Table of contents for August 2023 - Big Game in Bowhunter

On the afternoon of Halloween, a buck I call Scarface fed his way across my food plot toward my stand. As he reached the 20-yard mark, I aimed carefully, placing my pin behind his shoulder. I released my arrow and followed its illuminated nock to the mature buck. The shot felt great — until it hit the buck. A loud crack and the lack of penetration made me doubt my shot. The buck ran a short distance before limping into the woods. After an exhaustive search the next day, the buck was not recovered. I knew this buck well, as Scarface had been a resident of my Ohio farm since I purchased it in 2020. He was a seven-point in both 2020 and 2021, but in 2022, he had grown…

IT WAS OPENING WEEKEND of archery elk season in Idaho, and we had just dropped our packs on top of the ridge after a lengthy cross-country hike. A year ago, I had discovered this drainage and was anxious to get back. It was late-evening, and as we sat glassing, we counted seven bulls. Then, at last light, a big herd of elk filtered through a saddle 300 yards below us. We counted over 50 head, including a pretty good six-point bull, as they trotted down an open sagebrush ridge to feed for the night. We were pumped! But while sitting on the ridge, I didn’t feel quite right…like something was just “off.” Come morning, I felt better, and we hunted the drainage all day. But the bulls were mostly silent.…

THE RISING SUN cast a very unfamiliar purplish hue on the cloud deck as we slowly descended into the airspace above the colossal city. Dropping through the clouds into the oddly-colored haze above the mass of humanity felt bizarre. The atmosphere was alien-like, yet the forest surrounding the metropolis was an especially vibrant tint of green. It felt like I was on some kind of shuttle, descending into a strange, new world after completing a long, interplanetary voyage. Buenos Aires, Argentina, was certainly foreign to me, and with a total of 17 million humans in the region, I like it that way. Big cities and I don’t get along. Fortunately, this was merely a stopover to a far more comfortable rural destination. But first, I had to meet up with…

THE PREVIOUS four days were hot — uncomfortably hot — especially for late-September in Wyoming. My girlfriend, Adrianne, my mother, Pam, and I sat in colorful folding chairs in camp, developing a plan of attack for our last hunt before Mom had to return to work. A week prior, Adrianne and I found ourselves in a hellhole of a canyon where we stumbled across a matched set of large elk sheds. At the time, though, we were pursuing a monstrous 7x7 bull with roughly 12 cows. We left the treasures to pursue the bull, and ultimately left the canyon empty-handed — no elk, and no sheds. Wanting to finally retrieve the sheds and hoping and praying the elk would be there again, we decided that was where we’d stake everything…

MY GUIDE, Kyler, and I could see a large set of antlers breaking through the thick brush and trees that ran along the opposite bank of the river. The rutting bull could not resist Kyler’s plaintive cow calls and was bulldozing over small trees and bushes as he tried to find us. Soon he was standing broadside on the bank directly across the river from us. I slowly raised my rangefinder, pressed the button, and “45” lit up in the display. The bull was locked onto our position. When he looked away, I slowly drew back my bow and anchored. Everything felt good as I settled the gap between my 40 and 50-yard pins in the “pocket” behind the bull’s shoulder. Running my shot sequence through my head, I increased…

As we continue our collaboration with our Instagram page, @bowhunter, we’ve chosen to address three responses to the following question below: DO YOU HUNT with a fast, light arrow or a slow, heavy arrow? A HEAVY WINS in most hunting situations! I build my setup for elk and shoot everything else with the same setup. — (bowhunting_nut) This is a good philosophy in my opinion. Elk are big, tough animals that typically require that you collapse both lungs, and that takes significant penetration. If you’re confident enough in your arrow weight and speed to take on elk, most any other North American game animal, including the big bears, will be a piece of cake. The one exception could be moose. It’s often wise to step up your game a bit…

MANY YEARS AGO, I was in Saskatchewan, enjoying an incredible trip hunting whitetails. One of my favorite things about hunting trips is spending time in camp getting to know my fellow hunters and guides. It was during that Saskatchewan hunt that I met guide Josh Belyea. I loved listening to Josh’s tales of guiding adventures. We clicked immediately, and we have been good friends ever since. It was in 2019, on yet another Saskatchewan hunt, that Josh told me he also guided hunters for woodland caribou in Newfoundland. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, because woodland caribou have always been my dream subspecies to hunt. And in that moment, the planning began for us to work together to make that dream a reality. Josh contacted the Newfoundland outfitter he…

It’s difficult to believe there are still places where the efficacy of modern archery equipment continues to be questioned. I didn’t grow up in the era when the Pope and Young Club and other bowhunting organizations had to fight to prove that archery was a viable method of harvesting big game, but they won that fight, and in most of North America we enjoy liberal bow-hunting regulations because of those efforts. It’s a privilege that is often taken for granted. In 2012, Bowhunter columnist, C.J. Winand, was contacted by Danish bow-hunter Frank Feldmann through the National Bowhunter Education Foundation. At the time, Frank was the only outfitter licensed to guide in Greenland and he was on a quest to legalize bowhunting for muskox. Known for their robust build and thick…