Dreaming of Next Winter

I was looking through some of my photos from last winters trip to south east Colorado for a big Mule deer. It was early December. When I arrived it was mid forties with a nice breeze. The next morning the weather had changed, negative 2 and 14 inches of snow. I was hunting a tree line in the middle of an alfalfa farm. Bucks were cruising for does. By the end of the first day I had seen 5 to 10 shooter's but none were within bow range. Day two was about the same. I was a hard day of hunting, I left my lunch and water in the truck. I sure did miss my PB & J! I did enjoy one very exciting moment. I rattled up about a 135" buck that I decided to pass on. What a great day! Day three, time to get serious. Deer were acting about the same as the first two days. Sometime after 1:00 pm I spotted a nice 3 x 3 chasing some does. They were around 400 yards away. I started rattling some horns and using a "can" call. Out of nowhere Mr. Big showed up. Man, what a buck! Mr. Big stayed with the does and ran the 3 x 3 away. Yea for me, that 3 x 3 was now back on the prowl and I sounded like a herd of lovesick does. It took about another 30 minutes but he came looking for me. When he got about 60 yards out I had to decide what side of my tree he was headed to. I started to make my move to the left but changed and moved to the right. To my surprise I got it right, the big 3 x 3 came in to 8 yards and took a Goldtip arrow through the lungs and top of the heart. I watched him go down within 40 yards. My big 3 x 3 ended up scoring around 158 inches and weighed over 300 pounds.




Now I've got to figure out how I can get back out there next winter.

Target panic…..AARGHH

What is target panic? It can be many different things, it depends on the archer. For me, while I’m trying to hold my sight on the spot that I want to hit, I will lock up under it. It feels like my bow weighs 1000 pounds. Then, I will either shoot low or snatch the bow up and try to time the triggering of my release for when my sight crosses the spot. There is a 1 out of 10 chance that my timing is correct. The majority of the time the arrow will hit nowhere near the spot I’m wanting to hit. The crazy thing is, I only have this problem on random targets. Some of them are close and some are far.

I have been struggling with this problem for years now and I haven’t found a cure yet. I do know that when I don’t feel the pressure of making a perfect shot, my target panic goes away……but, most all tournaments frown on me having a few “Daddy Cokes” before I go shoot. lol I’m sure in time it will go away, for now I’ll just continue to carry a few extra arrows.

Lad