Excerpts from “An “Autobowography” of the Past 55 Years of Archery”
--By Tom Dorigatti
The last blog was about a great spot and stalk on a giant pronghorn buck. The stalk was too
successful, and I not only got too close; I also thought I didn’t have the angle and passed up a sure shot because of past rifle training, not realizing that an arrow would not have ruined the animal’s meat from stem to stern. I’m now better prepared to handle the up close and personal situation needed for me to get close enough to a pronghorn to put him down. Read on…
Equipment: Here is a listing of equipment used during the 1969 Bow Hunting season:
Bow: Bear Kodiak Magnum recurved bow, 50#@28” draw length. Dacron String, no bow sights, combination gap shooting/instinctive.
Arrows: 2016 24SRT-X aluminum with index nocks and Chartreuse Feathers fletched full helical. Spare arrows were 11/32 Matched set of Bear Port Orford Cedar arrows, brown in color, with white feathers fletched full helical. Those spare arrows are going to come into play, but not for the reason you may think! Read on….
Broadheads: 125 grain Bear Razorheads with inserts. Everything hand sharpened.
Release style: Fingers on the bow string, apache style, with Bear 3-fingered shooting glove.
Quiver: 4-arrow Kwikee Quiver, mounted on the riser.
Arrow Rest: Arrow shot off the shelf of the bow.
Clothing: State law required blaze orange hat and blaze orange vest or jacket. I wore Levis and
standard hunting boots. No Camo gear whatsoever.
Hunting style: Spot and stalk.
My First Pronghorn Taken with a Bow.
OK. I now know to look around me for does hiding in the grass. I am (or me and Jim are) $75
ahead due to my magnificent “skid shot to the head” of a fox. I know that it is OK to take a Texas rear-ender shot with a bow and arrow from behind a big game animal. I’m ready for anything now, correct? Well, almost. This is the last week of pronghorn season in that area. I get out of school by 3:30PM and can be out in the hunting area easily by 4PM. I have all the gear in the car and my wife picks me up at the school saving me a ton of time. I get to the hunting area, change into my jeans and orange top and orange hat, and off I go to try to spot and stalk a buck “anagoat.” It isn’t long and I’ve spotted a good enough buck that I decide he is a taker and that I had a good stalking angle on him. This time, the stalk went really well. I got to within 20 yards of him and set up for the shot. He raised his head but doesn’t panic. I let the arrow fly and it is a good shot; I’m going to nail this sucker….NOT! I am not kidding you, that animal turned right away from my arrow just before it got there and it slips right by him. He moves to about 30 yards, about the limit of my effective range, and turns broadside again. I drew back on him and made another shot I was sure was going to double lung him. Once again, he turns away from the arrow just before it gets there! This time, however, he takes off well out of range. He pulls the same stunt as the monster I talked about earlier; he adds insult to injury by just walking away from me! I go pick up my arrows wondering just what the heck was going on. I then realized that I didn’t have any more sharpened aluminum arrows with me. I had that set of wood arrows with the same style of broadheads on them back in the car. Those wood arrows shoot really close to the same at close distances as those aluminums, so I figure, OK. I’ll use the wood arrows for the next stalk if I get so lucky as to find a buck to stalk.
About a half-hour later, I find another buck and pull a nifty trick on him by going around and
coming over the top of a hill from behind him. He is less than 15 yards and he, too, doesn’t panic and take off; he just stands there like, “Where did you come from, and what do you want”? I drew back, let the arrow fly, and double lunged this one! He went about 40 yards and piled up. I had my first pronghorn with a bow! Finally! He wasn’t a monster by any means, but I had pulled a successful stalk and made a good solid killing shot. I hadn’t overshot; I hadn’t hit him in the horns; I hadn't skidded one by him, and I hadn’t hesitated. All was good, including the perfect arrow placement! Not too bad for shooting without any sights on the bow at all, a Kwikee quiver and in Levis and blaze orange! In retrospect, I did figure out what the problem was with the aluminum arrows, or at least it is my best guess. The aluminum arrows were bright silver in color with no non-reflective coating on them. The Port Orford cedar arrows were a dull brown in color and offered no means of glare or reflections. What I think went on with the two previous misses with the aluminum arrow was that the pronghorn, since they have such precise vision, actually saw the arrow coming at him and turned away from it just in time. That is the only explanation I can think of for the animal turning away like that and not taking off in a hurry. I wasn’t the threat, but that “thing” coming towards him was, so he turned away from the only threat he saw. Another lesson learned: “Do not hunt with bright silvery reflective arrows. You must dull them down somehow.” Believe me when I tell you that those arrows did get dulled down.
Keep reading the blogs and excerpts from my upcoming book. This 1969 bow hunting season was far from over!
Tom Dorigatti, author of “ProActive Archery”, “The Puzzled Archer”, and “The Puzzled Cyclist.”
