Some Archers Already Preparing

With bowhunting and crossbow-hunting for deer not getting underway for a couple of months, most archers are sitting back as they deal with the heat of summer. However, this is not true of all of them.

Some dedicated archers are making sure their bows and crossbows are tuned up and are ready to go. Not only are they flinging a few arrows and bolts at backyard targets; some are traveling to 3-D shooting ranges so that they can refine their ability to judge shooting distances in the woods. These are the archers who want to be certain that they make ethical, killing shots when the time comes to shoot at a deer. They do not want to be like several guys I ran into last year who were nonchalant about putting arrows or bolts into beautiful deer and then not recovering them.

The dedicated archers I know do everything they can to be able to make killing shots that will enable them to track and recover the deer they shoot. A couple of years ago a young archer told me about following the trail of a deer he had hit for nearly two miles over a couple of days until he found the buck. Though the deer’s meat had spoiled, he tagged the deer because he felt responsible for its death. I admire his persistence in working to recover the buck.

A few dedicated archers scout all year for deer. Some of them have taken up shed hunting during the winter. The antlers they recover give them hints about the size of the bucks that are in the areas they scour and also give them hints about where they might set up stands.

Many archers now construct baited areas they call food plots. Somehow this is legal and is actually encouraged by the Pennsylvania Game Commission as a legal hunting method. Some of these “food plots” are actually put out on working farms. The PGC enforces laws on baiting when people set out corn piles or other foods near their stands during the season. I do not see much difference between that and so-called food plots that are constructed only a month or two before the season.

Real deer hunters are scouting now, too. A bowhunter I once knew used to scout for deer when he was “groundhog hunting.” He learned where deer entered fields. Prior to the season he set up his stands in areas the deer traveled. He smiled when telling me that he didn’t shoot any groundhogs on these scouting adventures.