Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Petersen's Bowhunting

BOWHUNTING WISDOM Plan Now So You Don't Get Shut Out of the Action! I wrote an article about the future of deer hunting for the Iowa Game & Fish magazine 25 years ago. In that article, I laid out what I thought was going to happen in my home state, based on then-current trends and commonsense projections. What I told the Iowa readers didn’t sit well with them; they were used to open hunting and easy access. I got some strongly negative feedback telling me to stuff it. It was a classic example of killing the messenger if you don’t like the message. At the risk of repeating the bad news and getting Petersen’s BOW-HUNTING readers on my back, I am going to cover this sensitive subject again. I will…

From the time I was a little kid, I watched my father Rob start prepping for elk season months before opening day. Back then, I didn’t understand why he spent countless hours shooting every evening after work. All that time spent preparing for just one arrow; it seemed excessive to me. That is until, one day, Dad brought home a massive bull he had killed. I remember standing there looking at the antlers, and that’s when it clicked. From that moment, I couldn’t wait until the day I turned 12 so I could finally experience my own elk hunt. With my birthday being late in the year, I wasn’t able to archery hunt elk my first season. Having to wait a whole extra year was like torture, but finally the…

I WILL NEVER FORGET walking down the left-field line with tears in my eyes after my last college baseball game. At that moment, I realized my time as a ballplayer was over, and the idea of going on to the next level was not an option. Over the next few days, I was forced to put things into perspective and realize that even though I wouldn’t go to the big leagues, I had pulled off something very few individuals ever accomplished. I was able to have a successful college baseball career. This was my goal from the start, and I had achieved that goal. This same conundrum reared its ugly head as the 2022 deer season came to a close. Every year I try to prepare myself for the ups…

BETTER BOWHUNTING Here's How to Tame That Fight-or-Flight Response When shooting at a big buck or bull, my patience goes out the window and I often loose the arrow before I have really settled-in for a good shot. I am much better now than I used to be, but no matter how much I fight the urge, as soon as the sight makes it to the deer I have an overwhelming urge to send the arrow downrange immediately. I am certainly not the only bow-hunter to experience this phenomenon. I think to some degree or another we all feel it. I have seen many of my hunting buddies miss great opportunities at nice bucks by shooting too quickly. I have many friends who are great target archers and seem to…

Over a lifetime spent DIY bow-hunting for elk, virtually all my harvests have come from rugged, remote country. I’ve always loved pristine wilderness habitats, and since most people can’t, or won’t, put out the effort involved in accessing such places, I made backcountry elk hunting my forte. And having enjoyed a nearly 100 percent success rate for 40 years, it is safe to say my approach to success was productive. Now, let’s take a look at the flip-side. Somewhere around age 60, I began to lose my physical prowess and mental passion for the undertaking; finding myself in such a predicament was stressful, frustrating and depressing. Having to accept the fact that my number one interest in the bowhunting world was leaving my means weighed heavy on my mind. So,…

Is it possible to come home empty-handed from a hunt where almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong and still have had an incredible experience? Well, when your bow shows up two days later than you do and the end of your hunt is wiped out by a hurricane, yet you somehow still see more moose than days you actually hunted, the answer is unequivocally, “Yes!” When I departed for Newfoundland in September 2022, I was beyond ecstatic to once again be returning to “The Rock” to pursue moose. The province has long been known for providing one of the best moose-hunting experiences in North America, with guides that offer drive-in, fly-in and even helicopter-in hunts, catering to every interest imaginable. For this trip, I was staying with…

And while you can often make do with hunting gear and apparel you got on the cheap, there’s one item, in my opinion, on which you can never scrimp — footwear. If you do, you do so at your own peril and should expect achy feet, possibly a sore back and other issues. Over the years, I’ve worn affordably priced hunting boots that didn’t come as advertised, weren’t comfortable as you broke them in or simply couldn’t hold up to the pounding from the woods and trails, showing signs of wear and tear much sooner than I’d expected. As a result, sooner or later I came to regret my purchase. That said, one company that has long been known for manufacturing high-quality, comfortable, dependable boots and footwear is Irish Setter.…

WHITETAILS Find This Tree Fruit and You'll Usually Find Deer Fruit of the Forest The tree fruit (not a nut) is known as an acorn, pronounced “akern” if you grew up in the South. Acorns, also known as “hard mast,” are relished by many woodland wildlife species. Depending on the conditions Mother Nature throws at us, acorn production can be inconsistent, unreliable and cyclical. While astute bowhunters are aware of this, they also recognize that it’s a mistake to ignore acorns altogether. If acorns had nutrition labels, they would disclose that the main reason for the attraction relates to the fact that they boast a high fat content that equates to maximum digestible energy. White oak acorns, widely considered the most attractive to whitetails, offer 8 calories per acorn, which…

CROSSBOWS Follow These Tips to Up the Odds of Success There is nothing easy about elk hunting, and hiking for miles through rough terrain and a tangle of trees and limbs should be expected. The elk started to file off the field as the eastern horizon brightened. We were ahead of the animals in the bush and used our cow calls to entice a bull to check us out or round us up. Five cows and calves meandered past us while a big bull bugled farther upwind. The elk were headed for a steep river valley where they were safe from most hunters and had the solitude they sought. Not catching a bull up top would mean navigating steep elevation, a labyrinth of challenging terrain and thick brush. Be Ready…

GILA WILDERNESS GIANT — Mahlon Barkman WHEN MAHLON BARKMAN opened an email from the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish in spring 2022, he was shocked to learn he’d drawn a tag for one of the coveted elk-hunting units in the Gila National Forest in his first year of applying. Securing the permit, however, was just the first step on an incredible journey that would take him to great highs and lows by hunt’s end. Barkman, who would be bowhunting with New Mexico Professional Big Game Hunting, immediately reached out to guides Ben and John Chapel, since he still wasn’t fully convinced he’d pulled a tag. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to get drawn, because it was a pretty hard unit to draw,” Barkman said. “I…

Finally, it had arrived — the time in my life when years of accumulating preference points in multiple Western states were paying off in spades. In the fall of 2021, I’d successfully hunted Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, and my good fortune rolled into 2022 when I pulled a premium Colorado elk tag. All systems were a go. Though I’d never bowhunted the unit, I’d accompanied many friends and family and knew the country well. My buddy Jason and I made a scouting trip in mid-July, and the number of elk we saw was remarkable. My gear was in order, and I was in top physical shape. In late July, after the scouting trip, I completed my third 100-mile mountain marathon near Fairplay, Colo. The stars were aligning, and my goal…