Bow hunting...

John A______ and I went out to a local farm to hunt last night. This actually was more of a scouting trip. The weather was beautiful the it was pretty windy. We had a good long walk of about 2 miles around the place finding scrapes, rubs, and crossing points. There is a good acorn crop, several corn fields, and other crops on which the deer have been feeding. We didn't see a single mourning dove and only a couple of squirrels. The groundhog holes were obviously long unoccupied. I need to take my laser range finder next time.

I carried my old Bear Grizzly bow and the arrows I've been using since about 1986 with the old Bear broadheads. I like the light weight and simplicity of the recurve. A new Bear Grizzly runs about $350.00. They have now returned to the shelf type rest. I like that best, one less thing to break and it seems more traditional. I like traditional.

John brought his crossbow, I have forgotten the make, but he forgot his cocking device crank. Neither of us could cock the thing with out the aid of the cocker. I personally think that crossbows are too awkward. They weigh about the same as a firearm but also have the limbs extending left and right to get in the way. Excellent for the tree-stand hunter, they don't suit my preferred combination of ground-stand and still hunting. They are fun to shoot though. Heck, just about everything is fun to shoot.

In all our walking we didn't jump or see any deer. We did see deer come out in the middle of the field right at sunset. All that I could see I thought were does.

John is going to take his grandson, Daniel, out this weekend.