2016: we become bow hunters

When I said that I was interested in trying out some bows, the first thing out of the guy's mouth was, "these are the only ones we have in pink or purple." He hadn't even finish the sentence when I noticed Hubby take a step back. "Good, then those are the only ones I don't want to shoot." I replied. The guy had no idea what to do or how to respond but after an awkward pause, he said that he should measure is to see what our drawn length will be.

As he fumbled with the measuring tape, I wondered if it was even worth staying there. I did not feel like I was being taken seriously and it was clear that the employee was hoping he would be helping Hubby and not me. I knew nothing about bow hunting going into this. I was surprised that I had to put on a wrist band that had the trigger connected to it. I was as green as they come.

Me "shooting" the PSE

The first bow that I tried was the PSE Stinger X. He had set the drawn length to 27 inches and set it for 45 pounds. Having never shot a bow (besides this) it was unconformable and I could barely draw it back. I asked him to lower the weight, which he did. The second time that I asked him, he tried paying more attention to other customers.

Then, Lee showed up. It was night and day. Lee either runs that archery shop or is their top tech because it was a complete 180. He helped me hold the bow correctly (I snapped my wrist the first time) and worked on my form and trigger placement in relation to my face and nose. It felt a little too big and stiff and it was not an easy draw back to where I needed it to be lined up. I shot the bow six times before I decided that I wanted to try a different one.

Lee stepping in to help me with the PSE

The next bow Lee got for me was the Matthews Mission Craze II. Lee made some tweaks before he let me shoot it. He dropped the draw length down to 26 and reduced the weight to 35 pounds. He made sure that I had the trigger set up where I needed it to and watched me as I drew back to help me hit one spot on my cheek every time.

From the minute I picked up the bow, it felt better. It was shorter and a little more top heavy than the PSE. The shorter draw length also made a difference, I think.

Hubby took over after I shot a few times and tried a PSE and then a Matthews. We were only 10 feet from the target, but he was nailing those targets shot after shot. His grouping was incredible and he seemed relaxed and comfortable. We knew that we were in trouble then.

We spent well over an hour in the shop talking with Lee and figuring out what we may want and what felt comfortable for us. Lee said that he would set aside the triggers, some arrows and the bows and we could decide what we wanted to do.

If you follow me on social media, you know what we did. Otherwise, stay tuned for another blog post.

Taking Turkeys to Texas

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population. “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work. We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the very edge o

Utilizing technology to make you more aware

Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us and we could watch the dot (that represented us) on the map move as we walked out of the woods and got closer to the truck. In another adventure, my son and I headed out on a shed hunting mission. When we got into the woods, I turned on the tracker

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it.

and a strong cup of coffee

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