The Feeble Bowhunter

$15 worth of camouflage fabric, an uncomfortable stool, and a dream. The poor mobile man's deer blind! In truth, it didn't look bad. I stretched the die-cut fabric taut between two red cedars and secured it in place with 3 ft. garden stakes before I slouched onto the stool. Bow in hand, I waited until the soprano chorus of frogs from the nearby beaver pond was interspersed by a barred owl's baritone proclamations. As evening's shadow settled on the canary-yellow soybean field I had to wonder, "What am I even doing here?"

Three weeks ago the field had been a deep spring green and was covered with deer sign. You could not walk without noticing the absolute obliteration of the tender leaves by hungry deer. Better yet, I had stumbled unto the figurative gold mine of whitetail signposts: a fresh scrape-line culminating in an aggressive rub on a cluster of small trees. I literally cancelled my Wednesday night plans when I found it (sorry church group, I made the wrong decision). Yet, once Kansas' archery season rolled around the temperatures hovered at unseasonable highs. If anything stymies a deer hunt, it is warm and humid weather. No doubt the activity continues, but it all occurs after dusk.

Two weeks later, my veritable gold mine turned out to be full of pyrite. I had hunted, battling literal clouds of mosquitoes, without so much as seeing a single deer. Worse yet, the green sea of soybeans had turned goldenrod and the tender leaves shriveled. At once I stopped finding tracks, much less rubs and scrapes. The deer had simply moved to better forage. Yet, I hunted this very spot once again today, grasping that maybe just one buck would wander by to check the scrape left weeks before. Alas, it was not to be. I had to settle for enjoying the playful chirps of a covey of bobwhite quail. Holding my bow loosely, I couldn't help but feeling incredibly feeble. "How can I expect to actually kill a deer with this?" was all I could think to myself.

Disregard that fact that I have already taken game (including deer) with the very same bow. When one fruitlessly bowhunts for any given amount of time, the effort eventually takes on an air of futility. In fact, the very weapon that you hold feels feeble. Yet, take the same weapon to the archery range and you can hurl lethal shafts deep into totem animals. Disregard the fact that our ancestors killed giant megafauna with indescribably less powerful tools---the thing begins to feel like a tinker toy!



Too strong is the pull of the rifle. Zero the scope. Rest the gun. Exert dominion over everything within eyesight. Yet, conservation departments either know us too well or they have a twisted sense of humor. Bow seasons last months (September-January in Kansas), whereas rifle season lasts only days (less than two weeks in Kansas). If you really want to hunt the best times in the season (the so-called chase phase) you simply cannot use a rifle legally in most states. Therefore, we are back to the bow. I'll eventually overcome the self-doubt. I'll adapt, just as the deer have adapted. Abandonment of the soybeans means wholesale utilization of another food source. This weekend I'll wear out some bootleather in hopes of finding it.




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