Antarcher
16-03-06, 09:54 AM
My nephew had been hounding me for a while to take him hunting so I got him a Martin Prowler and had him shooting very well out to 30m within a couple weeks. Now it was up early and into the action now that his accuracy was to a fine standard.
I took him out to one of my favoured spots where a shot would be almost guaranteed. Within half an hour we were within 45m of a young doe along a fence line. I ranged the doe, then a bush between the deer and ourselves and directed Nick to that point. He got to the bush under my direction and was now within 15m of the unwary deer. He looked back at me and I signalled for him to draw, stand and shoot. He misread my directions and stepped out to his left without drawing. Needless to say the deer blew out of there quick smart.
A quick revision on signals and we were back into it. This misty morning had plenty of deer out feeding late so it wasn't long before we spotted a small mob of young deer on the eastern side of a ridge. Popping down the western side and keeping low it didn't take us long to get in line of where the deer were on the other side.
Slowly crawling up the ridge I peeked over the top and saw another doe feeding under a tree 30m out. I told Nick to come next to me, draw his bow and stand ready to shoot at 30m. He got up easily enough and the deer did not catch the movement. I was waiting for him to realease but it wasn't happening. I looked up at him and he whispered that he couldn't see it. "It's under that tree", I told him but he just couldn't spot the outline of the deer against the dark bark of the tree. This deer was clueless as I stood and pointed straight down at it but Nick could still not figure it out. Eventually she snapped out of her stupor and took off. "Now I see it'", said Nick. Yes but now was too late.
While we were discussing what went wrong a little doe popped its head up out of the grass not 25m from us. It stood, but it was looking down the hill, not up at us. Could you believe this many oppurtunities in such a short space. I asked Nick if he could see this one and he definitely could. He drew took aim and finally he had released his first arrow at a deer. Unfortunately the nerves got to him and his arrow flew across the front of its chest. None the less Nick was very excited to have come this close on his first try, as was I.
Not all was lost though. Before we headed back to the car I decided to have a look down the front of this ridge as there is usually always a deer or two there. Sure enough there were four, all little stags, heads down feeding away only 40m away and quartering at that. As this was out of Nick's range I decided to take the shot and drew back. The arrow flew true and found its mark. The deer took off and headed along the hill side and into the lantana where we heard a bit a thrashing then silence. I knew then that I had him and at least Nick would learn something about game tracking and recovery.
The deer made seventy meters and the blood trail was quite easy to follow. The deer's final resting place was in thickest chunk of lantana I have ever had the privilege to crawl through. It took half an hour to get this deer 10 meters out of the patch of lantana and it only took 15 minutes to carry it up hill to the car about 1 km away.
Even though Nick didn't get to shoot his own deer on this occasion he sure learnt alot about what bowhunting is all about. Espacially the fun part when the recovery begins. Hopefully the next story I write here will be of Nick posing with his own deer. It's only a matter of time. Cheers.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f8/antarcher/DSC00009.jpg
Nick sitting with what could have been his own deer. But he still earned a piece of it for helping with the recovery.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f8/antarcher/DSC00006.jpg
I took him out to one of my favoured spots where a shot would be almost guaranteed. Within half an hour we were within 45m of a young doe along a fence line. I ranged the doe, then a bush between the deer and ourselves and directed Nick to that point. He got to the bush under my direction and was now within 15m of the unwary deer. He looked back at me and I signalled for him to draw, stand and shoot. He misread my directions and stepped out to his left without drawing. Needless to say the deer blew out of there quick smart.
A quick revision on signals and we were back into it. This misty morning had plenty of deer out feeding late so it wasn't long before we spotted a small mob of young deer on the eastern side of a ridge. Popping down the western side and keeping low it didn't take us long to get in line of where the deer were on the other side.
Slowly crawling up the ridge I peeked over the top and saw another doe feeding under a tree 30m out. I told Nick to come next to me, draw his bow and stand ready to shoot at 30m. He got up easily enough and the deer did not catch the movement. I was waiting for him to realease but it wasn't happening. I looked up at him and he whispered that he couldn't see it. "It's under that tree", I told him but he just couldn't spot the outline of the deer against the dark bark of the tree. This deer was clueless as I stood and pointed straight down at it but Nick could still not figure it out. Eventually she snapped out of her stupor and took off. "Now I see it'", said Nick. Yes but now was too late.
While we were discussing what went wrong a little doe popped its head up out of the grass not 25m from us. It stood, but it was looking down the hill, not up at us. Could you believe this many oppurtunities in such a short space. I asked Nick if he could see this one and he definitely could. He drew took aim and finally he had released his first arrow at a deer. Unfortunately the nerves got to him and his arrow flew across the front of its chest. None the less Nick was very excited to have come this close on his first try, as was I.
Not all was lost though. Before we headed back to the car I decided to have a look down the front of this ridge as there is usually always a deer or two there. Sure enough there were four, all little stags, heads down feeding away only 40m away and quartering at that. As this was out of Nick's range I decided to take the shot and drew back. The arrow flew true and found its mark. The deer took off and headed along the hill side and into the lantana where we heard a bit a thrashing then silence. I knew then that I had him and at least Nick would learn something about game tracking and recovery.
The deer made seventy meters and the blood trail was quite easy to follow. The deer's final resting place was in thickest chunk of lantana I have ever had the privilege to crawl through. It took half an hour to get this deer 10 meters out of the patch of lantana and it only took 15 minutes to carry it up hill to the car about 1 km away.
Even though Nick didn't get to shoot his own deer on this occasion he sure learnt alot about what bowhunting is all about. Espacially the fun part when the recovery begins. Hopefully the next story I write here will be of Nick posing with his own deer. It's only a matter of time. Cheers.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f8/antarcher/DSC00009.jpg
Nick sitting with what could have been his own deer. But he still earned a piece of it for helping with the recovery.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f8/antarcher/DSC00006.jpg