To say this season has been tough for me would be an understatement. Had a really nice buck on our property that I had patterned pretty good...poached. Many other factors cutting into my time in the stand coupled with freaky weather and tesspassers = tough so far. Enough ranting...

Have a friend who in the spring picked up an old bow and asked me to teach him about shooting it and deer hunting. He did a great job learning and spent plenty of time practicing with it. Took him on his first bow hunt this evening and set him up about thirty yards from my stand. He wanted to see how it all worked....was truly his first ever hunting experience.

Not an hour after we were in our stand a fork horn chased 4 does off the hillside through a small clearing and into the cleared strip we were set-up on. They slowly worked towards us, but unfortunately worked behind my stand...and thus did not present any shot for my buddy.

I was fortunate enough to drill one home at 20 yards and was able to teach a bit about the other side of the coin. We waited for 2 hours and walked to where we had both last seen the deer and found bright red blood. He helped me follow the trail and actually spotted the downed deer in the tall brush. Watched real close as I gutted it and tried to explain some of the important aspects of opening up a deer.

I' m not sharing this as a pat on the back for me; I enjoyed it and even though my buddy didn' t get a shot, I think he did too. I' m really just impressed with the work he put into practice, asking questions and asking to just tag along with me to see how it all works. His reason for doing so was out of respect for the animals and because he didn' t want to chance wounding a deer before knowing better.

Glad to say that we have a new member of the Bowhunting world, hopefully before the end of the season I will be able to post of his success!

Thanks for reading!