I frequent a Utah based forum dedicated to outdoors related activities and it’s the best forum I have ever visited for things like this.  There are a great bunch of people who regularly post things on the site and like all forums there are things that get out of hand occasionally, but for the most part it’s a pretty civil place to visit.

The past few days there have been a couple of postings on the site that have some really good stories about hunting elk in Utah.  These three guys drew out limited entry bull elk tags and wouldn’t you know it, all three decided to try and shoot these big animals with “old fashioned” archery gear.  One man used a long bow and cedar shaft arrows and the other two used re-curve bows.

Anyone familiar with shooting the older type wooden bows knows that in order to shoot a big game animal you have to get pretty dang close before you shoot.  There are a lot of ethics in this sport even if you are shooting a modern compound bow.  Closeness to the animal is usually a must before pulling back on the string.

In my younger days I used a re-curve bow I had made in high school and it worked really well to deliver cedar shaft arrows out into the woods to be lost forever.  I think I soundly lost close to 3 dozen arrows without hitting any animals.  However, I did have one shot that should have been my first deer, but I blew the shot and shot low.  The arrow is still sticking out of the quakie where it planted full broadhead deep after my shot.

So, these three guys used very primitive equipment to shoot some extremely large animals.  Ethical shots at close range.  Their stories are very interesting to say the least and I thought you should read them too.

Here are the links to the two stories.

http://utahwildlife.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44765&sid=91d345a8522511d80c8a66d0397fc031

And

http://utahwildlife.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44815

I have personally met the man who wrote the second story (Tex-O-Bob) and he is the same person who told me about “single beveled edges” on knives, arrow points etc.

I congratulate each of these three men on their accomplishments in filling their tags on some incredible animals.  It just goes to show you that you don’t need the most modern and the best of the best equipment in order to shoot trophy animals.  I personally can not imagine being within 15 yards of a massive bull elk, screaming its guts out in a hollow….I think it would have been real easy for it to “smell” my presence, if you know what I mean.

Enjoy the stories.

Bears Butt

Sept. 18, 2012