All Female Archery Hunting Trip

Here is another great story about an all female archery hunting trip. Wrote by Florella Crouch from Georgia:

I have gained so many wonderful experiences from participating in this archery hunt, including the privilege of meeting many prominent outdoor writers and professional hunters. The sponsors have been generous, the accommodations great, and the deer plentiful. The archery hunt continues to be so successful that there is a waiting list each year to sign up.

I’ll never forget the first year that I participated in this hunt. It was my second season as a bow hunter and I was overjoyed at the opportunity to hunt at this lodge, especially in the company of other women archers. It was unusually cold for October in the south. I had on so many layers of clothes I could hardly climb in the stand the first morning. It was just getting daylight when I saw the first deer, and he was big one. He walked slowly towards me down a clear-cut hill as if I had him on a string. When he reached the edge of the hardwood bottom where I sat, he turned instead coming in like I expected and walked within 40 yards of my stand. Although I’d successfully practiced forty-yard shots at targets, I found myself uncomfortable with that distance when I drew on that huge buck. I admit the uncontrollable shaking may have had something to do with it. He stood there testing the wind as I let the bow down. I retrieved my grunt call from my jacket and started calling to see if I could get him to come closer. It got his attention, and he started circling behind me to identify the source of the sound. He was still too far away, and as he slipped through the woods like a ghost, I had to lean completely around the tree to keep an eye on him. I blew the grunt tube again loudly and he turned towards me and stopped. The image of him standing there at full attention, his huge rack facing me, his breath visible in the cold air, is an image I’ll never forget. After an eternity, he slowly turned and vanished into the brush. I continued to watch for him, but he had moved on. As I turned around in my stand to get back to the business of waiting, there stood another buck, less than 30 yards from where I was sitting.

He was standing there looking for the buck that was doing all that grunting. His head was partially hidden behind an oak tree so I eased my binoculars up to get a look. This archery hunting lodge practices trophy management, and the rules state that a buck must be either eight points or better or at least have a 16-inch spread. I had to make sure he was a good buck. He was getting closer and I still couldn’t identify him as a shooter due to the thick undergrowth and my renewed uncontrollable shaking. As he passed right by my stand, I quickly counted eight points. I positioned myself, came to full draw, and shot as he turned quartering away. I heard the arrow make impact, and the buck jumped and loped into the woods. About 30 yards later, he stopped. He stood there looking around and started eating acorns. It’s amazing how many thoughts can race through your mind in about 10 seconds. I concluded that I must have hit a limb or tree instead of my deer as he ambled off out of sight.

The next hour went by uneventfully, except for the agony of reliving both buck encounters and wondering what went wrong with the shot. Unable to stand it any longer, I got down to look for my arrow. It was sticking in the ground and it had blood on it. Not a lot of blood, but there was blood nonetheless. I looked for a trail but didn’t see anything, so I went to the spot where he stopped running. There was blood on the ground and it was easy to see the direction it was leading. Due to the hunting lodge rules and not knowing where the other hunters were placed, I didn’t follow the trail but headed out to the pick-up point to wait for some help.

We returned to the spot where the buck was shot after all the archery hunters were picked up and one of the guides started down the blood trail, with me right behind him. As we followed the trail into the woods, the blood sign became more pronounced and the guide remarked that the buck couldn’t be far. He was right, as we soon heard a crashing sound and saw the buck run into the thick undergrowth and then cross the access road where the truck was parked 100 yards away. The next eight hours would end up being an experience of an archery hunt I would never forget.

The guides decided to take the hunters back to camp before resuming the search. They left me there, instructing me to keep an eye on the field across the road in case the buck had bedded down there, thinking that he might get up to return to the brushy hardwoods after they left. I found a place to sit, bow in hand, focused on the field and the point where we last spotted the buck. I replayed the archery hunting events of the morning 100 times before my mind began to wander to other things. I was thirsty, hungry and the temperature was starting to rise. My feet were starting to sweat because of the battery-heated socks I had on to combat the cold. I removed the batteries and put them in my pack. I settled back to watch for any sign of movement and hoped the guides would remember to bring some lunch for me when they returned from the archery camp.

I heard the truck coming and was excited about the prospect of recovering my buck. The guides had brought their dog with them, who was legendary for his tracking ability. He looked pretty laid back to me and I wasn’t convinced he was up for the task. They had forgotten to bring, in the excitement of the moment, something to eat or drink. After apologizing about lunch, they put the dog on the blood trail and I witnessed his personality change in a split second. He took off running and so did the guides. I’d already been warned that the pace might get brisk, so I took off behind them.

Across the field we went in single file behind the baying dog, who was starting to put some distance between us. Finally, we reached a large creek and were forced to stop. The dog was nowhere to be seen, but we could hear him off in the distance. There was nothing to do but negotiate the creek, so we waded through and found it wasn’t that deep. The cold water actually felt good, since by now my innermost layer of clothing was soaked with sweat. One of the archery hunting guides had offered to take my bow while crossing the creek and I didn’t offer to carry it again once we were across. We took off again after the dog and went through fields, hardwood bottoms and more fields. The dog was still baying, so we could tell he had slowed down and wasn’t too far ahead of us. Once we slowed the pace, I noticed the scenery was changing. We were headed into the middle of a swamp.

We fell back in to single file as we sloshed through ankle deep water and mud. I asked them not to turn around so that I could remove my sweat soaked thermals. Immediately I felt better, but I knew if I didn’t replace those body fluids soon there was going to be trouble. I asked them to stop and, against their protest, I found a clear pool of water and drank like a wild animal. I experienced instant relief and gave the signal to keep going. We ploughed ahead until they both stopped suddenly, their heads turned in the direction of the baying dog. The archery hunting guide with my bow handed it to me quickly and told me to get ready. Without really knowing why, I notched an arrow and stood at attention. I didn’t have time to ask what we were doing before I saw a deer come into view with the dog on it’s heels. I drew, but even though the deer was moving at light speed, I could see it was a doe.

The dog saw us and immediately abandoned the chase. As he lay there panting, we decided it was time to stop searching and head back to the archery hunting lodge. One of the guides asked me if I’d rather walk back to the truck or walk to the lodge because it was about the same distance. I reasoned it would be quicker to walk to the lodge, since we’d still have the truck ride back anyway. We split up, one guide leading the way back to the lodge, as the crow flies, and the other one heading back through the swamp to the truck.

I followed my guide through the woods, who was actually one of the owners, and we talked about archery hunting, his dog, running the lodge, and the novelty of adding an all women’s archery hunt that year. Neither of us realized at the time that the hunt would be such a huge success and that there would be over 20 archery hunting ladies who attended each year. We ran across an old Indian mound and he said he’d found plenty of arrowheads there. As we got closer to the lodge, he pointed out a pond that was good for duck hunting. We walked in silence for a while, and as we approached the lodge, he told me my buck probably wasn’t mortally wounded and would most likely live a long life on that property. He smiled and added that we had educated that buck to the point that it would be a long time before he got himself into a situation like that again. Back at the archery hunting lodge, it was unusually quiet and I suddenly realized I was missing the evening archery hunt. Somehow it just didn’t seem that important. I knew there was always tomorrow.

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