This stick man is my idol and I need to be just about this close in order to hit my target!  BUT, I’m getting better.

Last night I took the time to hit the field for some more abuse.  I shot my Gap and am just about ready to post up the results of my shooting that.  Stand by for it to come out soon!  I probably shot over 100 arrows last night at 20 yards and was feeling pretty good about the results.  Again, keep in mind my target is the whole target and not just the rings that are on it.  I had to take a picture of this end to show you.

And you are asking yourself:  WHAT?  Why on earth would he want to show us such a sloppy end?  Let’s take a close look at this grouping.  First off, I’m proud that all 8 arrows found their mark inside the target.  Second reason is that all 8 arrows found themselves inside the rings on the target (bonus).  Thirdly, 4 out of 8 are inside the black ring, but most of all I want to let you know that 7 out of 8 are in pretty much a straight line with the yellow (up and down).  That tells me I’m not far off with my left/right adjustment and I’ll take shooting like this all day long.

Another end I want to show you:

Look closer:

My camera makes the arrows look like they are coming into the target from all directions toward the middle, that is called “parallax”, please don’t get disturbed over that.  Just look at the picture for what it is.  One in the yellow, two in the red, one in the blue and 4 in the black!  This is giving me another thought.  Maybe I need to tighten my expectations and instead of accepting just hitting the whole white square, I should expect to hit within the black circle!  If I can do it once (this time) I can do it again!  Inside the black ring will be my acceptable shooting from now on!

Well, there was a storm brewing out to the NW of town and I wanted to be home before the expected winds hit.  I kept shooting until my shots began to be more outside the target than inside it.  That always tells an archer it’s time to quit for the day or at least take a break for awhile.  Besides MaPa’s was ready to go home.

As I was packing up, here came Weasel down to shoot his normal routine.  Well I stuck around for a couple of ends and then decided it was time to go, besides the storm was looking like it was about to hit with the wind.

On my way out, I have to stop and open a gate.  Well, there was a horse on the other side of the fence and MaPa’s likes to bark at them.  He began is normal barking routine and then suddenly came across my lap and tangled up with me with his leash.  It was all crazy as heck for about 2 seconds, but enough that he forced my gas peddle leg down onto the gas and I crashed into the gate!  BLAM!  It is bent up pretty good and the car has some reddish paint on it from the gate, but everything is alright.  The gate still closes but would not hold a Shetland pony in.  We might have to replace it soon.

Bears Butt

June 11, 2015

I’ve been working on the farm too much lately and have forgotten my friends out there!  HELLO FRIENDS!!!!!

In the archery world it is important to keep your bow in your hand but sometimes when you grip the handle too tightly you will throw off your shots…they call it “torquing” the bow.  My bow hand (the one that holds the bow) is notoriously bad for torquing, even though I try my best not to grip it to tightly, I still do not want to drop the bow.  And so, as a result, I grab it just before I make my shot and that causes my arrows to do all sorts of bad stuff.  Actually they aren’t “bad”, they just go where I don’t really want them to go.

So, they (the archers that preceded me in my quest) have developed (invented) things that will keep the bow from falling to the ground after the shot is made.  I noticed early on in my archery days folks had really cool looking straps going around their wrists that were attached to the bows with a bolt.  When they made the shot it bow would be hanging from their wrist and not hit the floor.  I thought, “Hey that’s cool!  Maybe I need one of those”.  But then none of my “traditional” archer guys had one and so I bagged the idea.

Then one day I was watching an Olympic archery shooting event and noticed the guys and gals shooting with traditional type bows had something else they were wearing that kept the bow from falling to the ground.  It’s called a “finger sling”….now this bad boy item was small, concealed (well not to notice too much anyway) and kept the bow from falling to the ground, unlike in this video:

I began searching the web for ideas on how to make one for myself.  I’m all over this “Do It Yourself” stuff…always have, always will.  Sort of like my sandwich last night, I call it “I’m all over you ketchup man”!

That picture doesn’t have anything to do with this post except maybe pique your interest.

Well, Winemaker had some paracord laying around and I took a few feet of it.  I knew I needed a slip knot or two to attach the thing to my middle finger and thumb of my bow hand.  A simple devise and made out of cheap material, I can throw it in the trash if it doesn’t work or if I don’t like it.  Another great aspect of DIY stuff.  You spend little and if it doesn’t work, you are not out much.  After all, the archery supply places want like $6 for one of these things.  That’s the price of one of my arrows!  I’d rather buy an arrow then spend that on a piece of string.

Well, here is the one I made:

The book behind the picture of my finger sling is “Guide to the longbow” by Brian Sorrells….A perfect book for those getting into traditional archery shooting!  This guy is amazing.

So, you see it is just what it is, a piece of string with two slip knot loops on it.  The length of the string between the loops has to be sort of short to accomodate wrapping around the bow and then fitting over your thumb comfortably.  There is nothing worse than going shooting and having something like a “too tight string” cutting off the circulation to one of your fingers.  Not a fun day of shooting, besides having to cut the string off with your too dull knife when you are done shooting.

So, the first loop goes on your bow hand finger.  I haven’t figured out which finger is best as yet, so I figured I’d start with my middle finger.  It just made sense to do that.

It’s kind of hard to see it, but you get the idea.  By the way, that elk head mount was put together by none other than White Trapper!  Best taxidermist in Northern Utah!

Next you grab up your bow and put the second loop around your thumb

You can see that this string is going to keep your bow “near you” once you let go of the string while shooting your arrows.  Once you have exhausted all your arrows in your quiver, you simply remove the string from your thumb, put the bow down and go retrieve your arrows.  You can even drink a beer while that string hangs off your middle finger.  Other archers will wonder to themselves just what on earth you have on your hand, but they won’t say anything and will go home, address their computer and try to find out for themselves just what it was you had on your finger.

Well, I wasn’t sure about this finger sling idea.  Would I even use it or not.  Well, I attached it to my bow with the idea that the next time I ventured out to practice I would give it a try.  The whole idea behind this is that you can forget about having to hold onto your bow at all while shooting.  Outstretch your fingers, point them in the direction of the target and let it rip!  Your bow hand will not be affecting the shot in any way.

So, let me say this about that!  The damn thing works!  Not only can I now NOT think about my anchor points, I have them pretty much engraved in my form, I can now forget about the bow at all.   The pressure of the string being pulled back toward my face keeps the bow tight against my hand (the web of the hand between thumb and first finger).  I have no worry about the bow going anywhere near the ground once I release the string and so, I can totally concentrate on the target.  Here was my first end after using my new finger sling.

Man!  I was quite surprised.

Later in my practice session I took a picture of another end.  Please notice I’m missing one arrow of my eight…I hit a nail holding one of the corners and the nock popped off.

Still, 6 out of 7 arrows in the target…not the rings, but the whole white square thing.  That’s my goal, hit the square thing.  Counting rings are bonus even though I am concentrating on the yellow part of it, that is just my focus spot.

And after about an hour and a half of shooting my arrows were starting to fly all over the place, which is normal after shooting 100 times or more.  This is my last end and MaPa’s was ready to get out of the mosquitos.

So, what I’m saying here is that the finger sling actually works.

Bears Butt

June 3, 2015

Chris Barton posted up a video today about some really good Olympic type recurve bow shooters who were asked to take off their sights and stabilizers and shoot a few shots at a target about 35 yards down range.  The target was about twice as big as the one I’m shooting at down at the field.  Well, of the three shooters, only one hit the yellow part of the target and the other guys missed the whole dang thing a time or two.  I guess when you decide to shoot without sights and get good enough to hit the target then you are doing something.  Well, in my eyes at least.

So, with that little bit of incentive, plus the fact that I’m feeling pretty good about my age and health, plus having to take a trailer load of tree branches to the field, PLUS having to check the water on the fields, I told Winemaker I was going to take my bow and do a little practicing.   Which I did.

So, after getting all the other stuff done that I had to do, I set up in the usual place to do my practicing.  Starting first with my Gap Shooting.  Things went differently today.  My last couple of times gap shooting had Point On at 45 yards.  Today that happened at 40 yards.  HMMMMM.  Not sure what is going on, everything else seemed to be the same.  OH WELL.  It will average out.

So, back to my 20 yard shooting.  I have not been down there for over a week, May 5 to be exact.  And so, I started off rather rough.  I’ll tell you folks, practice needs to come often or you will lose where you were at.  Today proved that to me quickly.  But after several ends of shooting all 8 of my arrows my groups started to tighten up.  I told my faithful dog “This is my last end, buddy and then we will go home”.  He was tethered to the truck.

So, as I was finishing up my end of 8 arrows, here came Weasel to shoot his bow.  I finished shooting and then asked him to come down and see the results of my last group of shots!  He was impressed.

Hell!  I WAS IMPRESSED!

Sure there are two arrows that didn’t even hit the target backing, but then there are 3 in the yellow, one in the red and one in the blue and one in the white!  That was a good spot to stop my practice for the day.  Probably 120 arrows in today shooting!  I didn’t count the ends I shot.  And by the way 2 of those yellows are X’s!!!!!

I think I’m getting the hang of this stuff!

Bears Butt

May 13, 2015

At the recent Formal Invitational event held in Tremonton by the Brigham Bowmen group, I took a few moments and placed my video camera down range and under the target to capture the incoming arrows as they hit the target.  What I got in addition to that was the sounds.  I was very much surprised that you can hear the arrow leaving the bow string AND you can hear it flying toward the target.

When you are standing at the firing line it seems like it only takes a second for the arrow to hit that target and in a hunting situation I have always been amazed at the animals ducking after the shot is made, or jumping forward and the arrow missing its mark.  Now I can see how that can happen.  When you look and listen to this video remember that the wild animals hearing is a whole lot better than ours.  Their reflexes are also very much quicker because they have to be able to escape the dangers of the wild elements around them.  They have to be quick or they die!

So, place yourself in the hooves of a big old mule deer buck.  You have survived all those many years by being totally aware of your surroundings at all times.  You have spent your entire lifetime escaping leaping cougars and sneaking predators of all kinds.  You are in your element and aware of everything around you.  Suddenly you hear what you hear in this video.  What do you do?

I hope you enjoyed it!

Bears Butt
May 8, 2015

It’s bee awhile since I last posted something about my archery endeavors.   I have been taking every chance I have to continue to practice both my Gap shooting and my 20 yard range shooting.  The field offers both and since I have to go down there to set and check the water in the hay, I take the time to do some practice as well.

I’m not ready to share my Gap information just yet and the matrix is filling, but I don’t feel I have a good sample size yet.  It is funny however when I shoot and compare the gap distances how sometimes they are very far removed from each other.  For instance, at 25 yards, I have seen the gaps vary as much at 10 inches.  I try to be very careful to make sure the tip of the arrow is “on the mark” before I release, I also try to make sure my form is consistent.  With a larger sample size (meaning more days of shooting and keeping track), the large differences, either more inches or less inches, can be thrown out of the mix, which will make the average come into play with more meaning.  One would think shooting the gap like I do, would put all the arrows in the same spot every time.  For some good shooters I’m sure that would be the case, but for this old man and his recurve bow and arrows that aren’t necessarily “tuned”, that is not the case.  But it is what it is and I’ll take that for now.

Last night on the farm, I stepped up to the 20 yard mark and began my practice shooting session.  There was a breeze blowing and changing almost constantly as there were some rain and thunder clouds moving around the area threatening rain.  It didn’t rain in Willard, but it did all around us.  Sometimes I wish we didn’t live in the banana belt of the Wasatch Front.  I usually shoot from the 20 yard mark until I get tired and that usually takes around 120 arrows.  My goal is to hit the bullseye of course, but mostly just hitting inside the target square, anywhere.  Remember, I used to think the target backstop (bunk) was a great feat to accomplish.

I concentrate on the yellow bullseye and try not to take my eye off of it as I draw to my anchor points (3), raise the bow by moving my upper body, keeping track of my anchor points at all times.  When everything feels right I release and follow through, continuing to keep my eye on the yellow circle.  No matter where the arrow goes, I keep looking at the “goal”.  You might think all of this is easy, I’m hear to tell you “it ain’t”.

So, my arrows fly all around the place but none hit the dirt, nor did they miss the bunk.  I’m not sure how many arrows I flinged down range, but it was well over 100.  My back muscles tell me when I have had enough fun.  So, about half way through my shooting I decided to take a picture of one of my “groups”.

I only have 8 arrows that are “matching” in size and weight and so that is what I shoot.  With this group I was pretty impressed with myself.  All of them are within the black circle with the biggest cluster low and slightly left.  Weasel would say I am looking to see where the arrows are going after I release.  Maybe he is right….when you look at it, all of the arrows are left of a line drawn vertically through the center….hmmmm.

Well, I continued to shoot and try not to change anything about what I was doing.  The next time I decided to take a picture it looked like this.

No cluster, but only one outside the rings and two in the yellow.  Not too bad for me doing the shooting.

Well, as time goes on, I get more and more tired and toward the end I decided to take one last picture of a group before calling it a day.

Again, one outside the rings but not too bad of a grouping if I do say so myself.  I figure if I keep this up, I should be closing in on the yellow circle with tighter and tighter groups.  I can really attest to the statement that says “60 shots a day, keeps the zero’s away”!!!!  Practice, practice, practice!

If you go on ANY website that is trying to impress you with their knowledge of shooting a bow and arrow, EVERY ONE of them say the same thing.  Even though they might be stressing shooting at a string to keep your shots near a center line with the target.  Or shooting at 3D targets at varying distances and up hill or down hill.  Perhaps teaching you to concentrate on a small spot within the larger circle.  Whatever it is they are trying to convey to you, they always, always, always end up saying the same thing:  Maintain a consistent form, anchor point(s), follow through and practice, practice, practice!

Bears Butt

May 6, 2015

There are gimics in everything we do, especially outdoors.  The saying in the fishing world goes something like:  Well, it caught what it was intended to catch….YOUR MONEY!  And that is usually the case.  I’ve bought a lot of cool looking fishing gear and it still sits in my tackle box without so much as a strike hitting it.  Definitely caught my money.  And it goes into the archery world as well.  Tons of way cool looking stuff to help you hit your target.  Some of it actually works and I’m sure when (for instance) bow sights first came out on the market the died in the wool traditional archers raised their eye brows.  Well folks, today I came across another interesting tid bit that was introduced to the archery world a few years back.  It is the first I have heard about these and thought I would share a video of someone actually testing them out.

The product is called “Twister Nock”.  (As opposed to when Twister comes over for a visit….that would be Twister Knocks….just sayin) It is touted to begin the arrow spinning at the point the string on the bow is released.  Adding the spinning motion at the beginning of the arrow flight is supposed to stabilize it quicker, just like a bullet from a rifle.  They actually say in their advertising the arrow will be nearly completely stabilized within inches of leaving the bow.  That is something that takes a few feet by the action of the vanes or fletchings on the arrow shaft catching the wind and turning the arrow shaft.

Maybe some of you have heard of these or even tried them out.  Give us some feedback on it AND would these be legal in archery contests around the world?

Bears Butt
April 28, 2015

Chris Barton, from the Brigham Bowmen came to the house this morning and presented me with an award for winning the Mens Senior Division 60-70 year olds, Traditional Bow competition.  My first award shooting the bow!  I know there are more hidden in that bow!

She was on her way down to present Weasel, Squirrel and McKenzie their awards as well!

A great way to start the day!

Thanks Chris and the Brigham Bowmen!

Bears Butt

April 26, 2015

I’ve been joining Weasel down on the farm the last couple of nights to shoot bows.  He has his goals and I have mine.  It doesn’t seem too long ago my goal was to shoot my arrow and hit the backstop holding up the paper target.

These arrow stopping blocks are made of layers of foam, compressed together and held with metal bands.  Watching Weasels arrows slip through the air at a very fast speed and slamming into the foam block is pretty impressive.  But when he goes to pull the arrows out of it, he has to use his arrow pulling devise as the speed of the arrow causes it to melt the plastic foam.  There is a lot of heat produced via friction.  On my side of the coin however, I don’t have to worry about that.  My arrows arc high and hit the foam with a slight “bonk”, sticking in maybe 4 inches.

So, back to my story.  Hitting the backstop is a good thing.  First off, it saves you time trying to find the arrow that missed it, second, it saves money because the arrows don’t get all bent or broken by the rocks and other debris down range.  And best of all, you feel pretty good about your accomplishment.

At the indoor range the blocks are 20 yards down range.  In the field it can be whatever you want it to be.  Weasel is trying to hit the bullseye on his paper target, 5 out of 5 times at 60 yards.  The bullseye is a circle about 3 inches across.  He has his mind made up that he will be doing just that some day, but now, he is working his way up to that goal.  I’m not exactly sure what his method is, but he keeps moving up 10 yards every once in awhile.  I think when he puts all his arrows in the bullseye or no farther out than the 8 ring, he moves back to 60 yards and shoots again.  60 yards is a very long way to be that accurate with a bow set up for hunting.  So, while he is shooting at 60 yards, we have my backstop set at 40 yards and we stand on the same line to shoot.  That keeps things safe.  When he moves up, so do I….he will shoot at 50 yards and me at 30.

Well, I’m still learning this bow shooting thing and my target is much bigger than his.  I can pretty much hit the backstop at 40 yards every time, but I use the entire thing right now.  My goal at this point is to put all my arrows within the paper of the target at that range.

To a lot of archers that is an easy thing to do.  But for me it a pretty lofty goal right now.  In my mind, I think if I can hit that paper at 40 yards every time I shoot at it, when I move up to 20 yards it should be a no brainer that I’ll hit it and maybe then my goal will be like Weasels is right now, to hit the white circle in the center of the paper.

By the way, I’m still working on my gap chart and 40 yards is still my point on distance.

(Note:  The pictures of the backstops are NOT the ones we use on the farm).

AND, I absolutely LOVE this picture that Addie took the other day:

My Samick Journey resting on a bush!

Berz But

April 22, 2015

Photo by Addie!

Winemaker and I took Windy’s kids and joined Weasel and his family up for a campout at the Hardware Ranch over the weekend.  The Cache Archers were holding a weekend long 3D shoot and archery golf shoot and we wanted to play.  It seemed right to camp over and be close to the action.  There had been a very slight rain storm that blew over late in the afternoon on Friday, and when we arrived it was just enough to have settled the dust.  It was going to be a cold night though!

What was evident right from the start was all the work that the Cache Archers had put into setting up the target ranges.  They had two distinct coursed of 3D targets set up and each course had 20 targets to shoot at.  Big ones and little ones, but it doesn’t matter if it was big or small, it still took someone to hike that target up the mountain and anchor it down.  Flags were also tied out indicating the safe trail from one target to the next.  That was one heck of a lot of hard work!

As for me, I wanted to shoot in the event and take pictures as we went, what happened was my camera decided it didn’t want to let loose of the pictures that were stored on the disc and so I could not use my camera.  I resorted to using my phone a few times and then relied on two of my Grandkids to take pictures and hopefully use theres.  Most of the pictures in this story are taken by McKenzie or Addylin Zundel.

Saturday morning we began with some breakfast burritos heated over the camp stove.  That little bit of smoke flavor sure made them taste good!  When breakfast was completed we headed over to the registration room to get signed up and learn a little about the rules.  We had never been to a 3D shoot like this one before and were quickly told to relax and enjoy ourselves out on the course(s).  The kids under 11 got to shoot for free and we wanted them to join in on the fun.  Everyone in camp was going to be walking the course and only Winemaker and Hot Spark would just walk to see what it was all about.  The rest of us would shoot.  So, we had 7 shooters in our group.

That caused us to be slow in moving and we let several groups go ahead of us at different points in the trail walk.  It also caused us to watch the arrows as best as we could so we could find them should they happen NOT to hit the intended target.  But, with all arrow slinging sports, the arrows some times have a mind of their own and go where we didn’t want them to go.  Before the day was out, my collection of arrows was down 3 to the bush gods, lost forever, and 4 more in need of various repairs that caused them to be un-usable.  Was it fun and worth the loss of arrows….ABSOLUTELY!!!!  I will know for future shoots like this one to bring lots of arrows that could be “sacrificial” in nature.

From high on the hill you could see the staging area which was the camp and the parking lot.

A prettier setting could not have been made!  Thank you to the management of Hardware Ranch for allowing this to be done on your property.

The range courses were set up with stakes at which the shooters were to position themselves.  There were two different stations for each of the targets, one a little closer than the other.  I’m not sure why they set it up that way, but as time goes on I’m sure I’ll learn.  What we did as we progressed was let the younger shooters, Addy and Chase pick the spot they wanted to shoot from for each of the targets, while the rest of us stayed back by the stakes.  We kept it safe at all times and usually, but not always having the older shooters go first and then moving up for the younger shooters to shoot.  We found that Addy likes a bit of a challenge in the shooting part, while Chase liked to “sneak in close” for a guaranteed kill shot.

So, while Chase liked the close in shots, some of us had to shoot some pretty long shots like this one at two elk down below us.

A shot I would never take in real life with a bow.

So, once we were done with the first course we took a bit of time out for lunch.  Most of the kids wanted to stay back at camp rather than hike around and we had already had a talk with them about the lost and broken arrows.  I only had six left in my quiver that were good enough to be shooting and only two of those I would sacrifice at long range shots or where it was nearly guaranteed to have an arrow break by hitting rocks.  You know how I shoot and the arrow is always at risk of injury.

Well, we decided that Conner, Weasel and I would be doing the shooting on the second course and any of the kids that wanted to tag along could.  We started out with Kenzie, Addy and Chase and soon it was just Kenzie and Addy.  With just 3 of us shooting the course went by quickly and about half way through we found ourselves waiting for the groups ahead of us.  That was fine, it gave us time to enjoy the scenery.

One of these days I’m going to surprise myself by hitting what I’m trying to hit.

When you consider we were each shooting two arrows at each target and you count 5 arrows, 9 out of 10 times it is one of mine that missed.

This is a picture of the parking/camping lot late in the afternoon on Saturday.  Lots of folks were there to enjoy the shooting and the nice weather.

Hey, where are my arrows?

These are the two photographers, Addy and Kenzie, Kenzie doubled as our score keeper!  Good job on all counts girls!

Don’t bother looking for my arrows to be sticking out of this guy.  He was just far enough away I had to elevate a good bit and the cross wind helped move my arrows very far away from the intended target.  That’s ok, I have come to live with it.

I had this buffalo scared!  And after I shot and went down to retrieve my arrows, they were laying in the dirt even with the Caribou I had just missed earlier.  Oh well.

One thing is certain, the scenery was beautiful!

On each of the two courses they have at least one target where the arrow is in grave danger should you miss the target.  These rocks “eat” arrows when they hit them.  Someone ahead of us had one of their arrows eaten and they placed it in the curl of the horns!

I had to look for both of my arrows and lucky for me, they both hit short and glanced into the rocks.

Later in the course were two very long range targets.  The elk was about 85 yards while the white circle was 101 yards away.  I told Kenzie to give me two zeros on my score sheet as my arrows wouldn’t go that far.  We did manage to find two arrows when we went down there to pick Weasel and Conners up.  We turned those arrows into the Cache Archers Club in hopes of someone getting them back.

 HEY!  I hit one!

HEY!  I hit another!

But, the classic for me happened way back toward the beginning of this course.  There was a small bear with his back to the shooters and two red dots up on the shoulder blades.  The object, of course is to hit the two red dots.  Chase says to me, “Hey Grandpa!  Shoot the bear in the butt!  That would be funny!”  Well, it wasn’t because I tried, but the outcome looked like this:

What a fun day it was.  We got a lot of hiking in and by mixing it up with the shooting of arrows, the hike wasn’t really noticed….well, not until later when the stiffness settled in.  I need to get out and do some exercise before the turkey hunt.

Chase is six years old and just beginning to write.  Weasels truck is so dirty, the kids were using it as a “canvas” for their art work.  Chase joined in with this:

Berz But……Close enough Chase!

A fun time was had by all!  Thanks for all the work you did for our entertainment Cache Archers!

Berz But

April 20, 2015

This weekend will be the shake down for our coach as we are heading up to the Hardware Ranch area for an archery 3D shoot.  The event sounds like a very fun thing.  Not only do they have 2 different 3D trail walk courses, but they also have an archery golf course set up.  I’ve not shot either one and so this will be a very fun event.  Most of it will happen for us tomorrow (Saturday) as we will most likely sleep in on Sunday, have a great breakfast and then come home.  All the grandkids are going!

So, today will be a busy day getting prepared to go and then waiting until the kids all get out of school.  BUT, Weasel and I are going to take their trailer up and secure a spot somewhere.  Then we will swing over to his trail camera area and hike in to retrieve the disc.  It will be a fun experience even though the hike will be a long and arduous one.  I plan on loading up my hydration pack and use this as a training time in preparation for the turkey hunt.

I’m beginning to feel that Spring is as exciting for me as Fall is with the hunting.  Turkey hunting really got into my blood and even though I have yet to tag one in Utah, I have had one shot and had a couple of gobblers fighting just behind where I was sitting one day.  To be SO close and yet so FAR away from getting a shot the excitement is there just the same.  The memories made are unbelievable.  If you are a hunter and have never gone turkey hunting you need to put it on your bucket list.  It is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.  Sure, some people luck out and get them by road hunting, but not very often.    We have found you need to get up very early in the morning, get to your spot and hike a long way to be set up long before the first hint of morning light comes around.  It is then that you sit and listen to the morning wake up of all the critters out there in the woods.  The deer, birds, mice and other animals all coming around after a long night of sleeping.  And then the Gobbling as the turkeys wake up and sound off in preparation for their fly down.  FUN!

So, I plan on posting up the events of the weekend when I get back.  If you are interested in this weekends fun, check out the Cache Archers on Facebook and see what they have written about it.

Bears Butt

April 17, 2015