Arizona Archery Coues Deer Hunt - 2025

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Paralysis by analysis. This is a crippling mental analyzation that often plagues me. It doesn’t matter if it’s business, family decisions and most frighteningly when it comes to hunting. Should I do this, or that. Thoughts of lost opportunities if I decide the wrong thing. 

Well sometimes you just got to make a decision and just stick with it. Right or wrong least you took action.

So started my 2025 Coues deer OTC archery hunt in Arizona. The landscape down near the Mexican border was drier than a popcorn fart. Given that information the logical thing to do was to sit water. With that resource being the limiting factor, there was only so many places the deer could go to soothe their parched throats.

Now I’m a firm believer that if the state says it legal, then we have every right to take advantage  of it. If officials say we can sit water, well then by God, we can sit water. That’s what I told myself and that’s what I did for a day. But this year it just wasn’t sitting right with me.

After sitting a stand over a water tank and noticing a few does come in that would make a meth head seem calm, cool and collected, I just couldn’t personally continue to justify taking advantage of them in this vulnerable situation.

They were hyped up to the next level because when they go to water they know they’re most vulnerable. Predators understand the simple logic that us humans do. They have to come to water, so sit, wait and attack when they come in. With the mountain lion population as high as a hippy on April 20th, these dog sized deer were on DEFCON 1.

Am I judging people who sit water? Hell no. Will I sit water again sometime in the future? Hell yes. Just not this year.

At least I limited my options by one for the next days hunt. So what’s left? Spot and stalk or lay and wait by ambush. But which of the spots that I had so meticulously scouted of the off season should I invest my time into?

Just make a decision a freaking stick to it. Analyzing the uncontrollable variables would do me no good. Get out where they are and just see what happens.

I picked a spot on my OnX maps that was littered with waypoints, fired up the truck with all my gear in it and headed out for the day.

With temps in the low twenties and my skin thinning by the day from now living in the typically warm borderlands region of southern Arizona, I layered on the clothing like I was headed on a Mount Everest expedition. If only my Colorado buddies could see me now…

I sat with my spotter between my legs as the stars faded and gray light started to overtake the night. This was the time to catch them moving. I methodically scanned the rolling hills trying to decipher little gray moving specks from the equally gray landscape.

Nothing doing.

Man the rut has got to kick in at some point I thought to myself. With miles and miles of terrain to glass, I was blown away that nothing, not even a coyote, wanted to show itself.

I could sit there and complain about my bad luck, or I could simply change locations and do something about it. Maybe I should wait longer, perhaps they just weren’t moving yet. Or would I waste the golden hour staring at the same few rocks, trying to make a Coues materialize from them.

The best thing to do is the right thing, the second best is the wrong thing, the worst is to do nothing at all.

I decided to move on and see what another area had to offer. 

That was the right decision.

My binoculars must have had a mind of their own, because as soon as I had brought up the glass I noticed a buck staring down at a doe, daring her to move. And then another buck, then another.

My short term memory isn’t what it used to be and I kicked myself for not remembering one simple thing with the rut. It’s localized. One hot doe changes everything. Every doe isn’t appealing to a buck, but when they are in heat, they’re a magnet to every buck in the county.

I’ll impart a little bit of knowledge that I’m sure everyone else already knows. When bucks are rutting, I’ve found the best way to get a shot at one is to get in as close as possible without spooking them, sit tight and let them make the mistake.

I gathered gear, checked the wind and meandered the few miles towards the rutfest. 

Once I crested the last little hill before I reached their playground I kept chanting to myself, slow is steady, steady is deadly. Don’t make a mistake now. You have all day.

I didn’t need all day apparently. As I took my first steps into the dry arroyo a doe popped her head above a hilltop. With little more than a few tufts of grass to conceal me, I thought I was busted for sure. She obviously had more important things to worry about. In this case that would be a little forked horn buck sticking his nose in a place that she didn’t feel it belonged.

I dropped to my knees hoping that their game of grab-ass was keeping them occupied. They ran by me, tongues hanging out from exhaustion, without so much as a glance at me.

This was the little guy of the three bucks that I had seen earlier. The two others had to be close by. No self-respecting hard horned buck was going to let this adolescent take what was rightfully his. 

Apparently the biggest of the three bucks felt the same way I did. Movement on the same hill that the other two had just crossed caught my eye and out came the biggest buck. He looked pissed.

As he dropped down the hill and behind a little depression I drew back. For a moment I thought about how I was going to range him if he followed the same path the doe and forky had just taken, but this was to be an unwarranted concern.

He decided the quickest way to the doe would be a straight line, and that straight line would be right through me.

Good God, he’s going to run right through me I had thought. Already at full draw, with a few blades of grass as cover, there was no way for me to move. If I blinked my eyes he would know it, let alone pivoting the few degrees I needed to get a shot off. I would have to wait until he walked into my sight pin.

Ten yards away and not a clue I was there., what were the chances… As he filled up my entire sight housing I pulled through the shot and watched him stagger as my arrow broke his shoulder and sunk deep into his body.

Adrenaline took control of him, not letting him know he was already dead as he made an all out sprint.

Thirty yards down the trail I heard a crash as he launched himself off a ten foot cliff and found his final resting place in the bottom of the arroyo.

Make a decision. Preferably the right decision. A bad decision is a good backup. But for the love of God, just make a decision. This time it was the correct decision. Perhaps that made up for my 100 previous bad choices. A beautiful buck that was going to go for a ride in my backpack told me that it had.

Fred Bohm 

Hunting Black Bear in the Arizona Desert

When I moved to Arizona, it wasn’t because it was known for its epic black bear hunting. As a matter of fact, I just assumed they occasionally jumped the border from nearby states in search of patriotic gun laws and an easy to catch aging population. Never had I thought that monster color phased black bear roamed the desert mountains and even called them their permanent home. Not every creature in this state are snowbirds after all.

Being a hunter from Colorado, I always envied other western states that didn’t succumb to city slickers’ pressure and allowed sportsmen to chase bear during the spring. Turkey hunting is great to help pass the time until the fall, but give me an option to chase a walking rug with some terrific meat attached to it and you can bet 10 times out of 10 that I’ll take that choice.

Not only did I learn that black bear call Arizona home, but even better they roam the mountains out my back door. Being that if I spit too far off my back patio it’ll land in Mexico, these dual citizens thrive in an environment that I never thought possible.

But it’s one thing to read that they’re here, it’s another thing to actually put eyes on one. I’ve seen a slew of them in the high country of Colorado, but the desert mountains of Arizona are about as similar to those in Colorado as crossbow hunting is to archery hunting. I know, I know. “But I have a bad shoulder!” No one accepts that excuse just like being a newbie to an area isn’t an acceptable excuse as to not getting out there and giving it a shot.

So I picked a mountain range and committed some time to learn it.

Scouting proved to be fruitless as the bears were technically in “hibernation”. So going out looking for sign wasn’t really an option. I was going to have to scout for springs that might produce some green grass in the arid environment when their alarms went off and their stomachs needed a refill.

The opener started with me glassing open mountains for little black dots ping-ponging their way up broken valleys. What I found instead was every black rock in Santa Cruz county. Spend enough time squinting through binoculars seeing what is there and eventually you’ll question your sanity by pondering if you mistakenly ingested some of the local fungi by mistake. 

The only thing changing on the mountainside was the angle of my shadow. A few more weeks of this proved to be the same. Sit, glass, ingest coffee. Repeat until your eyes bleed or the caffeinated shakes force you to put down the glass.

The prey stayed the same, but the strategy would have to change.

After talking with an ex-biologist in the area, he was convinced the bears were still up high. There was nothing to feed on down low as of yet so they preferred the thin air of elevation that was closer to their dens. 

My goal had changed from impaling a bear with a pointy stick to just seeing sign that the damn things were in fact inhabitants of the Copper State and not just some cruel initiation inflicted on out of staters who settled in the locals’ land. I assured them that I wasn’t from California, but I think my statement fell on deaf ears. You were a communist loving liberal until proven otherwise.

I needed a good ass kicking in the mountains anyway. It was time to throw the pack on the shoulders, tie on the boots and leave truck hunting to those that not only had “bad shoulders”, but “bad knees” as well. 

With the truck behind and me wondering how many border crossers I would find in the bed of it upon my return, I set the legs to a hunting pace. I had distance to cover but I also needed to keep my eyes on the ground and look for sign. 

The valley floor dropped away as I went into cruise control. Legs will do what the mind tells them to do, but don’t think they won’t put up a fight. I expect them to put in a constant barrage of pleading and bargaining for the first hour. After that they usually quiet down knowing their temper tantrum is falling upon deaf ears.

Old dried up turds appear from time to time. Looking more like potting soil than a solidified steaming package. I know that what I was seeing was last season’s deposits. I’m in their backyard, but as of yet they’re still in the house.

I pushed through the miles with hopes of stumbling into a feeding bear. I had found the rare spring or two and when close, I would sit back and go through the laborious task of crying out fawn distress calls.

A thick furred fox came in to see what the racket was all about and nearly ran head first into my setup. I was being heard, but not by the right audience. All fans are welcome, but only a few specific ones would be allowed in the VIP room. An hour went by and I wrapped up my concert. 

No takers.

My time was up, or to be more exact, my eviction notice had come due by the Arizona Game and Fish. My hope of lounging in front of the fireplace, sprawled out on a luxurious bear rug sipping a crisp White Claw had not come to fruition. But me implanting that awkward visual in your head has. You're welcome.

August will be right around the corner and with it comes the “bears on pears” season. The locals assure me this is in fact a true occurrence, that the bears will be down in the desert floor feeding on prickly pear. As a matter of fact they tell me, with no lack of enthusiasm in their voice, that if I go back and across the California border from where I came, that I will walk into a land where I will have to swat through bears I don’t want to shoot to to get to bears that I do.

I again start to tell them that I am not from California and that the only reason I visit there is to remind myself that sometimes you do in fact have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but then I pause. Maybe I’ll let this California thing ride. Perhaps I can get them to open up to a few of their secret hunting spots in return for my promise not to vote this country into a Cuba 2.0. A communist loving Californian can dream after all.

// Fred

Calling Javelina

There’s just something about calling an animal into range of a kill shot. A screaming bull working its way into your soft cow mews, a flock of ducks circling back to your incessant pleading, the horrific wailing away of a javelina call to pull them in close… well maybe not the last one.

If you love a quiet, peaceful hunt I would suggest against this tactic for hunting javelina. If you want an effective and higher success rate while hunting these little stink pigs, calling javelina might be the way to go.

I never fully committed to trying to use a javelina call, I tended to use the spot and stalk method. They were typically a secondary animal for me. If I saw them while out chasing Coues deer and it was convenient enough, I’d try to stick an arrow into one, but that was about the extent of it.

But this year would be different.

I had some friends coming into town who had limited time and no experience with javelina so I knew I would have to take hunting them a little more seriously if we were going to make their trip worth the gas money.

After talking with some experienced javelina hunters and checking out a few YouTube videos on the subject, I ran up to Tucson to pick up one of Rick Forrest’s Javelina Blaster. I heard great things about his call so I figured I’d give it a shot.

My friends rolled in the next day giving me a little time to test out the call in my office while my birddogs cowered in the corner from the banshee like screeching of the call. I was fully confident of my skill as only a beginner could be. We were going to kill a javelina come hell or high water.

We packed the truck and headed out to a spot up on a hill that gave a spectacular view of the surrounding desert. I’ve previously seen plenty of javelina in the area and thought we’d have a high percentage chance of locating some.

The hunting gods wanted to test my patience and my friends’ faith in my skill as a hunter and decided to dry up the area. Not a deer, rabbit or javelina moved about. A wasteland.

I tried explaining myself out of the situation by the fact that it was a cold morning and the javelina will sleep in in these situations. I had heard it on the internet somewhere so it must be true.

We packed up and I decided to go try some creek bottoms and give this call that was weighing down my backpack a chance to shine.

After parking the truck and heading a half mile up a promising looking arroyo, we settled us into an area with decent javelina sign and proceeded to give the call its debut.

It was loud, it was obnoxious and it certainly brought some questioning looks from my friends’ faces. 

If you haven’t heard a javelina call yet, do yourself a favor and hop on YouTube and give it a listen. It’s very similar to a predator call, representing an injured or fighting javelina.

They are herd animals and very social, so when you’re representing one of their brethren being attacked by some nefarious predator, you’re going to get their attention.

Javelina are notorious for their susceptibility to calling. I’ve heard many times that they might be the easiest animals to call in. I’d have to say with my limited experience, this is a true statement.

Add that to the fact that their eyesight is poor and they aren’t terribly afraid of humans and you have an animal that is one of the easier animals to hunt.

They are great creatures to chase for the new bowhunter, youth hunters and those that love to call in their quarry. When my son is of age, you can bet a javelina will be the first animal we chase together.

I took some notes on what I thought might help another newbie in the way of calling them in. If you’re down in Arizona for an OTC archery hunt, picking up a javelina tag is well worth it. Grab a call and give it a try for yourself.

What I Learned About Calling Javelina

1. Stay put. Give them at least 15 minutes to get to you. The call is loud and they could be quite far away so it may take them some time to get to you.

2. Get yourself is a good position to see them coming from a long way off. This will prevent you from leaving your calling spot too early and gives you a hell of a show as they bounce their way towards you.

3. Call and call a lot. Don’t be afraid to wail away at that call. They seem to need a lot of incentive to come in. When you stop calling they often stop moving towards you.

4. When they get close stop calling and you can bring them the rest of the way in with a “woofing” sound.

5. If you spook them they won’t necessarily vacate the area. Often you can call them back in. So get back on the call if needed.

Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes. I’ll be posting the full story on this hunt shortly, but I figured I'd throw my two cents in on this method of chasing javelina. 

// Fred Bohm

Hunting Coues Deer from a Treestand

I’m not gonna lie, my kill to days hunted ratio for Coues deer is far from exemplary. To be honest it’s downright terrible. Sure I’ve put a few on the ground, but for the amount of years I’ve chased them a baker’s dozen of bucks would be more appropriate.

It never bothered me when I visited Coues country on my annual winter hunt down in Arizona. It was an excuse to leave the arctic temps of Denver and go walk around the arid mountains in a t-shirt and healthy slathering of sunscreen. The goal was simple, suntan first, a little meat for the freezer a far off second.

As a tourist, this policy was fine, however it needed to be rethought now that the family and I decided to call the Copper State home. Coues deer are more plentiful in my town than people… and by a wide margin. I needed to crack the code and learn how these mountain whitetail acted and more importantly how they would be susceptible to a bowhunter's need for close proximity. 

And I needed to figure it out fast. I had a tall task ahead of me to fill my 2022 tag before the ball dropped in Time Square.

The August season came around but that was really just squeezed in between helping a buddy on a hunt and preparing for my own come September. I used it to fill in the time, but I didn’t take it too seriously. 

That would leave the December pre-rut hunt to buckle down and put a win on the board. 

Spot and stalk on these skittish creatures seemed to involve too much luck (or maybe I hate to admit it, skill) and I wanted something a little more reliable. 

That’s when something a fella I met some years back said to me while hunting eeked its way back into my brain.

They’re a whitetail, a damn small one, but a whitetail nonetheless. Hunt them like one.

It was true. They may not pattern exactly the same as a whitetail would on the farmlands of the midwest. Coues live in endless public lands and often have 360 degrees of options when it comes to roaming about. Of course this could hold true for any animal, but in the midwest often cover dictates their travel corridors.

However when it came to finding a flaw in their game that would make them susceptible to hunting, they held a patternable trait that was very similar to their larger cousins. They scraped, they rubbed trees and they checked on what the other bucks and does were doing within the area. If they did that, they could be patterned.

Once I registered this in my brain, my early season scouting and upland hunting more often than not found its way to creek bottoms and benches, looking for the previous year’s scrapes or the new ones created by young bucks who didn’t get the memo about the timing of the rut.

Scrape from a Coues deer.

I marked my maps with every scrape I came across and found a few spots with decent enough trees to potentially make it work.

As December pressed on it would be now or never. I had a few days to test my theory before the new year rendered my tag useless. The mule deer in my area had started rutting which meant the Coues deer would be a few short weeks behind. They might start getting curious about their old scrapes and I hoped to be there to put an arrow into one when they checked.

I set a platform on a major game trail not too far away from two scrapes. One had fresh tracks in it so I knew they were at least thinking about it.

I managed to get a platform ten feet off the ground in a cedar, which was an impressive feat considering my options. I opted to go with a saddle setup as the tree was a bit too thin for a standard deer stand.

Saddle hunting is a good option for small trees.

I had absolutely no idea which way the deer would be coming from so as long as my wind wasn’t blowing over the scrapes, I figured it was good enough. 

The recent ban on trail cameras in Arizona left everything in the woods a mystery. There would be no sneak peak at the inventory and no idea the time of day they were moving through the area. Deer tracks in the immediate vicinity gave me some clues how much they were staying on trail and how much they were aimlessly roaming about.

Two sits later and I hadn’t seen a thing stirring. I left my setup and vowed to come back in a few days once family scattered after Christmas.

Sitting around the house and stuffing food in my face was never my thing. I pace around continuously while writing articles and editing photos, so you could imagine me shaking with energy as I was trapped indoors with thirteen family members roaming around our house. I needed to get out and breathe fresh air in a bad way.

I was released from my cage for a few hours, so I grabbed my pack and bow and made for the stand. I needed time to myself and there’s no better place than hanging from a tree with the hopes of some hapless buck walking by.

As I settled into my saddle I had that primal sense that at times still visited me. I was going to see something on this sit and if I didn’t screw up, I was going to release an arrow.

I had three hours until sunset, but I let out a few grunts and rattled the antlers just to see if there were any early takers. There weren’t, but that didn’t discourage me. There was still plenty of time.

I watched the sun, hazed over by a thin layer of clouds, weave its way through branches as it ached for concealment of the horizon. 

I sat. I didn’t think. I just enjoyed the silence of being alone. 

An ambitiously high mountain to the west gave the sun the early reprieve it sought and gave the area I was hunting a false sunset.

The deer didn’t seem to know the difference as ten minutes later I heard a few does blowing not too far off behind me. My wind wasn’t going that direction so I thought it odd. Something is disturbing them and it wasn’t me for once.

I gave the antlers hanging next to me a gentle rattle. A commotion uphill and across a little stream told me my timing was perfect.

I reached for my bow and waited.

Antler appeared in the stream. The head attached to them scanned back and forth looking for the culprits making the racket.

Holy hell. This could actually work. A freakin Coues was actually coming into my rattling.

He was a bit skeptical as to why the opponents to the battle he had heard were nowhere to be seen. If this were the heavily called after deer of the midwest in all likelihood this buck would have been throwing dirt in the air as he made for the hills.

This wasn’t the case however. He was still curious and made his way to the scrapes to see if the perpetrators left scent behind that could solve the mystery.

As his head ducked behind a pine I went to full draw. He sensed movement and paused, hiding anything worth shooting from sight.

The old Mexican standoff.

Figuring it must have just been a flutter of a bird, he stepped out to give me a perfect shot at eleven yards.

It worked… Holy hell it worked.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think it would, but sometimes when you have something that obvious sitting in front of you and you simply ignore it. 

As I walked out of the woods with a full pack of meat I wondered how many other things in life I screwed up simply because I overlooked the obvious. Had success eluded me in other parts of life because I thought the complex way was always the better way?

As per usual, I was likely overthinking it. It worked and that’s all that really mattered. I was able to add more meat to the freezer and more importantly, a new trick in the arsenal that would hopefully help me do the same in the future.

// Fred Bohm

Archery Bighorn Sheep Hunt in Colorado

I drew, illuminates the words on my phone’s screen.

I set the phone down and drew a deep breath and I closed my eyes.

Mordor… I’m going back to Mordor.

A mountain range with a close likeness to a line of shark’s teeth protruding from the valley floor that is as inhospitable as it is unpredictable. I swore these mountains off after years of brutal hunts that made me question if I was better setting down my bow to take up knitting.

But when you have a friend ask for help, you help. Especially if that friend has spent selfless weeks in those mountains with you on your own torturous bighorn sheep hunt. If you’re looking to test the loyalty of a friend, ask them to go with you on a sheep hunt. After you're done wading through the excuses of why they can’t make it and the dust finally settles, the ones still standing are the ones willing to go to the ends of the earth with you.

I picked up my phone and tapped on the screen. See you on the opener.

Life gets hectic and this year was no exception. Try as you may to get the hunting season lined up with work and family life, rest assured that you’ll find stress, making you want to fold and turn your tags back in. We were working on moving down to Arizona, getting the house ready down there, lining up new products for the company, getting the kids enrolled in school and I found out I had two spectacular tags of my own in Colorado that needed scouting of their own.

When you look back at years past, life seemed much simpler. Let me assure you however, it wasn’t. We humans have an amazing capacity for remembering the good times and formatting the harddrive on the bad ones. 

Don’t think about it, just do it.

A cloud of dust settled as I put the truck in park and standing there with endless gear strewn about the bed of the truck stood Joe and Braden.

Braden was another kindred soul that didn't mind the endless punches in the dick that Mordor loved to dish out. It takes an odd breed of person to want to come back for the punishment year after year, but he was another one of them. I’m sure if we all had therapists they’d have a field day analyzing why we chose to take vacation time to consent to this torture.

We loaded up the packs with eight days worth of food and mentally prepared ourselves for the first two miles lovingly deemed the sandbox. You’d expect Lawrence of Arabia straddling a camel to come cresting over the ridge at any point on the hike. After you conqueror that section,  it was smooth sailing as you gained four thousand vert through blowdown after blowdown while trying to navigate the long overgrown game trail that pierced its way up the basin.

Braden had killed his bighorn sheep in this area the year prior and between him and Joe, they knew it well. We knew a band roamed the numerous cuts that made up the valley, it was just a matter of finding them out in the open.

We set camp down low, close to water, wanting to stay out of sight of any rams looking down from up high, but this also meant we would need to hike up twelve hundred vert every morning to get to a good glassing spot.

Laziness doesn’t work when chasing bighorns, so we thought that we might as well set the precedent right from the beginning and accept this daily chore.

There was still some adrenaline left over in the tank, so after setting up camp we made the move to our glassing spot to see if the next day opener was going to be a bust or not.

The hunting gods shined upon us. We were in them. Excited murmurs passed between us as we sat squinting through spotting scopes. Three shooters in the bunch and one standout. 

You can’t play poker by yourself and you can’t hunt animals without unwilling participants. At least now we were in the game.

We sat around waiting for the sun to retire and to see if these rams would produce the one peculiarity that I’ve only ever known sheep to do.

They held true to their species as the shadows enveloped the mountain. They exploded into a sprint like they were being looked over in the NFL Combine.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Something in their head tells them that the next valley over is filled with an endless grass buffet and promiscuous ewes and off they go.

We noted the direction they headed for the morning and then made our way back down the mountain to slide into our sleeping bags and wait for our alarms. As per usual, it came way too soon.

It was hard not to envision a ram laying at our feet before the sun had its chance to melt off the morning mist. I am forever an optimist on how long a hunt should take and I am forever brought back to reality by how long it will actually take.

We caught a glimpse of them at first light but they disintegrated into the mountains as we made our way over to the side valley.

Mordor swallowed them whole.

The rest of the day and the following was a futile attempt to turn them up until the evening when we saw an unfamiliar blob appear on a mountain top. I’m not a rugby enthusiast, but if you’ve ever seen a scrum, you won’t forget it. This is exactly how they appeared. Thirteen rams in a circle with their heads together, moving in one synchronized pile.

Plans were formulated for the next day. Branden and Joe would head up to where they last saw the rams, while I would venture up the valley to see if they snuck that way overnight.

My day was uneventful as I pounded coffee brewed from clear mountain streams to help my eyelids from winning the battle. I had hoped the guys hadn’t thrown themselves off a cliff out of boredom.

The plan was to meet at camp if the hooting and hollering from success didn’t occur first. 

I was sitting at camp swatting mosquitoes, debating if I needed to call in the medics for a blood transfusion when the fellas came trudging in.

No blood on their hands, first clue. The next clue I looked for was in Joe’s quiver. Four arrows.

I have far from a lock-tight memory, but I know he was using a five arrow quiver. Five take away four would leave one missing. Feel free to check my math, but I think I carried the correct remainders, divided correctly and took the Coriolis effect into consideration and I came up with the conclusion that Joe had either had to defend himself against a methamphetamine crazed marmot, or he took a shot at a ram.

Assuring me my math was correct, and by the demeanor in his voice I could tell he was pretty bummed out.

“The big guy,” I asked.

“The big guy,” he replied, “I pinballed an arrow off a rock right between his legs.”

The story continued and from what I could tell the whole lot of them made their way for another zip code. If he had shot at anyone of them except the leader, they would have slowed up a valley over and reconsidered their options. With the big guy coming precariously close to being the backboard of a carbon missile, he decided this neighborhood had gotten too rough for him and told his companions that if they valued their hide even the slightest bit, they had better do the same.

The next few days the place was a ghost town. Mordor was officially closed for business.

A good reset was necessary to re-up our supplies and get our morale in check. We left camp and headed back to civilization to lick our wounds. The rams needed a little alone time as well as the hunters.

It’s amazing what a shower, food that doesn’t require hot water to rehydrate and a soft bed can do for the soul. A few days out of the mountains and the previous week seemed to be seasons ago.

With our hiatus over, we numbed our minds to the hike in and got after it. The packs were light as most everything was left at camp so we made record time.

If they weren’t back in the basin at this point they likely weren’t coming back. The next morning proved to us that this was the case. The thirteen rams were nowhere to be seen. 

Joe and I headed up the hill a bit to get a better vantage.

We were no further than a hundred yards uphill when we heard a whistle from Braden. He waved us back. Apparently we missed something in our initial glassing.

Five rams appeared glowing in the freshly lit mountainside. It never ceases to amaze me how a little sunlight can make an animal’s coat radiate. 

The game was set, we had to wait for them to analyze their next move so we could counter it. Patience kills animals.

As the earth warmed, they looked for a spot to bed. They sought someplace that would give them all the advantages and none of the vulnerabilities. You don’t survive in the wild for long by sheer luck. You stack the odds in your favor and then let God decide the rest.

Joe started organizing the yardsale of gear we had laid out. Flagging instructions were repeated just for sake of clarity as Braden and I set in for a long day of surveillance. The 2D world of glassing at distance quickly turns into a 3D labyrinth once you insert yourself in the game and it was our job to make sure we could help Joe interpret that landscape.

We pulled on extra layers of clothing and dawned on mosquito nets to prevent any distractions. If given the option of being roasted in an oven of clothing or death by a thousand mosquito bites, I’ll take the former.

The rams held sanctuary in a field of talus, splaying out in different directions, ensuring that Joe was going to have some serious work on his stalk. There wasn’t going to be any freebies on this hunt.

The twelve hundred feet down into the valley below took Joe no time flat, however the climb uphill to get into position was another story. The participants of this hunt, author excluded, involved two of the strongest guys I know in the mountains. If Joe was slow going, it only reiterated how steep the mountainside was that he was climbing.

Braden and I switched back and forth with one person watching Joe’s progress and the other keeping an eye on the rams. From time to time Joe would glass over at us and we would give him the thumbs up signal letting him know the rams were in the same spot.

He navigated his way to the cliffs that were above the rams and eased his way through the maze. 

“He’s getting close,” Braden informed me as my eyes strained from staring through the spotting scope. 

I was on the rams at this point, particularly the one that Joe wanted to shoot. This could be a long wait. If Joe is anything as a hunter, he is patient. He wasn’t going to just rush in and hope for the best.

“He’s up,” I informed Braden.

The ram knew something was amiss, but by his body language he wasn’t sure what. Most likely the sixth sense kicked in and he could just feel something was wrong.

I intensified my stare, hoping that in some way I could read the ram’s mind. What was he thinking, what would he do?

And then, it didn’t matter.

“Holy shit, there’s an arrow in him!” I said.

The ram reeled and was instantly wobbly. I could see the life spraying from his wound. He was dead on his feet, his brain just hadn’t registered it yet.

Braden and I gathered our rats-nest of gear and made our way over to Joe.

“We can get off this godforsaken mountain now,” Joe said as he welcomed us.

It’s funny what hunters will say when success finally hits. This was perhaps the oddest I have heard so far, but there was a ring of truth in it that we were all feeling.

We could finally leave Mordor. I promised myself on the heavy hike out that I would never see this canyon again. I knew it was a lie, but my back and legs thanked me for the attempt.

// Fred Bohm

Saddle Hunting

Saddle Hunting - Is This Latest Rage Justified?

Jump on social media these days, look up your favorite whitetail hunters and chances are you’re going to see a decent proportion of them hanging from a saddle at some point. Not all are converts, but as time goes on it seems more and more are being lured into the cult.

Justified? Who’s to say, but I’ll give it a try.

I too jumped on the saddle hunting train last year and managed to shoot my biggest whitetail buck to date. I won’t go as far as saying I owe it to saddle hunting, I owe it in great proportion to luck! But the more I look back on it, the more I think my style of hunting greatly matches up with the run and gun style that is offered up by the craze that is saddle hunting.

I’ll also be the first to say that it’s not for everybody. There are certainly situations where I’d want a standard lock on style deer stand. For some people it just doesn’t make sense to go this route. I’ll run you through where I thought it was helpful and where I think the more traditional stand would be more practical. 

Advantages of Saddle Hunting Vs. Tree Stand Hunting

Speedy Setup and Less Bulky

I’m a big fan of run and gun style of whitetail hunting because I hunt public land and never know how bad the deer have been pressured or if I’m going to find another hunter in “my” spot. There are so many variables at play when it comes to competing with the swarms of hunters that visit our public lands that you need to play it loose and be willing to adjust. Saddle hunting is a perfect way to accomplish that. You’re not lugging around a heavy stand through the woods. Likely you’ll be wearing your harness in and carrying a tiny platform in your pack along with some climbing stick. Stealthy and quiet and the setup and breakdown time seems to be way faster.

Last year I lucked out and drew a Missouri Breaks tag in Montana for elk. With it being a record breaking drought year, finding and sitting water was paramount. I was hiking a long way to do that and there was no way I was going to carry a tree stand that far. It was an absolute perfect situation for saddle hunting. I could hunt my way in like I typically would and when I got to the waterhole I could set up in a tree.

I can fit all my saddle hunting gear in my backpack for western hunts.

Trees Don’t Need to be as Straight or Thick 

I’ve set up tree stands in less than ideal spots because I couldn’t find a tree straight or thick enough to hang the dang thing on! This problem can be the difference between success and failure when you can’t get to the spot you know a buck is likely to be.

Saddle hunting won’t completely solve this problem for you, but it is a step in the right direction. With the standard deer stand needing two attachment points that space fairly far apart, a somewhat straight tree is needed to safely hang them. Saddle hunting platforms have much shorter attachment points allowing for more variation in the tree. 

So when I’m out scouting an area and I see the trees look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, I know I’ll be hanging from a saddle in that particular area.

Gives You More Shooting Options

Hunting from a saddle gives you more directions to shoot when compared to a tree stand. In a standard tree stand you are often limited by the tree you’re attached to. This isn’t always a problem if you know the area the deer will be moving, but if you know Murphy as well as I do, there’s going to be one sneaking in the way you least expect it.

Hanging from a saddle in the right setup can give you 360 degrees of shooting. Now of course lanes need to be cut and all the other necessary adjustments need to be made to make this a possibility, but it is possible. 

Disadvantages of Saddle Hunting Vs. Tree Stand Hunting

You’re now a convert! You’re on Craigslist as you read this selling all of your tree stands and praying to the god of saddle hunting to accept you into the cult. Not so fast (unless you got a screaming good deal on that almost new tree stand, then send me the link)!

With the good, usually comes the bad. Here’s what I found to be some disadvantages to saddle hunting and in some cases when I refuse to use them.

Comfort

I’ve read it all and watched it all on “how to make saddle hunting as comfortable as tree stand hunting”. Propaganda.

There are ways of making it less uncomfortable, but you’ll never turn a bar stool into a recliner. I’ve fallen asleep in some of my deer stands, let me assure you, I’ve never done that in a saddle (maybe that should go in the advantages section?).

If I’m in an area that year after year has produced dependable movement on nearby trails and trees allow it, you can bet I’ll be hanging a tree stand for long sits. 

You Need to Practice

That should go without saying, you need to practice from the ground, from a tree stand or any given scenario. But you REALLY need to practice shooting out of a saddle before you hit the woods. I almost lost that “biggest to date” deer I spoke of earlier because I didn’t practice enough from the saddle and made less than an ideal shot because of it.

My home setup to practice shooting from my saddle.

You’re hanging from a rope up there. That gives you the versatility of movement but it also gives you less stability when it comes to the shot. This rope is also in front of you as opposed to behind you like the safety line from your harness on a tree stand. You will need to learn how to shoot to your left, right, behind you and all that with your feet in less than ideal positions.

Your anchor point can easily change if you aren’t disciplined enough to be aware of it, so practice before getting into the field!

Tendency To Move Around

Whether it be from adjusting your position to get more comfortable or the fact that you’re hanging from a pivot point that is the rope you're tied to, you tend to move around more in the tree in a saddle. This can be solved by being cognizant of the situation, but discipline is needed to keep your movements to a minimum.

Saddle Hunting Gear

If you decide it’s right for you, saddle hunting can be a great piece of gear in your hunting arsenal. There are a lot of situations that I feel it’s invaluable. So what will you need to build out your kit? Here are some of the essentials. A lot of what you have from your tree stand gear can be used out there as well.

Saddle

Who would have thought that you might need a saddle when saddle hunting. Could you use your safety harness that you use for your stand? No, not really. You will be hanging from the harness so the attachment point will be different. Besides that important fact, saddles are meant to be hung from for hours and because of this fact they make them in a way to disperse your weight. 

Look online and find some options and reviews. I personally use a Tethrd Phantom. It’s been bombproof so far.

Saddle Hunting Platform

You can go without one and stand on the top rung of your climbing sticks, but boy, you’re more of a man than I. A nice small platform gives you stability and a way to take weight off of your harness. There’s standard platforms that look like a mini stand all the way to ones that have little platforms that wrap around the tree, giving you more options to move around.

I use a small platform that allows me to stand on it like a tree stand but is small enough to fit in my whitetail pack.

Climbing Sticks

You may already have these from your tree stand kit. If so, repurpose. No need to buy what you already own. I’m a huge fan of the speed and safety climbing sticks offer over the old school screw in pegs. Plus some public areas won’t allow you to use the screw in type to prevent damage to trees.

Saddle Hunting Accessories

Some other gear to think about. Some of these you may already have from your tree stand gear. All the better.

Lineman Belt - You likely have this from your stand gear. Safety first!

Tree Tether - Your safety tether from your stand gear could work here. Use this to anchor yourself to the tree.

Ascender or Prusik Cord with Carabiner - this is how you're going to attach your harness to the tree tether.

Daisy Chain - Wrap it around the tree and it gives you a bunch of loops to hang your gear off of. 

Saddle Pouches - A great place to stash gear.

There’s the long of it. Is saddle hunting the end all be all answer? No, nothing will ever be because of all of the variables at play. I would say that I use it more these days than I do my tree stands however. If you’re down for trying something new, give it a go. If you’re old school and stuck in your ways, what are you doing on the internet?!

Hope this helps in some small way.

// Fred  Bohm

Colorado Mountain Goat Archery Hunt

“Don’t look back, you’re not going that way” ~Unknown

Life doesn’t give you do-overs. It may seem that way, but there will be different variables to what looks like the same opportunity. There’s no going back, so the past is irrelevant. The future isn’t guaranteed so that’s also out in the ether. There's now and only now, the one place that we have the hardest time living.

I sat on the barren mountainside where lack of oxygen long ago choked out the idea of any trees daring to call it home. The sun moved in and out of the clouds, creating large puzzle pieces out of the jagged mountains. 

A white speck of fur ran up the mountain, gravity obviously not applying on him.

The billy goat I was stalking was gone. I blew it royally. I made the rookie mistake of thinking he was going to be where I thought he should be, not where he was.

How I repeat the same mistakes and never learn is beyond me. 

I sucked in air while I prepared myself for the long hike off the ankle-rolling steepness of the 13er I was working under. There was nothing to be done. I blew it and kicking myself over and over would have little positive effect. Learn, that’s all you can do. A fresh wound like that will be felt for some time. Don’t let it heal, let the pain be a constant reminder for next time.

If there is a next time.

There is almost always is, although it rarely feels like there will be. It was time to tuck my tail and get back on the glass. I really wanted this particular billy that I was chasing, but there was no use crying over it. It was time to create other opportunities.

The day denied me another chance, but that was to be expected. The hunting gods don’t like spoiling their disciples. They weed out the quitters early in the game, only shining their light upon the truly dedicated.

I pointed myself towards camp with the thought that mountain goats can be habitual soothing my nerves. Tomorrow he could be back in the same spot as today. No guarantees, but I long ago gave up the belief that there ever would be.

The morning pulsed from black to gray to deep purple. Mountain goats may have been blessed with many attributes, but camouflage in the late summer was not one of them. From where I stood, he was the size of a pinhead, but that pinhead glowed like a fog beacon against the dark of the mountain.

Same spot. No do-overs right? Close enough. The wound hadn’t even started to glaze over, there was no way I would let my waning memory of what happened yesterday botch this one up. 

As for him, there was some reason he must not have thought I was stupid enough to attempt the same hike to try and pierce him with one of my arrows again. He was giving me too much credit. I was plenty stupid enough.

I steeled my will as to the inevitable scramble up shattered cliff lines that I would tuck behind to keep out of his sight. This was without a doubt a no fall zone. A miscalculated slip and my wife would be reaching for the will.

Layer after layer was shed to fight off the sweat. Elk shape, sheep shape and then goat shape? Not sure the order, I’ll have to concede this to one of the “hunter/athletes” roaming on Instagram.

I slowed down, reminding myself that I had all day. He wasn’t going anywhere and if I blew this again, chances are I’d be looking elsewhere.

I found the grassy patch that I knew he bedded on, sat on my butt and inched my way down the mountain. Three small schootches, then glass. Repeat until success. He’s not going to be where you want him to be, but where he is. Remember that and you’ll save yourself long bouts of self pity I told myself.

A full hour and a half of this brought me to finger spines of gnarled rock protruding out below the grassy slope. Looked like he wanted a little more protection for his nap. 

I slowed it down even more, knowing that he had to be in here somewhere. My binoculars caught a black nose protruding from white fur. Good Lord, a few more inches down and I would have been staring at eyes that in all likelihood would be staring back at me. 

This was a game of inches. 

I analyzed how his body lay and decided it was best to reverse my steps and get directly above him. I burned another hour of my life doing this until I got into what I believed to be the best position the mountainside was willing to give up.

I could just see his horns and a little bit of fur being wildly blown about by the severe updrafts. It was a good thing I was only 33 yards away from him as the wind was going to add a substantial challenge.

Any spot and stalk hunter who’s worth his salt knows the next part of this game. You wait. You wait some more and then all of a sudden it’s “Holy shit, this is happening!”

He decided another bed was more to his liking and started on the move. In and out of boulders, he moved off to my left, giving me time to stand up, draw and attempt not to come completely unraveled. 

He passed the last boulder, the hinge clicked and the arrow was on the way. 

The wind took it a bit further back than I hoped but placed it solidly in his liver. Not good, but not the worst either.

He ran downhill and I lost him as he picked his way through the cliff line. I managed to pick him up again when I adjusted my position and there he stood, arrow halfway sunk into him. His pride wouldn’t let him lay down for a full hour. I couldn’t believe how tough he was. I hope I showed half the grace he was showing when it’s time to shake hands with death.

When he finally lay down he refused to quit. His head kept going up and down, defying what should have been his last breaths.

After 4.5 hours I couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve pushed animals out too early and lost them because of an attempted early recovery, but this was too much.

I waited until his head sunk back down behind a rock and made my way down the loose scree that separated us. Hopefully the wind would cover any excessive sound that was being made by sliding shale.

At 36 yards I stood up and placed another arrow into him. This extra poke had him standing, but not moving.

For the love of God, go down.

I quickly sunk a third and final arrow home and he took off at a full gallop. Life left him a football field down the mountain.

I stood over him in awe of his absolute grit. He clung on to life just as hard as I tried to take it from him. In the end I had the better tools and was on the offense, but as I sat there I recognized this wasn’t always going to be the case. Try to stay on offense as long as you possibly can, but know that at one point you’ll be on the other side, waiting for your turn. 

Picture taken by Joe Kavanaugh

Remember to go out with the same fight. The cut of killing would be enough of a wound to help me remember that.

// Fred Bohm

Diary of a Draw Unit Bow Hunt in Colorado - Part 2

September 23rd

It absolutely downpours for 3 days so I took a bit of a break to regroup. I got to the trailhead of the next place I was going hunt just before first light. There were two trucks in the pull off, one having a horse trailer. Not ideal. But I’m committed for at least a few days at this point. 

Hiking in I notice the a mule standing out in the open like an abandoned dog. I think he must have gotten away from his owner until I smarten up and look around. Oh yea, there’s his owner’s tent. I guess I was just surprised to see pack animals being used and only being 2.5 miles in. 

I set camp and jump up some elevation to glass. In a ten minute scan I see two bulls I would take. One freak 5x5 with super long beams. I’m a bit partial to giant 5x5s. 

I headed up further and the going as steep. When I finally got to the top, I plopped down and gave a glass. Almost instantly I came up with fur. A cow. There had to be a bull close by. 

I looked down in an open meadow and there getting a sip of water is the biggest bull I’ve ever seen! A 7x7 with beams as think as your forearm. And as a bonus us he’s got drop tines hanging down off both his thirds. What I wouldn’t pay to be teleported 40 yards downwind in a bush right by him. I’d been practicing a good bit recently, but a 650 yard shot with my bow might be a far stretch. 

He and his cow move over the ridge into the next bowl and I made a move for it. The wind was good. As I popped over the ridge and get down to the trees the wind pulls a 180 and blows my stink down to where he’s hanging.

I fucking hate the wind. We are mortal enemies. Time to back out. 

I went and sat on the other side from where he went over at a wallow he was working.  I sat there all day listening to a far off bull make his way towards me. As the sun dipped behind the mountains and the shade fell over me like a blanket I threw out a few weak bugles to let the newcomer know where I was at. He came in screaming but only ended up being a small 6x5. He walked. 

I make my way towards my tent with little light to spare. A bull is sounding off at his cows but it’s just too dark to make a play. Until tomorrow!

September 24th

Being this many days into a hunt, it’s hard not being frustrated with a person’s lack of improvement when it comes to calling. I’ve tried every trick in the book to pull them into range but it just doesn’t work. I’m the king of getting them hung up out of range and then walking away. It’s your setup you say? I would agree with that to some point. Being a solo hunt it’s a bit rough to call and get in a decent spot, but some of these setups have been lock proof. 

So I need to return to what I’m good at. Spot and stalk or ambush. The bugle tube will play its roll for location, but after that it’s time to play a ninja. 

Midday and the world is dead. Not a creature moving, talking or farting. Bluebird day doesn’t seem to be helping. Gotta get some cows in heat around here. 

I pop around the other side of the hill mid afternoon and hear a few bugling. As I’m lounging in the sun glassing I pick up a few cows. Out comes the spotter and wouldn’t you know it, the monster is back out. As the day wanes he starts piping off. A few bulls down valley respond and I take a look for them. Two shooter bulls. One bladed out on his sixes and the other with a nice whale tale. 

The two down valley seem like the highest percentage chance so I decide to go for them. I drop a thousand vert and keep what little trees that aren’t burned between us. 

After an hour of sneaking I finally make it to the row of trees I needed to be at. They ghosted me and left me with four cows instead. Finally had the wind right and they just disappeared. I’m at my whits end at this point. Time for food and sleep. 

September 25th

I felt the devil in me today. Beat down, a bad attitude. It’s something I work hard to avoid, but it happens from time to time. 

I climb up an ungodly steep downfall area. A bull is screaming it’s head off up above me and I follow like a little puppy. 

The going is brutal and he eventually goes up over the mountain and at this point the thermals have me dead in the water. I sidehill to the area I’ve been seeing the majority of them. Silent as a cricket fart. I’m done with this place. 

It makes sense to move out. If I shot one, I would be 8 miles in, that’s 16 miles round trip. I’m solo hunting so it would take me 4 or more likely 5 trips to get camp, meat and a head and cape out. 4x16=64 miles on the low side, 5x16= 80miles on the high end. 

At this point I need meat for the family. Anything goes. Thoughts of a herd bull are for early season. Time to shorten the hike as well as the expectations. Time to move to a spot that I know well. 

September 26th

I’m back at the first spot I hunted. Nice day hike in this morning and the bulls were talking early. Got into three of them talking and managed to pull in a 5x5 but I couldn’t get an open lane on him. It’s the last few days, nothing gets a pass at this point. The family needs elk. 

The herd bull was with his ladies and I tried to slow play him. Standard result, he picked up his ladies and took off. I’m not sure why I keep trying that tactic, I’ve gotten the same exact result every time. These animals really don’t want to be talked to. The only time calling has worked is if I was under 100 yards and it was the first time I blew the bugle. Otherwise it’s the other direction for them. 

I’m sitting on a well used wallow now, throwing out some cow calls. Let’s see if they’re interested.

A couple people have said that the later the season gets the better the action. I haven’t found that to be true at all. Mid month was insane. Now it’s pretty dead except for early morning and last light. (In hindsight, I was completely wrong, it gets WAY better)

I left the wallow to chase some far off bugles. After a few miles I end up in the middle of three bulls wailing away. I send out a few bugles of my own to let my presence be known. The clouds open up overhead and starts pissing on me. I find a dense pine tree to weather it out. My rain gear is in my tent doing absolutely nothing. 

I hear a scream close by and get set. He takes his time through the openings, not sure where the bull went that was just bugling at him. I hold steady and he makes his way to 28 yards from my hideout. He pauses after I went full draw and lets out a bugle. 

Tight squeeze, but I sent it. I heard a crack and he takes off. I didn’t see an exit wound on him. Not good. 

I wait an hour and then curiosity got the best of me. I found my arrow but by with only blood was on the broadhead. No penetration at all, a direct ball joint shot. I looked for blood to be sure and don’t see a drop. He’s gonna have a pretty sore shoulder, but he’ll make it just fine. 

I head back to the wallow just in time to see a bull having the time of his life in there. Bad timing. I sat the rest of the evening hoping that one of the nine bulls I hear bugling come in for a mud bath. The evening ends with a concert but no appearances. 

September 27th

I went back to the wallow in the open park a good bit before sunrise to see what was about. Some were talking but in the outskirts. I followed some bulls with their ladies up the hill but nothing came of it. 

Mid day was absolutely silent. So I set up and had a little cow party. Eventually a branch antler bull came in and I spooked him while drawing at 20 yards. 

Towards the end of the day I stagger into an absolute rutfest. It was bananas. There had to be 30-50 bulls absolutely loosing their minds. I did everything I could to keep up with them but the were charging uphill through downfall and I lost light. How is it possible to have that many bulls around, be that close to them and not see a single bull. God that sucks. Tomorrow is another day. 

September 28th

I woke up in the cold damp tent and told myself today had to be the day. There were only a few days left in the season and the family was expecting elk meat. 

I ventured out to where I left the rutfest the night before. I don’t know how it could be possible, but they multiplied. It sounded like when they are wrangling up cattle. Just endless bugling, fighting satellites copping a feel when the big fellas weren’t looking. 

The video doesn’t do it justice, but it was an absolute rutfest up there.

I got up as high as I could. But being we were at tree line I could only hang out on a edge and hope one passed by with a shot. I was more in awe actually caring if I got a shot. I will be telling a story to my grandchildren about this day. 

They moved off in the opposite direction and just not feasible to follow. So I waited where I was to see if anything else hung around. Across valley was a bull that hung around with his cows, thinking it wiser to keep them to himself instead of jumping into that melee. 

He screamed a good bit but he was on the other side of an open park so there was nothing I could do. His talking started others from my side yelling back at him. This could get interesting. 

I planted myself behind a row of pines and waited to see what would unfold. The screaming got more intense as I added some cow calls to the mix. Both sides started to close in on me. I stood like a statue, fingers aching from the cold as I held my bow. 

I could practically feel the herd bull’s spit when he bugled behind me. He couldn’t have been more than 30 yards behind me and slowly heading to a perfect lane to arrow him at 20 yards. 

If it wasn’t chaotic enough originally, it certainly turned that way. Five or six bugles exploded and the cows went into a frenzy. My herd bull took off downhill to chase his cows. The pile of them started to move away. 

I had to get aggressive. I moved in closer and closer, blowing some spikes out but not caring. 

One branch antler ran behind a tree right in front of me. He stalled out as I went to draw. It was a Mexican standoff. He got nervous and headed back the way he came. I stepped out causing him to pause. The arrow released right in the boiler maker. A few steps later and he was in the dirt. 

He was down, there was going to be meat in the freezer and I can honestly say I had the most epic hunt of my life. 

// Fred Bohm

Diary of a Draw Unit Bow Hunt in Colorado - Part 1

September 12th

I rolled out sometime mid afternoon after having to take my mountain goat into the CPW and dropping the meat off at the processors. 

Then it was a quick pack up for a three day bivy hunt. Walking in I immediately spooked out some elk. A good sign. Hopefully it’s an omen to come, the finding, not the spooking. 

The bulls were talking but the wind was all over the place so I held back. No use blowing them out the first day I’m here. No rut fests yet, but a cow is bound to come into heat. As I am laying in my tent, I hear bulls advertising their wears uphill of me.  Let’s see if they want to play the game in the morning. 

September 13th

My first full day in was impressive. The rain is intermittent, but it doesn’t slow down the elk. I end up chasing them all day, but stay pretty timid. I call in a few small bulls, but that’s about it. Others are screaming out there that I can’t get a good look at. A great start to the trip.

September 14th

This easily goes down as the best elk hunting day of my life. Early in the morning while sitting under a tree to wait out the heavy rain and I heard a bull bugle nearby. I managed to call him in to 30 yards and passed. I have a big bull in mind for this hunt and my standards aren’t going to drop until the last few days of the trip. You rarely get to hunt a unit this hyped up so you need to stick to your guns.

Elk were all over the mountain across from me and they were screaming their heads off. I swung around them a few miles to get the wind right and by that time they were on the move. At the top of a ridge into a hellhole I was contemplating wether to jump in or not. It looked brutally steep. Fuck it. In I went. I chased a heard downhill while three bulls screamed for compliance from the cows. At one point a 5x5 came into my call at 10 feet. I was loosing ground so I rushed ahead and blew right past him. He was stunned at first but that didn’t take long to turn into terrified. The other elk didn’t noticed the spooked bull in all the chaos. I caught a glimpse of one of the two bulls going bananas, and waited for him to get to 20 yards. Good, but not great. That was the first time in my life I passed a 320” bull. By the time we were done playing the herd had moved on. They were well out of range at this point so I headed back out of the hellhole with a big shit eating grin on my face. 

The evening hunt was just as good. Sat above a herd bull and his 40 cows and just watched. He got under a 80 yards but didn’t want to shoot him. He was solid and did everything a rutting elk should do, rake bushes, piss all over himself and harass the ladies. It was just fun to watch him push the cows and scream at the intruders trying to swipe away his girlfriends. Got some great pics and film as well. 

A day to remember. 

September 15th

I woke up to unexpected rain. Three days in a row now. Early last night I heard faint bugling but I woke to silence and the ping of rain on my tent. I caffeinated up and headed out. 

No further than a hundred yards from my tent and a bull lights up a few hundred yards away. I got to within 30 or 40 yards but couldn’t reel him in. Never even saw him. I bugled then he went silent. Huge mistake. He walked away, obviously not looking for a confrontation.

By now the woods was exploding with bugles. I made my way towards the majority of them. A half mile away or so I ran into a small herd with a raspy sounding bull. I pulled my glass up and noticed a stunning bull. One that I would easily shoot, except for he was missing a fifth on one side. I let him walk.

As I headed downhill I worked my way in the middle of 6 livid bulls. I thought I was in for some action but no matter which one I tried to approach, they eluded me. The wind was terrible and hit every cardinal direction. No luck. 

I packed my gear and headed out as I was out of food and it was time to try someplace new. 

I returned to my side by side and notice an outfitter tent propped up no further than 10 feet away from it. A head pops out and says, I was wondering when I would meet you. 

A burly looking senior comes out with his hand outstretched. Names Rick. Apparently his buddy has been waiting 20 years for this tag and was due in tomorrow. They planned on hunting this exact spot for 20 years. Hell Rick even goes on to let me know he planned his retirement to commence two weeks before the hunt!

He’s an affable fellow and goes on to tell me a story of when he hunted in this exact spot 25 years ago. 

Some good old boys from Oklahoma were out here hunting the same spot as us. I’m sitting in camp taking a breather when I hear, boom! Up go my binoculars and I see one of those old boys had shot a cow. He goes over to take a look and ends up walking away. I found that awfully peculiar. 

The following day another boom! I get in position to have me a look and there’s his buddy, standing over a small bull. He leaves it as it lies.

Now I’m curious what the hell is going on, so I walk over to their camp that evening and ask them how the hunting had been. 

Great! Finding some decent ones but we’re after some big bulls. 

Didn’t you each shoot one already? I heard two shots the past few days. 

Oh yea, we shot a few. Being that we don’t have a license to be in here to begin with I guess we really don’t have a limit!

I was dumbfounded by the confession, but they seemed to think I thought it as funny as they did. 

I slipped off the mountain the next day and called the local ranger. I thought I would be lucky to see them within a week but wouldn’t you know I they were up there before I made it up the mountain!

Once the dust settled I asked the ranger what happened. 

They scattered the moment we showed up to their camp. So I did what any sane man would do in that situation. I let the dog loose! I found them treed with shit in their pants!

That story made my day. 

September 16th

Put some serious miles in today, 19 to be exact. I started over at a spot a buddy had told me about. Total rotten egg. No fresh sign, not a turd, a rub, bedding areas or even legit game trails. Check that one of off as an elk free zone. So I pulled camp and got out of there. No use wasting time in that ghost town. 

I went down to number three on the list. After a nasty road in, I hiked in about 4.5 miles and set camp. Water was tough to find, but I made due. At the end of one road I saw a small 6x6 walking ahead of me. Just looking for some ladies I suppose. 

As I write this in my tent elk are bugling everywhere. Tomorrow should be a good day. Now I’m exhausted and it’s time for some sleep. 

September 17th

The morning started off with a bunch of elk roaring. I couldn’t even give a count as it was tough to tell who was calling and from where. All I know is I had a lot of choices. But one in particular stood out as the herd bull. Since that’s what I’m looking for, it wasn’t a tough choice. He had a serious challenger and they went at if for a couple of hours. I had to stay out of the fray as the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, so I just sat and listened to the concert. 

I waited a few hours and decided the winds were about as reliable as they were going to get, so I went in. I could hear the herd bull and his challenger as I followed them in. Before you can exhale you have to inhale and that’s what Mother Nature was doing today. The wind would switch 180 degrees before correcting itself. Just the way the elk like it. The herd bull went silent, he winded me. 

The challenger carried on and I went after him to check on the head gear. At on point I was within 150 yards and he seemed stationary. I found a perfect setup and slow-played him. He got a little fired up and then I could hear his bugles getting further away. Unreal. I seems I can’t call them in for shit. I continue to follow him and stayed relatively close. I’d call and he’d move further along. Until he didn’t. I locate bugle him and as I tried to advance, he had cut back saying enough is enough. He caught me and took off. I couldn’t see his rack but I don’t think he was of the right caliber, or at least that’s what I told myself to feel better. 

I listen to Paul Medel, the Elk Nut, like he was a preacher giving me the roadmap to salvation. But I feel like even the softest of mews has these bulls hightailing ass out of country. I start to wonder how well these tactics work while solo hunting. Once they get close enough you have to stop stomping around and making noise or they’ll pick you off. On the other side of the coin, when you stop making the noise you previously were for no reason, they get suspicious.

The wind picked up and started to howl. It’s like screaming in your buddies ear during a rock concert, it’s better to just sit back and enjoy the moment. I sat a trail hoping something would walk by in the rare chance they were moving during the day. They weren’t. 

I started working my way to camp to see if the other side of the valley was a bit more protected. There’s always hope. I gave a little toot on the horn and what do you know one fired back less than eighty yards away! I knelt down and starting ranging some trees. I saw antlers coming my way through some bushes so I knocked an arrow and attached my release. I went to full draw before he popped out of the last bush. My eyes were on his rack judging if he was to be a shooter or not. 

A little on the small side So damn close! Meanwhile he was advancing towards me and stopped at 25 yards. He just ain’t gonna cut it. I would be disappointed in myself so I held back. He split after a few more seconds of determining the bull was a hoax. 

Never have I passed so many great bulls in my life. I really hope I don’t regret this one. 

I continued up the mountain to some far off bugles. Before I know it I was in the middle of at least 8 different bulls bugling. I followed them for a bit and eventually bailed as the wind starting getting even more finicky than normal. 

Overall a reverse Oreo cookie of a day. The middle sucked but the beginning and end was spectacular. 

September 18th

9:45 am. Boy, chasing fifteen or so bulls in an absolute rutfest can be fun and frustrating. You have to move fast enough to keep up with them but also slow enough so you don’t get caught. I find myself repeating, slow is smooth, smooth is fast, fast is deadly. Hasn’t worked so far but at least I feel like a Navy Seal. 

While following them I saw my first hunters in the woods. A muzzleloader fella and either a guide or his buddy. They waved to me an I pointed where I was going. No need for a full blown conversation, after all, I got elkthat need my attention.

I followed them to what should be there bedding area just in time for the wind to pick up to a dull roar. A stick of dynamite could go off ten yards from me and I wouldn’t know it. So it’s time to sit down and just wait. If you don’t know what to do next I find that doing nothing is typically be the wisest option.

While sitting I piped off a few of my finest calls.  Might as well make my presence know to any potential takers. My right ass cheek was killing my so I preceded to do a little stretching. Sciatica caught up to me over the years and it was time for a little maintenance. Wouldn’t you know it, just as the eyes are tearing up from the effort a bugle sounds off less than 60 yards away. Just the reason I always keep my bow loaded and ready to rock and roll. I see pieces of antler walking towards me and prep for the shot. A small 6x6. He lives to see another day but not before I grab for my phone and get some footage of him. There’s more than one way to shoot an elk. 

A few hours later I meander on and run into another set of hunters. Bow hunters this time. I feel like I’m back hunting an OTC unit. Great guys but extra stink in the woods is extra stink in the woods. Besides I got plenty to go around, don’t need to add more. 

The next spot to sit right in a well used bedding area. With the carefree way the wind has been blowing, I figured maybe their stink would cover mine. I just needed a test subject. Ten minutes into the sit and I shit you not, one was ordered up on the menu. The direction he’s headed will put him upwind of me. But not if nature has something to say about it! Bam! The wind flips and he catches a face full of a weeks worth of unwashed pits and other regions. He takes off like out of the starting gate in the Kentucky derby. Elk theory # 147 is officially debunked. Your stink will always override their stink.

The rest of the day was dead quiet as far as elk go. The woods went silent. They must’ve needed a breather after all that breeding. Or the fact that I saw four hunters total today could have something to do with it.  That’s a lot of scent getting kicked around. 

September 19th

The slowest morning so far besides. There was a couple bugles early so I attempted to follow them. They went dead silent for a long while not responding to calls and then I could hear them a mile or so away. 

Then 9:00 hits and they take a vow of silence. Some days they howl from sunrise to sunset, and those are the epic days. Most are like this. It’s like they plan it. 

Pre 9:00am 

Dude Dave, how sick was last night?! And how hot was Barbara looking?!

Yea she was getting around! Just flaunting those sexy legs of hers. Driving all the bulls crazy. 

But what about Ron man. What a jerk! Cock blocked us all night long. 

Yea just because he’s got the biggest rack on him he thinks he’s king shit. You did get the memo for today though right? Lights out at 9:00 am. 

Yea I heard. What a bummer. 

Better take it serious man. One peep after 9:00 am and they’re docking your pay. I don’t care if the boss is screaming in your ear, keep it zipped. Stroll around all you like. Take long multi mile walks and bed down in the south facing side of the mountain, it doesn’t have to make sense. Just no talking!

Shit, it’s 9:00am now…

After absolutely nothing going on at the new spot, I hike back to the place I hunted the original day and they’re back. There’s one that bugles like it’s singing in the opera. Really pretty compared to the savage death metal renditions I’ve been hearing as of late. A long swing around gets me in them and there’s at least five bulls close by. One by one the wind picks me off and I do everything within my power to keep my shit together. No excuses, but damn…

On the way back to camp I find a consolation prize. A nice deadhead of a 6x6 bull. Looks like he might have been wounded by a hunter the previous year. I debate whether I really want to take him all the way out with me with all my other gear. I decided to at least get him to camp and I can decide later.

September 20th

Today’s the last day in this spot. Out of food and a big storm is rolling in. Good time to head out and recharge the mental and actual batteries. But I have a half day so there’s no slacking yet. I get on some bulls and know exactly where they’re going. I’ve been to their bedding area before and they are working their way there. If the wind would cooperate I could swing around in front of them and ambush them. No luck on that account. 

I try turning one as I get real close. Another bull comes in behind me and starts raking. Hired help. I’ve been needing a caller this whole time. It pulls the other bull in a little bit but after a half hour waiting game he moves on. Trying to get a bull whose headed to his bedding area to turn around is like trying to get a freight train to pull a u-turn. 

I’m sitting now waiting for the thermals to become “consistent”. So I listen to the breeze and think about whether I’m going to carry and extra 25lbs of weight out of here from a deadhead I found. Guess it’s not really a debate, I’m just trying to find a way to talk myself out of carrying it out, but that just ain’t gonna happen.

The one I’m sitting on suddenly sounds off less than a hundred yards away from me. I rake a nearby dead tree that I so conveniently sat next to. I figured my calling has been doing nothing but scaring them away, even the slightest cow mew, that it’s time to try a new tactic. It pisses him off something fierce and it gets him fired up. Maybe we have a winner.

Not if the wind has anything to do with it we don’t. It flips 90 degrees and gives him a face full of me.

I decide to call it a day and get the hell out of the woods before the storm hits.

I need a physical break and more importantly a mental break for a day or two while Mother Nature pisses all over the earth.

When you start screaming at the wind, Come on! You know you did that on purpose! It’s time to walk away for a bit.

// Fred Bohm

So You Want to Be a Better Hunting Photographer?

You want the simple answer on how to be a better hunting photographer don’t you? One fail safe formula that will get you noticed by all the big companies, that will get you in the field 200 days a year and living the dream? 

Well I’m not qualified to get you to that point because I haven’t figured it out myself, but I think I have found out the secret to better hunting photography or for that matter any photography. And the answer might be more fun than you think. Hell, it’s as obvious as it gets. It can turn a mediocre photo into a spectacular one. You don’t even need that much technical skill with your equipment if you accomplish this one thing. 

Are you ready for it? Are you dying to hear what I have to say?

Get off the couch and go someplace!

Finding a shed (or two) doesn’t mean you have to take a picture of it laying on the ground. Pick the damn things up and look for a backdrop worth taking a picture of!

There. That’s it. The secret recipe. Almost as valuable as the secret ingredients in Coca-Cola.

Go someplace epic and let the photograph take itself. Go find something worth photographing. Find places other people aspire to be and give them that glimpse of it. Find that perfect angle in a mediocre landscape. Look around you and make the best with what you’ve got.

With a backdrop like that, it was hard to screw up this picture!

Now it’s true that a truly good photographer can tell a story and make just about anything look thrilling, but that takes time and experience. If you don’t have either of those, this one bit of advice should suffice for the time being. I’ll go over storytelling with photography in another article, for now it’s location, location, location!

If you find cool features while out hunting, don’t be afraid to show them off.

Now I want to be clear that this doesn’t mean that you have to be in the Swiss Alps hunting Ibex to make it an epic picture (although it doesn’t hurt). What I’m talking about here is to use what is available to your advantage.

Thick timber while chasing screaming bulls can make for tough photos. Use the depth of the forest to your advantage a keep an eye out for cool lighting.

You’re not going to be able to control where that elk finally piles up on the ground after you let the air out of him. You do however have 365 degrees to work with. Don’t just arbitrarily pick a spot to take a picture from. Look at your background, ask yourself some questions.

I had no control of where this bull decided to die. I spun him as best I could to get me and his rack above the horizon line and to include some aspens changing color.

Is there something in the background that will help me tell the story of the hunt better? Foliage changing to a brilliant yellow in an aspen glen, a dramatic mountain, whatever looks cool. When in doubt, look for a horizon line. Depth to your image will add a tremendous amount of aesthetic to your image and a great way to do that is by letting the background go on forever. There will be nothing that will bore your viewers more than looking at a picture pointing down at you and your trophy from above. Flat, boring and tells nothing of the story and the environment you’re in.

Bend those knees and show some depth to your trophy shots!

So bend those knees, get the camera down low and get your head and your trophy’s rack above the horizon line.

Reflections and unique structures can go a long way in making a picture worth taking. There’s not much out there pronghorn hunting so take advantage of what you can find. This stock tank and windmill was a saving grace.

There’s more to your photos than just trophy shots however, especially if you’re looking to bring your hunt to life. Think of the everyday mundane details. The setting up of camp, boiling coffee, hiking the ridgeline (don’t skyline yourself!) or waiting out a storm in your tent. 

Making coffee on a scouting trip. The angle I shot this wasn’t haphazardly picked. The snowy mountains in the background, the frozen lake, all these elements help add to the story of a freezing cold morning where coffee is essential.

All of these other elements of your hunt can use the spice of a beautiful backdrop!

Waiting out a storm. Might as well glass and take a picture or two. Use the tent to frame the mountains in the background. Get creative.

Whitetail hunts can be difficult to take dramatic pictures of. The landscape often lends itself to monotony if you’re not looking carefully. Find something to make it different than just showing your bow hanging in the treestand.

This fence begged to be jumped. The blank landscape lets you know I’m in the plains. Add a little action in there and you get yourself a decent photo.

Glassing for bedded whitetail in the plains can be frustrating. Luckily the farmer letting us hunt his land was cool with using his center pivot as a glassing spot. Use of leading lines helps make this picture a bit interesting.

Now I know all hunts aren’t created equal. Some places you may hunt are just prettier than others. The key is to keep your eyes open to angles that will look better than others. Take advantage of reflections, unique scenarios and outrageous weather. Anything that can help tell your story.

Whitetail hunts can be difficult to take dramatic pictures of. The landscape often lends itself to monotony if you’re not looking carefully.

Next up, I’ll talk a bit more about storytelling through a still image.

// Fred Bohm

Using a Hinge Release for Hunting

Ask a sampling of your hunting buddies what type of release they use for hunting and I can bet you the majority will come fire back, “wrist release”. And why not? Being attached to your wrist you always know where it is and it uses a familiar trigger finger style. It seems like the go to release for most hunters.

But there can be a dark side to these types of releases. If you’re not careful, they can be the cause of target panic. I’ve seen more wrist releases being karate chopped than any other type of release. I know, because I was one of them.

Many moons ago when I hunted with a wrist strap release. After that I went on to a thumb release to attempt to solve my punching problems.

As you progress as an archer and bowhunter you start to make greater demands on your accuracy. By doing that you also add extra pressure to yourself which in turn gives rise to that inevitable devil, target panic. 

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And when it hits, boy buddy, it can take the fun out of that ‘ol stick and string.

For me and many others it took the form of rushing my shots. I wanted the pressure of the situation to go away as fast as it could, so I’d do anything to get that arrow away from my bow.

Draw, aim (if you wanted to call it that) and smash that trigger. Take a deep breath and curse yourself as your dream buck goes trotting off wondering who in the hell let that guy buy a bow. 

There had to be another way. Try as I might, I couldn’t get a handle on the situation. At the range I was calm as a bomb. In the field when the pressure increased, I exploded. I would get the pin close enough and pull the trigger.

Now there’s all sorts of ways that target panic rears its ugly head, but I knew the cause of mine. With that knowledge I knew what I needed to fixed.

In my case… slow the hell down!

So I sought out advice and watched any and every YouTube video that would pop up on the subject. Some great advice, some where the “expert” should have their video camera taken away from them.

I know in the back of my mind that I needed to make the switch over to a back tension or hinge style release, but I had been avoiding it for years. I’m a human, I don’t like change. Besides I didn’t have a good dental plan to replace the knocked out teeth I would be receiving from trying to figure out this type of release.

But if I wanted to continue to hunt and have a good conscience about making ethical shots, I needed to make the change. 

I decided to make the switch after the hunting season so I would have plenty of time to figure it out.

Were my fears of the complexity of a hinge correct? Absolutely. I was as awkward as a toddler learning to walk. Everything felt different. In archery the goal is repeatability. That means that we do the same thing over and over again the exact same way, or at least that’s what we strive for.

Having a new style of release in my hand that didn’t depend on a trigger to release it was awkward to say the least. How the hell was I to know when this thing would go off? Well that is the exact reason to switch to this style of release. It caused almost unbearable flinching at first as the shot broke through, I slowly started to give in to not being in absolute control.

I no longer could time my shot to when the sight pin crossed over the vitals. I was now going to have to hold that pin where it belonged and keep pulling through my shot.

Most important of all, I couldn’t rush. I was in it for the long haul. That pin had to stay on the animal until the arrow was released. After all there was no trigger to punch. Sure I could theoretically punch through the shot by twisting my wrist, but that felt extremely awkward and was much harder to do than just going through the proper sequence.

Let me be absolutely clear however as I don’t want you to think this is a simple process. It takes time and by time I mean a substantial amount of it to get used to this type of device.

I know, I know. We live in the twenty-first century. It’s either NOW or nothing. Same day delivery, any movie ever created instantly available to stream. I get it, we’re not exactly the patient type anymore.

Consider the learning process your moment of zen. Your transformation to a buddhist like patience. Your chance to become a Jedi Master.

It will take time, but anything worth having usually does. After all, bowhunting and archery itself is a lifelong pursuit.

I’ve hunted with a release for over a year now and can honestly say it saved hunting for me. I needed that external source to force me to slow down. 

If you’re suffering from the same ailments as I was, this might be your ticket to freedom as well.

Practice Hunting with a Hinge Release

Here are a few tips to point you in the right direction that I learned the hard way:

1. Start by using a trainer string. You can easily make one yourself with some P-cord and a dowel. After initially nearly knocking myself out from inadvertently firing off the hinge, I went back for a week or two and just used a string trainer. The repercussions were far less dramatic.

2. Start close once you’re ready and work your way back from the target.

3. Shoot from every position imaginable. Back tension devices can feel a hell of a lot different at steep angles like a clifftop or shooting from a treestand.

4. Don’t make it too hot at first. Allow for some solid movement in the hinge so you're not rushing through your shot.

Hopefully this will give you a little confidence that hunting with a hinge in fact can be done. Many of my hunting buddies do it and swear they’ll never go back to any other type of release aid. I can say that I am now a part of that cult.

// Fred Bohm

Arizona Coues Deer OTC Hunt

Don’t kid yourself, this ain’t going to be easy.

I let this thought sink in as my spotting scope gave me a voyeuristic view of a buck’s nose firmly planted in the doe’s rear end. 

Ok, I guess the rut was finally on. That or this fella lost his keys in there.

Finding them only gets you five percent of the way there, the rest relies on sneaking within shooting range unchecked. 

The rut is a double edged sword. On one hand you’ll never see so many bucks out in the open, not a care in the world, but on the other, how the hell are you going to intercept their path?

The rut with any animal can be erratic, but with a Coues deer it can be damn right silly. Unlike the whitetail of the midwest that can be patterned and depended upon to cruise trails in the river bottoms, the wide open desert where Coues deer call home leaves little in the way of dependability on a particular path they’ll take.

Picture the flight pattern of a fly and then add in a turbulent wind storm. Sure they have trails crossing through the broken hills, but they look more like a spider web than they do the straight arteries of their larger brethren.

Of the past ten years or so I’ve been chasing these little whitetails, I’ve only managed to kill two with my bow. Twenty percent success. Not impressive if you understood the amount of time I spend in the woods. 

I don’t know what attracts me to this hunt year after year. A guaranteed tag in my pocket? Sure. Warm weather while everywhere else is in the throes of winter? Yup. Other hunts winding down after a ferocious rut while this one is just getting started? Absolutely.

But with the good comes with the bad. In this case, hyper alert miniature deer that are as mysterious as the hills they roam.

But what’s a hunt without a challenge? 

There was no chance of catching up with this particular buck as he was pushing the doe at a breakneck speed. She darted back and forth, but this wasn’t his first date. Like a good cattle dog, he reigned her in and took control of the situation.

Just once I’d love to see them push in my direction.

Glassing from a high point is well and great, after all you get to see plenty of deer, but that’s about all you get to do, view them from a distance. 

I wasn’t on a nature watch. I’m a hunter and I was there to get in on the action.

Over the last few days I noticed that this particular hill I’d been glassing was a hotspot for activity. It was time to insert myself into the center of this dating game and see if they would make a mistake.

Wind be damned. I had a consistent gust, but to call it a good or bad wouldn’t make sense seeing that there was no rhyme or reason to their comings and goings.. Get yourself in there and hope for the best. Not a particularly great strategy, but it’s all I had.

The walk over to the ridge was a clinic on how well these creatures can blend in. Out of the tall grass I flushed numerous does that were bedded down to avoid the prying eyes of the over-sexed males.

There wasn’t much to do but to keep pressing on and find myself a thorny pile of brush to tuck into.

It may have been winter elsewhere, but no one seemed to tell this particular patch of earth. The sun was relentless as it beat down on the earth. Movement felt forced and shade was becoming a priority. I crawled my way threw a thorny mess to the reprieve of a nearby bush.

The spot seemed to be as good as any.

I made a temporary home next to an ant pile. For the time being at least, the seemed preoccupied with their tasks at hand and decided I wasn’t an immediate threat. I wondered when their curiosity would become too strong and our temporary truce would be broken.

I nocked an arrow and placed my bow next to me, release at the ready. With everything laid out there was nothing left to do but to let the mind wander. Hunting certainly can be a proactive endeavor, but the older and therefore theoretically wiser I get, the more often I find myself just sitting and being quiet. Lord knows I make enough mistakes in the woods, so I try to stack the odds in my favor by just sitting still and shutting up.

The stiller I am the more I notice what isn’t. My mind took note of the repeated movement of the grass blowing in the breeze. It registered it in its unconscious memory bank as irrelevant.

Potential paths of movement were noted without consciously thinking of them. Funnels and paths of least resistance mostly. If they are going to walk through, it should be there, there and there.

I schootched deeper into the shadows of my blind, knowing that the darkness should make it tougher to pick out my outline.

An hour into my endeavor I noticed brown movement out of the corner of my eye. My brain signaled for an adrenaline dump, leaving my muscles tense and allowing me to feel every pump of blood throughout my system.

A waste. A few javelina root around then crest over the hilltop. My body dissipates the chemical and goes back into energy preservation mode.

The rest of the day withers by with no action in my vicinity, foreshadowing the rest of the season. There is plenty to look at from a distance, but I wear a force field that repels anything within shooting range.

It’s hard to complain however. A month slides by without an arrow leaving my quiver, but I’m all the better for it. The season had been successful thus far and one more kill might inflame my ego. 

It’s good to know that I’m not king. I’m just a passerby that gets to share their domain from time to time

// Fred Bohm

Arizona Mearns Quail - And the Buddhist English Setter

From the tailgate of the truck, Pistol stared at me, eyes bright with anticipation. She was war torn from months of battle in the upland fields. I ran my hand over her chest, feeling for the small sharp scabs that appeared like braille, telling stories of the hundreds of miles covered in search of whatever upland bird the land decided to donate. 

I knew she’d follow me into any battle without the slightest hesitation. That bond has been earned over the miles of cactus, granite strewn mountain sides, ice covered creek crossing, scorching hot sands, broken stalked corn fields and countless barbed wire fences we hurdled together.

We had fought together before, we’d be doing the same this day.

Arizona’s Mearns quail, or Montezuma quail, country is no joke. The flat bobwhite territory of the Midwest was long ago in the rearview mirror. Standing before us were the rolling mountains of what looked more like Hungarian partridge country to me, not a place where quail would like to take up residence.

But who am I to tell a creature where it is they should lay their head.

The ritual of prepping this sleek little 32 pound bird seeking missile went underway without notice. It has become a habit, as much as tying your boots without remembering you’ve done so. 

I pulled her into a heel as I locked down the truck and prepared for departure. With the amount of abandoned “runners” backpacks and other nefarious paraphernalia I’d witnessed since our arrival, I figured a full lockdown of the vehicle that was carrying all my worldly possessions would be in order.

We eyed up the hills that soon turned into mountains and looked for habitat that begged to be hunted. My Citori Featherweight found its way into the well worn notch of my shoulder as Pistol set off in search of a familiar scent.

I proudly watched her as the distance increased between us. Tweety birds scatter and she took little notice. Finally. This victory is no small one and would be easily missed by someone who hasn’t watched the progression. A diamond set in a ring didn’t look that way when pulled from the earth.

The low angle of the mid winter sun crawled its way over the horizon. The frost covered grass would soon be wet once the sun fully awakened. We were perhaps a bit early to start chasing quail, but I hated to waste a good sunrise.

We gained elevation along with the sun. The grass was tall and thick, a far cry from the Scaled quail territory we had frequented not so long back. Some humans like cities while others like the country I mussed, quail are no different with their preferences.

I continued to watch the white streak quarter the hillside. Perhaps it wasn’t as awe inspiring as the birth of my firstborn, but watching an English setter work terrain like this is a close second.

There was some oak lacing steep cuts in the hillside and Pistol was pulling us in that direction. Her instincts were good. She was beginning to understand what features attracted game. That or I was overanalyzing my birddog, acting as a parent who thinks their child is the next Einstein. We want to be a part of something special, even if we have to make it up in our mind. She could just be looking for a bit of shade.

My legs pumped oxygen into the starving muscles. Climbing fifteen feet up a treestand and sitting for hours at a time, the only exercise being moving my eyeballs from side to side had done little for my cardio. Whitetail hunting was a mental game, certainly not a physical one. Don’t let Instagram tell you otherwise.

She was out of sight at this point, the cuts in the hillside made it tough to keep her in my line of sight. I knew her general direction and the GPS collar confirmed my suspicions. A couple hundred yards out and still on the move.

I still had a lot to learn about this pup. Reading her body language had eluded me thus far. She was either on point or she was birdy. There was no in-between. Braker, my pudelpointer, for instance was as calm as a bomb until he picked up scent. At that point his stubby little tail would wag like a metronome moving to the beat of drum and bass.

Not Pistol. She seemed to treat every blade of grass, every bush as if it were loaded up with the next covey. Her white flag of a tail would swish the air like a defeated army in surrender. 

A beep from the GPS unit pulled me out of my contemplations, telling me to get to my birddog and see what she’s up to. It could be one of three things.

1. She stalled out, waiting for my wheezing body to catch up. The high octane race car idling while the lead clogged jalopy attempts to catch up with her.

2. She’s on a rock solid point of some nearby cattle.

3. See #2, subtract the cow and replace with Mearns quail.

I decided not to test her resolve and double timed my step.

I crested a small ridge to find her in full concentration at a piece of ground forty yards in front of her nose. Unless Arizona has grasshopper sized cattle, she was on quail.

As elusive as she is with signaling me that she is picking up scent, she wears her point on her sleeve.

There is absolutely no mistaking when there is a game bird in front of her. A statue couldn’t hold as still. Her tail doesn’t wag, her heart doesn’t beat. Her eyes bore a hole in the spot she is looking, so much so that you think that the ground before her would start to smolder. The concentration is so complete, so beautiful, that I often don’t know if I should reach for my gun or my camera.

I fear disappointing her, so I double checked that there were two shells seated in the barrels and snapped the over/under shut.

I approached the point she was concentrating on at a ninety degree angle. Although she has been approached from her six o’clock plenty of times without budging, if at all possible I’ll avoid it. She’s a rock, but given enough pressure, even a rock will break.

My habit of placing pressure on the safety kicked in as I went through the scenarios of how this could go down in my head. A straight away shot would be ideal. No angles to deal with, just put the bead on the butt and squeeze the trigger. If they were going to break perpendicular to me, I’d prefer to my right. It has always been an easier shot for me. It is naturally smoother to rotate forward, but then I’d be shooting into the hillside. I like the sky behind my birds. Give me that uncluttered silhouette and my chances go from a whopping 10% kill rate to around 15%. I liked those odds.

I was moments away from taking my calculator out and breaking down the percentages for success when the explosion of feathers went off.

Not a covey, but a solo male Mearns quail. He obviously hadn’t been listening to my dissertation on what was going to work best for me and my shooting abilities because he decided his best course of action was a full on frontal charge.

I felt the disturbance of air as the quail rocketed past my head. I pivoted on my heel as I seated the stock of my shotgun home. It felt right because there was no thought behind it. I know I’m screwed when I have to think of each motion individually. When it feels natural, feathers tend to fall from the sky.

A single shot erupted from my top barrel. A cloud of lead enveloped the bird in a blanket, wrapping it up and sending it towards the earth.

Pistol breaks loose, looking for more in the covey. To her that bird was the past, and her being a buddhist and all, she practices living in the present. There are more birds to be had and if I felt like wallowing in nostalgia, I could go pick up the damn bird myself. 

A setter through and through. The offseason will be a rude awakening for her.

I scooped up the pristine male Mearns quail. Another first amongst an upland road trip filled with firsts.

I pulled Pistol off the chase as I sat down, pressing by back up against the post of a barbed wire fence. She reluctantly came over, not sure what all the excitement was about over a dead bird.

I tried to force her to see it from my perspective. I wanted her to see the satisfaction of accomplishing our goal. She was more interested in the process of obtaining it, not the end result.

I respected that, but I still wanted to gloat. Our first Mearns together. 

/

/ Fred Bohm

The Transformation - Bowhunting Whitetail Deer on Public Land

He materializes out of the woods as a different creature. The thicket of locust trees acting as a time machine, advancing his age by years. 

In walked a girthy eight point deer, what walked out was a freak of nature.

My vertigo had subsided as the gale force winds died with the onset of evening. I felt more stable in my harness along with my chance of a shot unfettered by nature’s turbulence.

Now if he would just walk my direction to the scrapes I had strategically placed myself downwind of...

His indecision gives me time to think back at how my season started, very much like the wind moments ago, pushing and pulling me in whatever direction it chose. I felt unstable, mostly due to the self imposed pressure that seemed to rise exponentially over the last few years. Hunting was getting too serious, I cared about the results too much. Feelings like this sneak up on you, it’s never a punch in the face, rather a grip around the throat that is tightened ever so slightly over time so that you don’t notice the increased pressure. A few years go by and you’re red faced and gasping for air.

Scouting for a big whitetail

So the pressure was relieved by being conscious of it at first. Once realized, you can pull the hands away with relative ease, the hard part is keeping a steady vigil against your tormentor so he doesn’t again settle his grip unnoticed.

Lack of experience and maturation often produces these feelings. My whitetail career is still in its infancy and I still have a lot to learn about this creature. This is a fun stage in any hunters career as often you see bountiful increases in knowledge over a relatively short time period. 

Upwind of deer bad, drawing while deer isn’t looking, good.

He turns his head and looks over his shoulder, giving me a show in the process. He’s a supermodel on the catwalk and plans on getting a contract with every worthwhile designer within view. I can tell you he certainly has my attention.

A beautiful but perhaps undeserved Kansas whitetail deer. Photograph by Joe Kavanaugh

A year ago I would have set my stand on the corner directly upwind of him. My thought process being that I could see more of the standing corn and catch him in the act of skirting the field.

That would have flunked me out of Whitetail 101 on the first day of class. There’s never a perfect answer, but you can certainly start to narrow down what an old buck will do given the pressure of public land.

God bless the Drurys and the free information they provide, but how deer act on private land versus public land is about as similar as the two BLMs.

He finished surveying his domain and satisfied there were no up-and-comers gunning for his position in the pecking order, he picked his way through the thorn encrusted barrier of the locust forest. 

His nose is to the ground sucking in faint fumes of the fairer sex. 

Calling the family to give them the good news. Photograph by Joe Kavanaugh

Years back I would have walked that trail in to my stand. Either from pure negligence or outright laziness, it mattered little, the result would have been the same. One nostril full of my stink and he would have creeped out the back door like an unscrupulous lover, leaving me swaying in my saddle wondering why I was such an unlucky hunter. Oh well. I might as well fire up Candy Crush on the ol iPhone, there’s nothing moving in this woods anyway. 

I’ve learned it’s all the little things that start to add up. Not monumental mistakes like hunting your downtown city park (though the Seek One boys might just have proven that this would be the ideal place), but the little silly things that end up red flagging your presence. 

I noticed movement. Two more steps and his head would be completely covered. As he blindfolded himself for the fraction of a second I needed, I drew back and settled into my anchor. 

This crucial step I often neglected. When antler comes walking towards you it’s easy to throw the thousands of arrows you send down range with perfect form into the dumpster. Your bow rests  in your hand the same way, string touches your nose in the same place, knuckles envelop your jaw in the same spot. Nothing changes because there is a trophy in the line.

His trajectory will place him fifteen yards in front of me. The altitude sickness I’m feeling reminds me that the elevation I placed myself in the tree, coupled with the short range he’s soon to be at, will equate to a steep shot. Total Archery Challenge, Snowbird, Prime Course, Cliff Shot type steep. 

Getting my hands on him for the first time.

I did everything I could to keep my concentration off of his oversized coat rack. Concentrate on where you want the arrow to go, not which wall in your house is going to show this behemoth off.

Sucking great volumes of air into his sniffer, he was too preoccupied to notice that death was hovering fifteen yards away. I stop him with the world’s worst impression of a buck grunt. In this scenario, horseshoes and hand grenades count.

He paused, unsure why he hadn’t seen this intruding buck.

I heard the “click” as my hinge release letting me know she was about to tear loose. 

The telltale sound of a pumpkin being walloped by a baseball bat resonated through the crisp fall air. He pounced off and then continued in a trot. Not good. I see the entrance wound and am not impressed with it.

My brain started to make the calculation of where I went wrong as I watched him walk into the cornfield and lay down. I knew the shot was deadly, but I also knew I screwed up and the deer would pay the price of a slow death for my mistake.

I ran through the process from drawing my bow, to the final release of the arrow. Everything felt perfect. Where was the outlier?

I looked down at the harness I dangled from, the position of my body and the angle of the shot. There was only one thing that stood out in my mind.

This was the first time you ever shot from a saddle.

Your arrogance caused this. Not lack of knowledge, not lack of general practice… just the excess of arrogance in your ability to shoot your bow in any situation.

Driving your truck to and from work everyday doesn’t qualify you to drive a race car. Shooting my bow at the range almost daily also doesn’t qualify me to shoot while dangling out of a tree by ropes. You need to practice that particular scenario.

Shooting on the ground does not equate to shooting from a harness.

When you pay the price for your mistakes it becomes a hard lesson. When somebody or something else has to accept the consequences of your negligence, it’s unacceptable. 

I watched him lay there and struggle until the coming darkness graciously hid my mistake from me. I slipped out of the woods under the cover of darkness, and proceeded to do the walk of shame back to my truck. 

I knew I would be playing back the scenario like a bad horror movie on the backs of my eyelids tonight. A small penance to pay for such a costly mistake. 

The buck wouldn’t be so lucky.

From black to purple, purple to the gray of predawn, the day started and we began the search. Bed after bed, knowing that the night had taken him but not knowing where he would find his final resting place. 

Photograph by Joe Kavanaugh

Each circle of matted grass and the small pools of blood in it was a reminder of my mistake. A reminder that perhaps I had learned enough to get me a shot at this monarch, but I had so, so much more to learn. 

// Fred Bohm

The Gypsy

“You’ve inherited my Gypsy blood,” I remember my father saying as I threw my climbing gear in a backpack and told him I was headed to Mexico to put up some first ascents on some towering limestone monoliths.

Potrero Chico

“You’re going to be both blessed and cursed by it. You will see the world and everything that God has meant for you to see, but you will also go through deep bouts of boredom when you sit still. Being sedentary will be the bane of your existence. Careful during those times of inactivity, you will cause problems for yourself and become your own source of unhappiness,” he warned. 

That was half a lifetime ago and the Oracle no longer wanders this world. That warning never left my thoughts, just like the bearer of them. 

He wasn’t guessing, he saw my future because after all I’m an iteration of him, as he was to his father. You like to think you become your own man, that you're different from those before you. The only true difference is the path you chose and how it delineates your course, the starting point is the same. 

I think back to this as I sit in a treestand in Kansas, swaying in the gale force winds like a human metronome. My family is tucked away in our Gypsy caravan, in its warm depths wondering why their patriarch chooses to freeze his ass off in hopes of killing a trophy. 

Sometimes I question the same thing, wondering if this is the best use of my life. It’s satisfying to me, but a convoluted passion that makes little impact on anything besides myself and my family. 

How big are our aims meant to be? What deems a wasted life? Is just being happy with how you spend your time enough?

More questions for the Oracle, if only he were there to answer.

I know everything is temporary, including the current view from my cedar fortress I have myself tucked away in. I’m a voyeur that will be moving on once my goal is accomplished. It will be time for change again soon, it’s the only guarantee we have in this life. 

I look forward to the next unknown, the next town, the next hunt. I look forward to showing my kids that it’s a big world and it’s experiences are not to be wasted. If they don’t already have the Gypsy blood in them, they’ll absorb it by osmosis. 

I think back to a few short months ago. We were rooted in Denver in a home that never felt like a home. It sheltered my family and I, but that’s about it. We had a solid group of friends, but that is something you didn’t lose with distance. 

The walls were closing in and I felt the air getting squeezed from my lungs. Monotony set in and I was getting complacent. Life was easy and that made it mundane. Familiarity was breeding boredom and I saw the energy being drained from me. Was this it? Repeat the daily cycle? Until what, death? 

This was a life based on fear. I knew I would regret not moving on, giving my kids the experiences they looked to me for. 

It couldn’t be. There was more out there and we were going to go find it. When life is too easy, it’s a good indicator that it’s time to split. 

And so we did. To live the life of gypsies. It was time to move on. 

There is no end to this story. It stays continuous until the air leaves my lungs and the dirt blankets me. Until I meet up with that Oracle and ask him if I did this right, or if I missed the bigger plan for me. 

// Fred Bohm

Ruffed Grouse - Dethroning the King

The dogs are spitting heat my way. I know their pain. Two weeks of prepping for an upcoming hunting road trip that full time hunters would drool over is little consolation to these rocket ships with fur. They’re tired of the promises, they want immediate action. Trying to explain delayed gratification to two bird dogs is about as pointless as trying to explain it to a teenager.

They want results now.

The night before in the family’s new mobile command center, camper to the laymen, the pounding of rain on the roof lets me know what I was in for the next day. 

“You knuckleheads are on your own,” my wife murmurs in the predawn hour. “The kids and I aren’t setting foot in that misery.”

“You hear that pups? We’ve been cut loose. You’re in for a long hunt now!” I whisper out to the sleeping dogs.

Coffee is made and the whines of excitement are heard throughout the campsite in the predawn hour.

We drive through the dark in a foreign land. I wish I had waited for light in order to catch a glimpse of what Idaho has to offer, but extending my hunting time takes precedence over eye candy.

As the diffused glow of sunrise casts its bluish hue over the landscape, the mountains that are to serve as our day’s playground rises out of the plains.

We delve into the bowls of the mountains, my eyes looking out for the perfect patch of aspen on the mountainside. This piece of promised land is a vision never before seen. Like when the first settlers from Europe looked over the ocean’s horizon, not knowing what to expect except what the murmurs and rumors had been ruminating.

Not only am I in a strange land, but I am hunting a creature unknown to me besides what I've seen on the idiot box and read about in articles.

I’m here to kill the King.

Chasing Ruffed grouse have eluded my adventures so far and I was determined to remedy that. With a ten month old rookie setter and a grizzly but seasoned pudelpointer we were going to dethrone the King. We were not your typical marauders, but when at war you take what you have on hand into the field.

I pick a dirt road at random, one that has enough gravel down to ensure I wouldn’t be ending this hunt in a curse of frustration with a truck axle deep in the mud.

Painted on the mountainside ahead of us is a giant island of aspen trees floating in a sea of sagebrush. It’s steep, has pockets and perfect edges, and it’s reminiscent of an episode of a popular upland show.

The truck slides to a halt and the hellhounds are released. 

“Trial by fire you two,” I say, “And remember what we agreed upon, if anybody asks why we were unsuccessful, it was your fault. You’re going to need to jump on the sword on this one, by fragile ego just couldn't handle the embarrassment.”

They’re off. Weeks being on furlough has their legs pumping like pistons of a locomotive. They have a head full of steam and subtlety is left behind at the truck.

We press through the sagebrush, looking to gain some elevation and the promised land of the undergrowth tucked into the aspen. The glorious burning of my lungs is always a solid reminder of why I love the mountains so much. Nothing is given to you here, you are earning every bit of success the good old fashioned way of sheer effort.

The valley floor falls away and storm clouds threaten above. Threats are only effective if you shy away from them. A tidal wave of water could overtake these mountains and we wouldn’t budge. Stubbornness has pushed many a man to success, and I reckon along those lines, kills them too.

I look up to see a brown and white blur crossing in and out of jungle thick cover that no man should willingly subject himself to. Two mig jets flying crossing patterns looking to lock on to their prey. 

Braker, my pudelpointer, cuts along the edge of trees and can’t find his brakes in time. Up flush is three ruffed grouse. I watch them do exactly the opposite of what I expect them to do. They dig themselves deeper into cover instead of taking the less obtrusive and clear flyway out into the open.

They know where safety lies. 

Braker watches their tail feathers as they become specks in the forest. 

“Ease it up ‘ol boy, no different than the Duskys you're used to. They’ll hold, but not when you rocket your nose up their ass,” I reprimand him.

It was a first for both of us. I had no right to beat him up about it, he was excited. Hell I probably would’ve shot myself in the foot if I attempted to shoulder my gun. Excitement can breed mistakes.

“Alright, let's try again,” I say as he sets into motion.

The same scenario plays itself out over the next hour. Interchange dog and mistake but the results remain the same. They just aren’t picking up the scent in time. I’m determined to not turn my pointers into flushers, so no matter how easy the shot, the lead stays in the shells. Point or your mouth will remain featherless.

I don't mind, just watching them with the pure joy on their faces, doing the one thing they’ve been set on this earth to do keeps me motivated. Exposure will take some of the aggression out of them.

I press into the thick, stopping to look down at the GPS and see the dogs around a hundred yards out from me. As they take care of the hard part, I look up and admire the beauty.

If this isn’t the postcard picture of where to hunt Ruffed grouse, then I’ve been watching the wrong TV shows.

No sooner than the mental image is taken do I hear the explosion of feathers.

The pause. Always during the pause.

My shotgun automatically raises up. The pocket of my shoulder that has seen the butt of this gun hundreds of times before accepts the shotgun and welcomes it home.

I swing and cover the bird with the bead. He’s flying away from me, seeking out that cover that will provide him with freedom.

Hell, I ain’t a pointer. I’m a flusher. You’re not a bad example if you aren’t caught in the act. Go ahead, let it fly.

The Citori punched, sending a cloud of death at the expecting bird. Feathers drift in the sky long after his body impacts the earth.

As I walk over, I’m greeted by two excited birddogs wanting to get in on the action. I point Braker in the general direction and he tears off, followed closely by Pistol.

Learn her good Braker. She’s in your hands.

They return with the King, in all his broken glory. Lifeless, but no less dignified. A life well lived.

The king is dead. All hail the king.

// Fred Bohm

Eden Lost

I feel the creaking of my back as I shift my backpack from the truck’s tailgate to my shoulders. It’s been a long whitetail season of stagnating in a treestand, sipping coffee and noticing my muscles atrophy. I was due for a backcountry hunt in a bad way. I was also due to get out of the cold grasp of Colorado and find a place I can take my bow on a walk in short sleeves. 

As I grab my trekking poles and hear the beep of the truck locking, I mentally prepare myself for the six mile hike in. The elevation isn’t going to be the issue, but a loaded up pack with eight days of food and everything else I need (need is a funny word when it comes to the backcountry) to chase Coues deer and javelina with my bow might be.

I settle into a rhythm, falling into a trance from the consistency of my footfalls. I let the trees pass, welcoming the sight of each one and its difference from the last. The hours tick away and I’m content. The ache from my back reminds me how lucky I am. The pain is good, it keeps me in the present and helps me to enjoy being in the exact place I am.

As I pass by a bend in the path I walk into an old beat down corral. The fencing is sun worn with deep recesses like the skin of a Floridian that’s seen too much sun and years. It’s ramshackled appearance deceives the necessity for craftsmanship demanded of the day, yet no thing that man can create can outlast mother nature and her biggest advantage over us; time.

The sun is growing higher and I know I need to move on if I want to set up camp with the great glowing ball’s help.

Pushing through the sandy washes saps what little energy I have left. I’m ready for camp and I’m ready to canvas the nearby mountains, seeing what they offer up to chase.

I peek down at my phone’s map with increased rapidity the closer I get to my destination. This leads to the last mile feeling like the first five.

One final bend and my map indicates to me that I’m finally at the predetermined camping spot. Picking flat areas to camp often goes awry with e-scouting, but lucky for me this time it’s leveler than an RV campground.

The dull ache in my shoulders forces me to eject my backpack and I instantly feel gravity loosen its grip on me. As I unpack the discs in my spine decompress.

I stand up, a full inch taller, and look at the compound that will serve as basecamp for the next eight days. No Taj Mahal, but no slum either.

The week slides by like with me following my shadow from sunrise to sunset. The land seems oddly dead. There’s no companionship on the other side of my glass. The wind howling is my only reprieve from the silence and I turn to internal dialogue for entertainment.

I know I could move on, look for land that would produce, but I don’t. I stay in the stagnating desert mountains. The animals hold no sentiment to the land. They move where they will be most prosperous. I don’t. I’m locked in on the loneliness of the land and am absolutely content with it. 

Sometimes we need to sit. To breathe in what is offered to us. Continuously striving for success can be exhausting. Sometimes we just need to accept what is in front of us, good or bad.

My eight days are up. Time to go see what civilization has gotten itself into. I don’t see mushroom clouds so I figure there will still be a human race when I get out of here.

I numb my brain and set my feet into locomotion.

“Do you know yer trespassing?” I hear from behind me, pulling me out of my trance.

“I’ve been hiking through here for years. There’s always been an easement here, has that changed?” I ask.

I can see he has no ill will towards me. He looks like a decent enough guy so I decide not to add in that I just looked on Arizona’s Fish & Game website backing up what I had just claimed. No use throwing facts in a man’s face.

“Well there has been. We just bought the property this year. We decided we weren’t going to continue to allow public access. Just too much could go wrong allowing the public through the middle of our land”, he replies.

“I see.”

I can’t say as I blame him. A bummer yes, but I get it. By cutting out public access through his property he now has tens of thousands of acres behind him that essentially becomes his personal hunting grounds. 

“That’s a shame,” I continue, “I’ve been hunting back here for years. I’m going to miss the place.”

A look of understanding comes across his face. He takes a long pull of his black coffee and changes the subject.

“You see anything back there?” he asks.

“Well, yes and no. Not much for deer. Saw a little doe wandering about, but that’s about all. Saw some pretty land though. A little oasis back in there. I’ve never seen it as dry as it is though, kinda disturbing.”

“Yea, we’ve been saying the same thing here. We haven’t seen much at all, hell we couldn’t even find sheds laying about. They musta moved on to greener territory,” comes his answer.

Yea. Must have. 

“I reckon I should be doing the same,” I reply, “Enjoy that piece of earth behind you, that could be Eden back there.”

I move on, filled with nostalgia. Another place that I won’t ever set foot on again. The feeling is so permanent, like waking from a long sleep with a finger missing. You’ll long for it, but you’ll adapt. There’s really no other choice.

// Fred Bohm

High Country Mule Deer Hunt

I’ll put this out there and just say it. What makes me polite in society makes me terrible at hunting with a partner.

Let me elaborate. I see time as the most precious commodity we have, so I go out of my way not to carelessly waste other peoples. Borrowed items are easily returnable, but not time.

Time, that thing we never get back. Money, happiness and even health we can work to recover, but time…

My personal faults are endless so I try not to cast stones, but we all have pet peeves, and I’m neurotic about this one.

But as with everything there is a ying and a yang. You need balance in life or your inflexibilities can end up working against you.

I value a person’s time to an extent that it can backfire on me when it comes to hunting with a partner. I worry that a stalk may not pan out and therefore will be wasting my partner’s time, so I rush in. I force stalks that would be better played cool, slow and methodical.

Essentially, I suck at hunting with other people. The chances of me succeeding on a plus one hunt is about as minuscule as an ant's private parts.

Leave me out there on my own, and my chances increase. Solo, I know that my only schedule is to get it done by the predetermined day I am to walk out. Time becomes irrelevant, and I don’t know where else in my life I could say the same thing.

A claim like this needs backing up, so let's go with my most recent hunt.

The hunting season was getting more and more complex as opening day was approaching. By complex I mean time constraints were going to be a major issue. My family and I deciding to sell our house in September and plan for a five month road trip is daunting under normal circumstances, throwing vehicle troubles for both me and the guy I was supposed to hunt with and the hunt was looking bleak. (A suicidal deer decided to attack my truck while driving back from a scouting trip… trust me the irony is not lost on me on this one, his downfall was when he decided owning a Ford was a good idea).

It was getting complex and at the last minute I decided I needed some peace in my life. I had four and a half days of hunting before I had to head out for my son’s birthday (did I mention we decided to have a kid right during the pinnacle of hunting season a few years back? You see where this self-inflicted complexity complaint is going, right?). My time constraints weren't fair to my hunting partner and to be honest I didn’t want the pressure.

So I packed up my backcountry gear, grabbed my bow and headed into a basin I saw during scouting season that looked like it had potential. But to be honest I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, I just knew there was peace and quiet up there and that was my number one target.

The mountains evaluate the commitment of its trespassers and the day before the opener was no different. The tumultuous sky opened itself up, testing my rain gear the moment I left the truck.

Starting a hunt in rain and the guaranteed damp clothes for the foreseeable future can crush the spirits if you let it. Months of preparation and waiting for this day had my mind in the right place however and I took the conditions in stride. A week of it and I’m sure I’d be singing another tune.

Opening morning I was awoken by a potent mixture of excitement and the sounds of rain trying to poke holes through my tent. I begrudgingly slid into the wet rain gear from the previous day and tried to warm up with a few pints of mouth searing coffee.

The deer were about as excited as I was to get out of bed. The morning was slow going as I raced to peek through the openings in low hanging clouds. As clouds dissipated in random spots I would whip my glass into them, never giving me proper time to glass the area.

The rest of the day was spent running through fog thick enough to cut like a cake. There wasn’t much point moving around, but just the potential of running into a deer had my legs pumping me up untold vert.

The day ended in dark and having to use my GPS to find my way back to shelter. Sleep comes easy to the exhausted.

The next morning I woke with nature at full tilt. Apparently all other living creatures had their espresso already, cutting lines across the mountains like jets across a busy airport. There were multitudes of bull elk with hopes of participating in the upcoming orgy and more bucks than a fella deserved to lay eyes on.

There were forkys, spikes and an array of up and comers that grossed in the double digits, but nothing that my back could justify hauling off the mountain.

There’s a direct correlation between the distance I have to haul the animal out and the size of its head gear. We all have our self-imposed rules, for me, spikes just don’t get shot four miles in.

I watched a group of eight tempt me at stones throw distances, knowing they were there to test my size/distance maxim.

A day like this comes by few and far between and is not to be wasted waiting for a big one to fall in your lap. I grabbed enough gear for the day and headed for the next basin.

The air was thin but I kept my pace steady. I looked down at my map and noticed I had knocked out a thirteener inadvertently on the approach to my glassing spot. High country mule deer hunting can quickly turn into peak bagging with little effort.

As the basin approached, I went to the ground on all fours, avoiding the cardinal sin of skylining. A bright neon sign being carried by a marching band would have little more effect of advertising oneself than exposing your outline to the onlookers of the basin.

I found an area with scree and use that as my backdrop to break up my outline. No sooner did my butt hit the ground and the glass come my eyes did I see velvet peeking out of a patch of willows. Eight furry missiles pointed towards the sky, ready to take flight at my first mistake.

I settled in to watch. 

There’s no schedule, no meetings to make, no timeline to adhere to. My calendar was cleared for the next three and a half days.

“You’ve got all day, just sit and observe,” I told myself.

I assessed the situation. There’s no reason for him to move at this point, he has shade.

Now look at his immediate surroundings and see if there’s any other bucks that could interfere with your stalk.

Nothing.

Evaluate the terrain between you and him. What’s the most likely path to take that will keep you concealed and upwind of him. Where will you stop to shoot from that will be in reasonable range?

On and on the questions stacked up and they all needed answers before I was willing to budge an inch. I methodically went through the list of questions, coming up with the answers that would best lead to success.

Most of all I was giving myself time to get my nerves in check. I was 380 yards away from the goal I worked 364 days to obtain. It’s a fine line of applying enough pressure to oneself in order to enforce a well thought out plan and applying too much pressure that inevitably will frazzle the nervous and cause silly mistakes.

I spent the next hour observing him. He didn’t budge an inch, telling me he was quite comfortable where he was. His head periscoped from side to side, but most importantly, never towards me.

Thermals were following the laws of thermals this day and blowing straight uphill at a consistent but manageable speed.

The ground was still wet from the previous day’s storm, leaving it as quiet as carpet for a stalk.

The willows created a perfect maze of protective walls that would allow me to crawl in undetected. I could see a clump slightly elevated on a hill that would allow me the advantage of higher ground, a perfect sniper’s nest.

I ranged the anticipated point of attack, 317 yards. If my C+ in third grade math serves me correctly, that makes it a 63 yard shot.

Knowing how looking from a 2D vantage point turns quickly into a 3D landscape when stalking, I made contingency plans for different routes.

Lastly I marked his position, using a particularly white rock close to his vicinity. Unless that thing grows legs, I should have his location pinned down.

The plan was made, the only thing left to do was execute.

I rolled into my backpack and grabbed my bow. I once again reminded myself to shift gears from everyday life speed to you-wanna-kil-this-buck-so-put-her-in-low speed.

A crawled down the loose scree depending on the wind and distance to cover any dislodged rocks that may spook him.

Three spider-steps forward and glass to see his reaction. If all is well, repeat.

I go went this process for the next hour, testing every last bit of patience I had in the tank. From a world where you’re expected to task, multi-task and multi the multi-task, it can be hard, nay almost impossible to take the foot off the gas and let yourself coast to the finish line. 

I meandered through the willows like my kids through a Halloween corn maze. Hit a dead end, work my way back, try again. All the while trying to keep my eyes on the velvet tips that appear closer and closer.

I saw my sniper's nest and made for it, crawling through seeps and wet grass to get there. By the time I got to my destination I looked like a toddler with a relieved bladder. 

I aligned myself for the optimal shooting position and nocked an arrow, laid my release next to the D-loop and meticulously arranged my instruments of death.

The dump of adrenaline washed down my body like an acid bath, starting from the tip of my head and settling in the soles of my feet. When occupied with other tasks, it’s easy to forget everything but the next step. When your next step is to accomplish the goal all the aforementioned steps add up to, that’s when the deep bite of panic can set in.

I peeked over the willow, squinting through the pinky-nail sized leaves in order to catch a glimpse of velvet.

He was still there. I eased up a little higher and got a range. Sixty-three yards, nuts on.

I dialed in my site with the required yardage and attempted to keep busy, numbing my mind off of the inevitable task at hand.

“Stay patient, let him make the next mistake. Patients kills,” became my mantra.

I saw another willow about twenty yards ahead that might allow me to get a shot at him in his bed. It took every fiber in my body to fight the urge to risk a crawl forward.

“The wind is perfect, he has absolutely no idea that death is lurking a football’s throw away from him. Let him make the last mistake,” I said.

My lips were now sounding out the words. I looked the part of a penitent man clutching his rosary and mouthing the words of his prayer.   

Time passed on, made obvious by the shadows shifting in the willows. I watched the makeshift sundial and him out of the corner of my eye. Over and over again I picture drawing back, and slowly increasing the pressure on my hinge release. 

Concentrate on the complexity of the perfect shot and there’s no room in there to allow thought of what may or may not be. Discipline equals freedom and in no way is that more applicable than shot execution.

I cluttered my mind with these thoughts to paralyze my brain from over-analysis. 

Then, movement in the peripheral of my eye

He was up.

The perfect array of equipment in front of me is ready for action. In one smooth motion the bow came up and I was at full draw. He stood broadside and was looking away from me,  I had all the time in the world.

The muscles tighten in my back. The pin settles and a second later I hear the click of my hinge. 

The tension cut loose as the arrow screamed its way through the thin mountain air. 

I saw him spin, startled by the impact of some unforeseen snakebite. He ran downhill a short distance, confused as to what just happened.

As I pulled my binoculars up to my eyes to get a closer look, I saw that he was staggering, unsure of his feet. Blood poured down from his armpit, collecting in bright crimson pools below him.

I watched him lay down, sucking in the last few breaths his lungs would ever hold. 

Sitting back, I let out a huge sigh of relief. For the weight off my shoulders, for the love of what I choose to do with my life and for the utter and deafening silence. 

Most of all, I’m thankful for my time out here. Time that is only measured by the rotation of the earth and not by the money it can make you or the goals you can accomplish within it. To live and breathe in the present moment, not to scour over the past and predict what will happen in the future.

Time for being a human.

// Fred Bohm

Pronghorn Bowhunt - A Universal Truth

In a town where psychedelics are handed out as freely as Latter Day Saints pamphlets, you might hear something like, “Tomorrow the Universe will provide for you what you seek.”

And that’s exactly what I heard.

I’m sitting at the dinner table in our cabin with family and friends spread about.

“Is there a particular time of day the Universe will feel like waving its magic wand and granting me this favor of a dumber than usual pronghorn buck,” I ask.

“Seven AM,” my friend replies with a smile on her face, “that will then give you enough time to wrap everything up and meet the us at the hot springs.”

I have a tough time trying to tell if she’s messing with me or is a true believer.

“Sounds more like the Universe is working for you rather than me,” I say.

I get up and  finish packing my gear for the next day's hunt as everyone else finishes dinner. 

I’m in a unique spot in Colorado where apparently everything happens for a reason, where we are all one and where many believe their particular god speaks directly to them. It’s the land where cults thrive and people come to find themselves, even if only to lose themselves again.

It’s all new to me, but I embrace the oddities. The older I get, the less I know and I sure as hell ain’t going to shit on someone else’s beliefs. As long as it points them in the direction of being a good person, I’m cool with it.

There’s another non-believer in the room.

My buddy Joe Kavanaugh joins me on the hunt, once again giving up his free time to help me out. He put a tank of a pronghorn down on the opener and wants to see me do the same.

“First legal buck and carbon is in the air, right,” he asks.

This becomes a running joke as pre-season I always claim that I’ll shoot anything the blessed state of Colorado will legally allow me to shoot, only to back out on that promise when it comes time to draw my bow.

“Of course, can’t eat the horns or some other ridiculous cliche, right?” I reply.

We pass out and wait for the squawking of our iPhones to start the next day.

Dust clouds billow up from the truck and disappear into black of night as we guzzle brown water and try to pry our eyes awake.

We’re pointed towards the spot that Joe killed a few days earlier. Bucks have been moving through the area and there’s a perfect ambush spot in a seasonal dried out drainage to try to make it happen.

We park the truck and Joe takes the high ground to get a front row seat to the show. I head down the drainage cursing up as storm as the currant bushes tear into my legs, hungry for flesh.

Joe glassing for pronghorn.

The deep cut and pre-dawn light conceal my movement as I work my way further from the road.

Something tells me to get the glass up to my eyes and have a peak. 

Two bucks appear in the glass as if ordained to appear wherever I pointed my binoculars. They’re about halfway back to the road, exactly where I walked through moments ago.

I glass up to where Joe is sitting, coffee mug in one hand, arm outstretched towards the two pronghorn, like the angel of death pointing out his next victim.

I flip a u-turn and follow my tracks back up the riverbed. I see the lone tree out in the grass that I marked as my point of attack.

Cactus needles slide into my palms as I chastise my forgetfulness for leaving my leather gloves in the truck.

Inch by inch I crawl to the tree, occasionally spotting black tipped horns bobbing through the tall grass, indicating that I’m on the correct path to intercept them.

I slide and arrow into the rest, attach my release and position my body for a quick shot.

Easing the glass from my harness, I scan through the thick grass to get a better look at the two potential victims.

Two unaware pronghorns no more than forty-five yards away and I can’t muster the will to put an arrow in one of them. 

Cliche, stereotypical or whatever you may deem it; it’s just not the one I am looking for.

I sit upright, back sore from crawling and get a full view of the two bachelors. Instantly a weez is released into the air and the interaction is over. We decide to go our separate ways.

“Not close enough for you? Jeez man, I know you’re a terrible shot, but I think even your five-year old could have made that one,” Joe says when I meet him back on the road.

I considered shanking an arrow on the stalk just so I wouldn’t have to hear about passing on the pronghorn. Better he thinks I’m a horrible shot than a trophy snob.

I look down at my watch, 7:06 am. If I did the math right, that means I was in the kill zone right about 7:00 am.

“Dear God… I could be responsible for untold horrors for rebuking the Universe’s desires,” I say as I show Joe the time on my watch.

I wait for the earth’s axis to tilt or the sun to go out.

“Go find another one?” I ask Joe as we walk back to the truck.

“Sure mister Booner. Let’s go spend all of our hard-earned money on gas to tear through the plains in order for you to find the state record, since that’s obviously that’s all you have a mind for these days,” Joe says.

And we do just that.

A few stalks are blown, a few animals are passed up and plans of upcoming hunts are hashed over even before the current one ends.

We pass by a particularly stalkable valley and the Universe opens another opportunity up for me. A decent buck with no knowledge that he is being watched.

Finding pronghorn has never been the issue, however finding stalkable ones is about as rare as finding a politician that will give you a straight answer.

We crawl into a position where Joe can set up his camera without being spotted. The plan is he’ll sit there and film, while I take the long way around a sight concealing hill, hiking a mile and a half to a position that is only two hundred yards away from where we currently sit.

Spot and stalk hunting isn’t a lazy man’s sport.

I circumnavigate the lengthy route around the hill that blocks the pronghorn’s view, taking my time, reminding myself that patience kills animals.

I see the shallow valley where he is bedded and sumo-squat my way up the last hill in order to keep a low profile. Crawling isn’t an option in this landmine strewn cactus field.

He’s looking away, without a care in the world. The Universe is blocking his sixth sense for me today and I plan on taking full advantage of it.

I range and spin my site to land on fifty-one yards. A chip shot for what normally requires a long-range missile.

Then he does what animals tend to do. He stands up for no reason whatsoever and decides to take a leisurely stroll. Perhaps his bed was a bit lumpy for his liking or perhaps he remembered that he forgot to turn off the oven this morning. Whatever was the cause, the result was the same, he was walking directly away from me.

I hammer on the rangefinder, watching yard after yard tick away. 

And just like that the earth’s rotation slows for a fraction of a second, causing him to pause.

I look at my rangefinder. It’s doable.

I come to full draw and the pronghorn peers at this apparition that appeared out of the heatwaves.

He’s not surprised, he’s not frightened. Anything that rises from the earth had obviously been there well before he had set foot there. His eyes have never failed him before, as proven by his continued existence, he has no reason to believe they would fail him now.

Faulty logic or perhaps instinct has been the downfall of many a creature.

Joe captured this great image of me packing out my speedgoat.

The arrow slips into him and like a rocket he makes for the horizon, with plumes of dust billowing into the air.

The dust eases back to the earth, enveloping him, a blanket of death.

I walk back to the truck as Joe slaps me on the back. No words are needed. He understands as I do.

We sit on the roof of the truck and watch the life fade from him.

Regardless of species, in the end, we all owe the Universe a death. I don’t take lightly that I am the collector of some of these. I am happy to be a part of it, with full recognition that in the not so distant future, it will be coming for me.

// Fred Bohm

Busy

Life gets busy, I can certainly attest to that. As I inhale cold mountain air and pull the binoculars from my eyes, I wonder how I allowed it to come to this.

Busy.

Busy is a thief in the night that sneaks into your home and whispers into your sleeping ear, “Keep filling your days with stuff.” He refuses to define stuff, but you start to feel drawn towards it.

At first you ignore, you’re a child. You seek the immediate, the now. Yesterday is too far gone to remember and the future isn’t even a blip in your radar.

But the whispers don’t stop.

Time goes on and it starts to take hold. Like a rock perched under a waterfall, it holds on to every grain as long as it can, but the outcome from persistence is inevitable. You erode, you subconsciously obey. Beyond all reason and warning signals from your brain to abort this unending cycle, you press on. Busy is good, busy progress, busy is what is expected of us.

We’re told to “hammer”, to “grind” to keep pushing forward. We become something we never intended. We become busy for the sake of being busy. We fill our days with nonsense, we fill our days with filler.

Over time we willingly give up control if only to make the whispers stop. We forget that we are the masters of our short time on this hunk of rock. We settle in for the rollercoaster ride, allowing life to show us the ups and downs, but never realizing there are other other options besides the track we are riding on.

All you have to do is hit the brakes and step off.

But that never occurs to us. Stay the course, it's easier this way.

The mountain air leaves my lungs and I realize I have things to do. I’m not completely clear on what these things are, but I feel the pull towards them. I heft my backpack on and make my way back to civilization, back to busy.

// Fred Bohm