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Expect the Unexpected
Plans don't always come to fruition, but that's a big part of the fun
By Dan Smith
He strolled leisurely across the open field 100 yards away and seemed un-vexed, dipping his head as he gnawed on shoots from a bush. I already wrecked the stealth of my belly-crawl stalk when I let fly a 60-yard shot that missed low, just seconds ago. I strolled with him knowing my presence was obvious. From what I heard about antelope, he should be busting his hooves all gung-ho and charging far away from me. But he didn’t. Only dust puffs from his departure should remain—reminders of my failed stalk. But he seemed downright relaxed.
The reality didn’t match my vision of this hunt, not in the least.
The Challenge of Patterning Elk
The Predictability of Wapiti
By Dan Smith
Will the elk strolling above this tree line be doing the same come bow season?
The concept of patterning of elk reminds me of when I got into fly fishing—ask five people and receive the same number of opposing answers. Once, fly fishing seemed to exist on a shining pedestal in the distance. It involved sweeping casts, arcing in anti-gravitational formations launched by a lone man atop a rock in a shimmering river… pure grandeur. My flow of imagination probably fed in part by a stream from the movie A River Runs Through It.
Fast Forward Archery Plunge
A summary of bowhunting firsts
By Dan Smith
After some initial practice, my arrow groupings have become more consistent, and now I hope to increase my effective range with some longer-distance shooting.
This is a fast forward update of my first experiences with bowhunting. My initial post transpired months ago—eons in blog time. Website construction took a bit longer than anticipated. And blogs are fueled by the immediate. So this is the past few months condensed and shrunk into a couple small, digestible, yet still reasonably nutritious, morsels. I have tacked arrow after arrow into targets, wandered the mountains in a quest for a Merriam’s and now am prepping for my first fall elk hunt. So to give you a taste of what went on, here are the morsels:
What is “The Newbie”?
Bowhunting from the perspective of someone just entering the sport...
By Dan Smith
I punched myself in the face—that is how I reentered the archery world. With a quick jab, along with an instinctually muttered expletive, I reconnected with an activity from my youth and, simultaneously, my nose. Since I hadn’t shot a bow for 15 years, I of course assumed user error. Blaming the equipment on the first shot reeked of pettiness and seemed downright pathetic. But when I made every effort to ensure my fingers cleared all parts of the release, drew back and landed a second blow to my already stinging nose (and muttered another expletive) my frustrated suspicions led me to a faulty release that let go at mid-draw without a trigger pull. I was off to a great start….
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