesticated the wolf.
I also discovered that a pack of dogs made the hunt more difficult. If I put four dogs behind a rabbit, I was having to shoot at a much faster target than if I took one dog. It isn’t as exciting to hear a dog sing solo as it is to have the whole band making music, but a solo hound made my shots easier. When I say easier, what I really mean is that they were near misses. The first dozen near misses on a sprinting bunny are certainly exhilarating. After all, I was accustomed to completely missing the mark! When you hear an arrow rattle off a stand of saplings, you know you missed bad. Or if you see it soar into the multi-floral rose, you can count on never finding that arrow again. Certainly, the near misses were fun. At first. Then, they become depressing. Just under or barely high are the worst. You know that the tiniest change on your end would have made all the difference on the end where the rabbit was. Oh, there are a variety of small game arrow tips that are available, but I seem to shoot better with plain field tips—the same practice tips that I use when shooting at the block targets in the heat of summer when it is too hot to run my dogs.
Then, I bought a longbow from my nephew. It was made by Wild Horse Creek Bows. It just seemed to work better for me than the recurve. You can distinguish a longbow from a recurve by whether the tips of the bow bend toward you when you draw back, or if they curve again (recurve) to bend away from you. I was better with the longbow, at least on target. It’s simpler.
So, after a great hunting season for bunnies last year, I decided that I did not need to shoot any more on the last day of the season. I donned traditional archery clothing—leather and wool—and added my blaze safety orange hat and small game vest to be legal. Placed my quiver over my shoulder, and unleashed one dog—Duke—hoping that he could give me a close shot.
Have you ever been facing the wrong way when a rabbit crossed? It crosses behind you? That happened a half dozen times on rabbits within my range, giving me no shot. You can react quickly and still harvest the prey if you are shouldering a 12 gauge, but with my longbow I simply waited for Duke to bring the bunny back one more time. There were many bunny sightings that were well within shotgun range. I could have shot my limit. I missed a few within archery range. In eight hours, Duke ran 5 rabbits and they all holed or escaped. The sixth rabbit ran past at 25 yards at the end of the first circle and gave no shot. It kept running through the same stand of pines. So, I moved there after several circles. It was quartering at me, streaking through lanes that were created when a coal company planted pine trees in straight rows after reclaiming a surface mine. The trees were now tall and I could see under the canopy. I would glimpse the rabbit, then it would pass behind trees, then it would emerge again. As it neared I drew the bow to full draw and the rabbit noticed and paused to turn. It was at 15 yards. I loosed the arrow, and it felt like a near miss—a little high, but the rabbit made a big leap when it turned sideways to me. The field-tipped arrow anchored the rabbit to the floor of pine needles, finally success! I hurried to a dirt road before dark, took off my orange, and snapped a pic of the hunt in traditional garb. If you love the chase and don’t care if you shoot your limit every time, I highly recommend a bow bunny.
“Why are you grinning?” my wife said when I returned home.
“I just did some stone age stuff!” I exclaimed, “Sorta.”
“Yeah,” she said, “Was it so easy that a caveman could do it?”
Anyone can tell you that this is not an asset when you are shooting shotgun. You don’t aim a shotgun. Well, you can, but it doesn’t work as well. Trust me, I have come a long way to be a decent shotgunner. Bows? For years, if I hunted archery, it was with a compound bow. I have killed more whitetail buck with a compound bow than any other way. A compound bow has peep sights, you see. You can aim the dang thing.
A few years ago, I went with a few relatives to the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, or ETAR. It is known worldwide, and attracts at least 8,000 people and as many as 10,000 to come shoot traditional bows (no pulleys, no sights, no crossbows). The whole event is here in Pennsylvania, and not far away from home. There are courses and competitions. Over 100 vendors sell bows, arrows, accessories, and anything else you might need. People swap things like an old-fashioned rendezvous—you can put a limited number of items on a blanket for swap or sale. People camp there all weekend. I caught the bug for traditional archery.
Anyway, shooting a traditional bow is like shooting a shotgun in the sense that it is instinctive. You don’t really aim. Well, some do, but the instinctive shooters seem to do the best. They calculate drop, distance, and all the rest in their minds from repeated practice. As you can imagine, this is not easy for me, or at least not natural. My asset while small game hunting is that my dogs will keep circling the rabbit until I get a shot that I can make, which is usually when I see the rabbit before it sees me!
After watching the ETAR crowd, I decided that I needed to give traditional archery a try—for rabbits. I would trade in hundreds of pellets per shot for one arrow. I decided to shoulder the burden of doing better, and bought a cheap recurve at ETAR. Golf, in my mind, makes little sense. 3D archery, on the other hand is fun, and I began frequenting various courses. You walk around the course, record your score on each target (They have all kinds of critters—deer, bear, moose, elk, beaver, whatever) remove your arrow from the foam animal, and walk to the next target.
Of course, this was when The Hunger Games was popular, which is important, because there were scads of little girls, not old enough to hunt, who were walking around 3D shoots with pink bows. Every single one of them had been shooting since they saw the first movie in that franchise, and every single one of them could shoot very well. They began shooting instinctively and progressed quickly. They were all better than me and they gave me pro-tips at the range. They encouraged me with such advice as, “Why do you stand like that?” and “Were you shooting at the target? I think that arrow is gone forever.”
So, I just kept slinging arrows with my recurve. On hot summer evenings, I would spend an hour developing muscle memory and becoming more instinctual. Did I ever get good? No. But I got to where a 10-yard shot on a small target would not completely embarrass me.
As an avid rabbit hunter, it seems to me that the vast minority of rabbits that have entered my game vest have not been killed within a range of 10 yards. 20-30 yards seems more common with my shotguns. So, while trying to kill a rabbit with a bow, I often find myself watching cottontails amble by at insanely far distances like 20 yards.
“You’re lucky I don’t have a shotgun,” I mumbled to myself as it went past. Heck, even my compound bow, with peep sights, would be easy to use at that range. I kept trying. I figured that if I could get a rabbit with my hounds using a traditional bow that I would be participating in some really prehistoric stuff. A bond with our Neolithic ancestors that domesticated the wolf.
I also discovered that a pack of dogs made the hunt more difficult. If I put four dogs behind a rabbit, I was having to shoot at a much faster target than if I took one dog. It isn’t as exciting to hear a dog sing solo as it is to have the whole band making music, but a solo hound made my shots easier. When I say easier, what I really mean is that they were near misses. The first dozen near misses on a sprinting bunny are certainly exhilarating. After all, I was accustomed to completely missing the mark! When you hear an arrow rattle off a stand of saplings, you know you missed bad. Or if you see it soar into the multi-floral rose, you can count on never finding that arrow again. Certainly, the near misses were fun. At first. Then, they become depressing. Just under or barely high are the worst. You know that the tiniest change on your end would have made all the difference on the end where the rabbit was. Oh, there are a variety of small game arrow tips that are available, but I seem to shoot better with plain field tips—the same practice tips that I use when shooting at the block targets in the heat of summer when it is too hot to run my dogs.
Then, I bought a longbow from my nephew. It was made by Wild Horse Creek Bows. It just seemed to work better for me than the recurve. You can distinguish a longbow from a recurve by whether the tips of the bow bend toward you when you draw back, or if they curve again (recurve) to bend away from you. I was better with the longbow, at least on target. It’s simpler.
So, after a great hunting season for bunnies last year, I decided that I did not need to shoot any more on the last day of the season. I donned traditional archery clothing—leather and wool—and added my blaze safety orange hat and small game vest to be legal. Placed my quiver over my shoulder, and unleashed one dog—Duke—hoping that he could give me a close shot.
Have you ever been facing the wrong way when a rabbit crossed? It crosses behind you? That happened a half dozen times on rabbits within my range, giving me no shot. You can react quickly and still harvest the prey if you are shouldering a 12 gauge, but with my longbow I simply waited for Duke to bring the bunny back one more time. There were many bunny sightings that were well within shotgun range. I could have shot my limit. I missed a few within archery range. In eight hours, Duke ran 5 rabbits and they all holed or escaped. The sixth rabbit ran past at 25 yards at the end of the first circle and gave no shot. It kept running through the same stand of pines. So, I moved there after several circles. It was quartering at me, streaking through lanes that were created when a coal company planted pine trees in straight rows after reclaiming a surface mine. The trees were now tall and I could see under the canopy. I would glimpse the rabbit, then it would pass behind trees, then it would emerge again. As it neared I drew the bow to full draw and the rabbit noticed and paused to turn. It was at 15 yards. I loosed the arrow, and it felt like a near miss—a little high, but the rabbit made a big leap when it turned sideways to me. The field-tipped arrow anchored the rabbit to the floor of pine needles, finally success! I hurried to a dirt road before dark, took off my orange, and snapped a pic of the hunt in traditional garb. If you love the chase and don’t care if you shoot your limit every time, I highly recommend a bow bunny.
“Why are you grinning?” my wife said when I returned home.
“I just did some stone age stuff!” I exclaimed, “Sorta.”
“Yeah,” she said, “Was it so easy that a caveman could do it?”
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