First and foremost, Merry Christmas! It’s December 23rd as I sit here and write this. My house is decorated, there are presents under the tree, and my 5 year old daughter is doing everything she can to stay on the nice list, haha. Aside from that, I wanted to share my latest hunting film with you. It’s about hunting bull elk in Arizona with a bow and I think you’ll really enjoy it!
If you were to ask me how my Idaho mule deer hunt was going to go beforehand, there is no way I’d be able to land on what actually happened.
The front end of hunting trips for me is always filled with anticipation, expectations, and just pure excitement and wonder. In Idaho this year, I was backpacking into a place I had never been. It looked beautiful on a map, and I couldn’t wait to step foot into this place.
All that to say, I never spend a great deal of time thinking about all of the bad things that could happen before a hunt. Sure, there are some concerns that cross my mind, and I think that’s a good thing, but I don’t generally walk into a hunt paranoid. After this hunt, my mind is a bit up in the air.
As far as the hunt was concerned, it honestly wasn’t great in terms of deer. The views did not disappoint, and the camping was beautiful, even with all of the nasty weather we received, which put a damper on hunt time. All in all, I saw 3 bucks total. 2 were shooters, but things just didn’t line up. Well, it may have on one, but I never stuck around to find out.
As I was watching a real choice buck at the top of the mountain and contemplating how I could get a shot, something jarred me. A rock blew up not 100 yards behind me, followed by the sound of a gunshot. I was wearing orange at the top of a ridge. I didn’t know exactly where it came from, who it came from, or if there would be more shots. All the while, this buck lay down on the ridge in front of me, 800 yards away, with no approach.
From the moment I heard the gunshot, mentally, I was done. Even so, I wrestled with myself about what to do. I had one more day, but now felt incredibly uneasy, and the fun/adventure had been pulled out from under me. Finally, I had a great buck found and would have loved to stick around to see if he moved into a better spot for an approach. However, at this point, the deer wasn’t worth it to me. I packed my things and left immediately back to Arizona.
There were two sides of influence going on in my mind throughout this entire thing. One side was telling me everything would probably be ok. I could have just moved from where I was watching that deer and called it good. The other side thought of my family. Of course, my wife and daughter were heavy on my mind, but also, my wife’s cousin was paralyzed from a rogue bullet in a hunting accident. Dark thoughts of this potentially happening to me floated around in my head and ultimately pushed me off the mountain. I have no regrets here in the least and feel perfect about my decision.
I’ve been home for about 3 weeks at this point since this all happened. And while everything was fine and I got home safe, I’m not gonna lie. It was really scary. I have no clue if it was someone shooting at a deer, a rock, etc. Whatever it was, it was too close for comfort on my end, and it’s not the first time I’ve had bullets in the air near me while hunting. I don’t like it one bit, and I might just be done with it altogether. Safety is something I don’t treat lightly, especially when there are firearms involved. I’m well aware that not everyone has that same approach, but that is mine.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and the more I’ve done so, the more I’m leaning towards potentially stepping away from these rifle hunts and fully committing to bowhunting only. I don’t have anything against rifle hunting in the least. It’s more of a personal thing for me here. Having had several similar experiences involving guns, it makes me wonder if there will come a time when I’m not so lucky. And to me, it’s just not worth it. Focusing on just archery hunts puts my mind a bit more at ease if I’m being completely honest.
Anyways, that’s where my head is at right now guys. My outlook may change in the future, but right now, I’m fully focused on my bow and archery seasons. I wanted to share with you what happened to encourage you not to take safety for granted. People get lifelong injuries and even die out there due to improper safety practices with firearms. Exercise them. Wear orange. Know what you’re shooting at before shooting. Assess the surroundings of your target. Don’t shoot towards the top of a ridge, because the bullet can travel past that point. Don’t walk around with a round in the chamber. Educate yourself and stay safe out there.
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Just a few days have passed since I went on my first pronghorn hunt. It was an out-of-state archery hunt and one that I looked forward to immensely. I did a fair amount of e-scouting, had a great plan, but honestly didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I was doing. Since it was my first time ever chasing pronghorn, I wanted to ultimately just learn about this new species and the country they called home. I did just that and have some great takeaways.
I quite literally could not have done this hunt without the onXhunt app. There was a ton of private ground around me, and being able to see where I stood in relation to those boundaries was absolutely essential to staying legal out there.
Throughout my entire time in pronghorn country, I was constantly amazed at how curious pronghorn were. So much so that I remember thinking if other animals had the curiosity of pronghorn, bowhunting wouldn’t be as hard as it is.
On several occasions, I had bucks come to me. I had no decoy, funny hat, or white rag waving in the air. They were purely curious about what I was. Bucks would stare at me, take a few steps, stare more, and repeat. This curiosity pulled several bucks into bow range for me, but once I drew back, they’d leave in a hurry.
Because of this, I will for sure be using a bow-mounted decoy the next time I go pronghorn hunting. They say curiosity killed the cat. I think curiosity could also kill the pronghorn, though.
The number one defense mechanism for a pronghorn is their eyes. It’s why they like hanging out in open country. They want to see what’s around them at all times, unlike a deer, elk, or bear that wants to bury themselves in cover to not be seen. This is not the case with pronghorn.
With other animals, what usually busts me on stalks is a change in wind direction. Wind didn’t seem to bother the pronghorn that much. I think they were aware of it, but it wasn’t at the top of their alerts to danger. They can see 270 degrees around them, though, which explains the times I was busted and didn’t know why at the time. Now, I know they were indeed seeing me. Fool this animal’s eyes and you can get into bow range.
Stalking pronghorn bucks is some of the most finicky stalking I’ve ever done. I archery hunt coues deer a lot and have done so successfully for many years. That stalking is fairly easy compared to stalking pronghorn. And I really think that is because of the landscape. With coues deer, I have much more cover. Trees, topography, cacti, boulders, etc. With pronghorn, there is dang near nothing but sage to cover your movements.
Every stalk for pronghorn found me either on my hands and knees or on my belly. I also learned that stalking them on their feet isn’t a great idea. So, I looked for bucks bedded. This proved to be the most successful way to stalk into bow range. I’d put the tallest piece of sage I could between me and their eyes.
This next bit is a hard one for me to write and somewhat of a sour spot in my hunt. Over the course of 8 days, I missed 4 pronghorn bucks. Yes, I got 4 chances to bend the limbs back on this highly jumpy big game animal. For that, I am proud. The reason for the misses, I am not proud in the least.
I shot my bow the morning after I got to camp, and everything was fine. Broadheads were dead center out to north of 70 yards. At some point during the trip, though, things changed. My first few misses I attributed to string jumping. It was the next one that threw me for a loop and caused me to really start digging for answers.
My string decided to stretch during the hunt. I have been shooting this bow since the springtime and had thought that the possibility of string stretch was long gone. I was sorely wrong. After further investigation, my broadheads were now 1 foot to the left at 60 yards. String stretch moves everything. Nock height, cam timing, draw weight, etc. In other words, it throws you out of tune. This, without a doubt, cost me my 2025 pronghorn buck.
The reason I say I’m not proud of this tuning issue is that I know better. I should have checked all of my specs before I left, but I didn’t. I just knew that my arrows were hitting where I wanted them to. My suspicion, though, is that I had the stretch going on before I left, as I missed a mule deer buck and experienced some random tuning inconsistencies at home. It was a hard lesson, but a lesson learned for the betterment of my bowhunting in the future.
By the time I got things figured out in camp, I had one morning left. That morning greeted me with dense fog and only about 50 yards of visibility. I never got another chance at a pronghorn buck before heading back home to Arizona. Until next time.
I’m taking a page out of the book of pronghorn and putting my eyes well into the future after this trip. From now on, I’ll be creating a protocol for each new bow I receive. One that lends towards avoiding these pesky issues I’ve had in the past. I’ll be sharing that with you in the future. This isn’t the tag I’ve had not filled due to a bow coming out of tune in the field. You can’t control everything, but these are things that are largely avoidable.
What’s next? I’ve got a rifle mule deer tag in October that I am super excited for, and then after tha,t it’s back to the bow for bull elk in my home state of Arizona. Between now and then, you can bet I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure that my bow is ready for desert bulls. Good luck out there. Fall has just started!
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Guys! I’m back from bear hunting, for the most part at least. I might get out for one more evening and morning, but that’s all she wrote for spring. My spring has been absolutely epic and I hope you’ve been out there enjoying yours as well. I had 2 backcountry bear hunting trips and a super fun turkey hunt with my daughter that I’ll never forget.
In the spirit of spring, I wanted to let you all know about a new film I just recently released. It documents one of my backcountry spring bear hunts from this year and I absolutely love how it turned out. The film is called Heart and it not only tells the story of my hunt, but gives you a glimpse into the balancing act between love and passion. Check it out below and I really hope you enjoy it.
Now, I know it may sound cheesy, but when a new year starts, it feels like my mind gets a reset. Things seem more attainable and motivation is high for what’s to come. This is how I feel walking into the coues mountains every January. And every January my fingers are crossed that the year will start off with a bang, or I should say an archery coues deer.
As I write this, I’m sitting next to our Christmas tree admiring the many ornaments and reflecting on the memories they all hold. This time of year is naturally a time of reflection. We’re about to close the door on one chapter and move on to the next. A year in review is in order.
Filming my hunts is something that I honestly never thought I’d do when I was younger. It just seemed like too much work, and that’s true, but it is so worth it in the end. Being able to look back on hunts from the past and relive those memories is something special. And this past October I had a bear hunt that turned to a mountain lion hunt rather quickly. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I am thrilled to share my new film The Unexpected with you. This is one for the books and a hunt I’ll never forget.
Not 48 hours ago I arrived home from whitetail camp in Colorado. The hunt was snowy, cold, and offered very little in terms of deer movement. I came home with much more than a hunting story. It was a new addiction I feel coursing through my veins as I type this.
Unlike most kids that watched cartoons on Saturday mornings, mine were a little different. There was a TV involved, but instead of cartoons my Dad and I would watching hunting shows. Most of them revolved all around the whitetail deer. An animal I’ve wanted to hunt for quite some time. And now I’m going to get to do just that.
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