When I was younger, I really admired my youth pastor. He shot a bow, therefore I wanted to shoot one as well. I bought my first bear compound bow and I went from there. I didn't hunt with it, I just shot targets in the backyard. Years later, my father-in-law got me into hunting and I just sorta combined the two. My father-in-law doesn't bow hunt, but he is getting a little more interested in bow / crossbow hunting.

I had a hunting dad and older brothers. I started shooting a recurve bow back with I was 9. I saved up and bought it on my own. No one bow hunted in my family up to that point. I learned to shot on my own and started hunting rabbits and squirrles. Eventually, one of my older brothers started into bow hunting and between the both of use, we figured it out.

I like hunting just be out there with nature. There ore only a couple of days worth of gun seasons and most propertie around here are small and dont allow firearms anyway. I wanted to spend more time hunting, so I looked into archery. I then realized the challenges involved and it made me want to hunt with a bow even more.

Extended season.

I taught my self about gun hunting in college, and after a couple of years I had fallen so in love with the outdoor experience, the challenge, the deers intelligence, and yes, their taste, I had to find a wayt to hunt more. My next step was into bowhunting. I began asking questons, reading , and studying, I bought a PSE Polaris Express, rigged it out, and that year took my first BOW BUCK. It was a long spike. It was the only buck I saw that bow season, and I made the shot. I was hooked for life. Since then I have also gotten into muzzleloading. I can now hunt deer from Oct.1 - Feb 28. Ahhhh... life is so good. Cool, crisp morning air, no sounds of traffic or other people invading my senses, when suddenly the leaves crunch under a foot fall. I can clearly see the steam rising off of his still warm body.

No man can ever convince methere is no GOD. I can prove it every day in the woods.

God Bless and good hunting.

I got bored of sitting in a boxstand overlooking a field with a high powed rifle...wanted more of a challange.......and chicks dig it!

The challenge
The extended season
The challenge
Can hunt sooner in the year
The challenge

Did I mention, the challenge?

I originally got into archery just because I wanted to learn to shoot a bow. I had absolutely no desire to hunt large game. I had nothing against it, I just didn't have a desire to go and do it. I had just started a new job and was working next to a guy that is an avid hunter. He lives to hunt, period.

It's funny, one day he was griping about how he taught a guy to hunt a few years ago and he really screwed him over. He said he wouldn't make that mistake twice. Well we were talking about bows one day and I said I thought about getting one for the heck of it. Just some cheap POS from walmart or something. But I wasn't sure I wanted to spend 80 bucks on a toy and suck at it.

He begged me not to do that. He told me to go to a pro shop, he would even take me. He said if I got some cheapy bow from walmart I probably would suck and wouldn't stick with it very long. So I went and looked at a few better bows at a gander mountain and shot one. I bounced the arrow off a wall and into the target. I told him this at work the next day and he laughed. He told me the guy helping me probably didn't show me how to the hold the bow, and he was right, I was holding it away from my face because I was afraid of the string. He asked if I was going to use a release or not and I asked what that was? He said it's basically a trigger for a bow. I said HE** ya, I didn't know there was such a thing.

So I ended up dropping about 600 bucks at a pro shop for a midline Darton package, arrows, release and target. I was addicted, I was shooting every day after work and most of the days on weekends. I shot so much I injured my back! I was a bit weary of spending that kind of cash and not being any good at it. However the shop owner told me if I purchased the bow from him he would teach me how to shoot and not give up until I could hit something the size of a door knob from 20 yards or so. He held to that and spent two sunday afternoons helping me out and I was drilling a 3 inch dot at 30 yards after that.

Now I'm really hooked, I'm reading magazines, hanging out in pro shops and joining forums on the internet. In about half a year I now shoot better and know more about archery then the guy at work that got me into it. He ends up being one of my best friends and we are both named Paul. So everyone at work calls us Big Paul and Little Paul ( I'm little) After that he is asking me if I want to go hunting with him. To begin with just taking pictures and stuff because I'm not sure I want to hunt. But he says if i want to try it he will help me out a little bit.

Turkey season is a few weeks away and he says I'm welcome to tag along, he has a camo jumper that should fit me. Well after turkey hunting for 3 days I am looking at shotguns. I said I'm not sure about deer hunting, maybe I will wait a year. Just so I know I am good enough with a bow, and I know nothing about hunting. He is impressed with that and gave me a list of simple things I will need next year if I want to do it.

So I go with him a few times that season and help him butcher a deer in his shed and we take the backstraps right in the house and he slices them up and fries them in butter. I said "Holy crap! this doesn't taste like any deer I have had before, this is almost like beef.". I had some deer when I lived out west, and from the sounds of it they taste different here because they eat different things. Basically they eat the same thing beef eat here since we raise alot of beef in this area.

So next year rolls around and I have some hunting stuff, more than I needed really but I was getting excited. We made some ladder stands to put up. Mine was extra sturdy with a larger platform. I have a fear of heights which I still have trouble with. I can not use pegs and a hang on stand, to scary for me. I have a ladder stand and a climber now. Any way I practice all summer with a 3-D target and study deer anotomy so I know where to put the arrow at what angles and everything. Opening day comes and I have to hunt alone after work because I couldn't get the day off. I'm a bit worried if I can actually shoot a deer, and what I will feel like afterwards. I told my buddy this and he said there is only way to find out.

I get in my stand and get settled. Half an hour after getting in my stand two nice deer get up out of the meadow next to me and start working their way towards me. Not trophy deer or anything, but heck it's my first year I'm not being too picky. One was a nice 10 point, the other was a decent 7. I'm new I have no idea how old they are and honestly don't care. I told him I was shooting the first thing that got within 20 yards of my stand, just to see if I could do it. As it happens the deer come right to me and walk under my stand, then out in front of me right around 20 yards away. I draw on the 10 point then he turns, quarting away from me. I held as long as I could but had to let down. I thought sure they would run away. Nope, just stared at me for awhile then went back to browsing.

Then the 7 point turns perfectly broadside and sticks his head in some weeds. This is like a sign from a God or something, right? So I draw and put an arrow right behind his leg and they both take off like a bat out of hell. I was so nervous I about fell out of the tree.

I got a hold of my buddy later that evening and told him I shot one, but needed help getting it out, since I don't own a truck and can't lift a 150 lb deer anyway. He thinks I am joking until we get there. I think he was more excited than I was. He was bragging me up at work the whole week telling everyone how I got one my first year out, opening day at that. And how I made perfect shot, which didn't suprise him since I shoot so much. I was a little embarrased, but hey after the last guy he tried to help left a sour taste in his mouth I figured I would let him gloat a little for me. After all my success was his doing pretty much. He picked my stand location and let me have a really low pressure remote spot he could have easily hunted instead. I pulled the trigger, but he did the homework. I just tagged along.

He asked me how I felt while we were dragging the deer out of the woods. I said what do you mean? And he reminded me about saying I wasn't sure how I would feel after killing a deer earlier. I looked at him and said "I'm not going to cry if that's what you are wondering.".

That was in 2000, I now own six bows, two rifles, 3 shotguns and have taught about 6 people archery. I think I'm hooked. Unfortunately I don't think I will be hunting this year though because I am about to move in a few weeks and it will be right at the opener of archery season.

And still no turkey yet![:@]

Sorry for the long post, I got excited.

Paul

A guy from my church brought me out when I was 10. I was hooked from then on. I did not get into bow hunting until this year and the reason was the extended season. But I now have different reasons for doing it.

i was telling my ex-finace that i needed to get into it because i just wasnt getting enough time in the woods and he said "well , i have a bow for ya", so i took it and i went from there....then my sister got a bow and it's been awesome.....if there was a spear only season, i would take that up too just to be hunting....