I finally gave up on assembling my spacious Barronett Ox 4 ground blind, barely a year old. It had fallen out of the bed of my Polaris Sportsman 6x6 ATV after last year’s deer season on the short ride to my house, and one of the steel hub poles punched a hole in the fabric.
Despite studying several YouTube videos about fixing ground blinds and a call to the company, I still haven’t been able to get it to open. Why did I think my luck would be any better when I dragged it to a Shawano County woods near Clintonville, with my wife waiting in the van? I had a back-up plan.
I dragged the bundled, bedraggled blind back to the van and grabbed one of my old-reliable Ameristep blinds. Doghouse? Outhouse? I own those two, plus a Penthouse. Their fabric is sparse and nylon (the worst possible material for a ground blind, because it’s noisy like the zippers they use for the windows), but they are easy to set up and take down. In a few minutes, the blind was up and staked, as well as lashed to some trees.
It wasn’t until a day or two later when I arrived in early-morning darkness to my blind and crawled inside with my Damon Howatt Savannah longbow that I realized I had a problem. Story of my life. I’m just too big.
I’m not talking about my 6-1, 240-pound frame. I’m talking about my 62-inch longbow. You see, I had this crazy idea to return to my bowhunting roots this season and carry a traditional bow. Since I started bowhunting in 1974 with a Bear Grizzly recurve, I’ve never managed to drop a deer with fiberglass-laminated stick and string. I’ve shot a few with compound bows and crossbows, but the romance and witchery of archery in its purest form called to me — and now I was paying the price.
No matter how I twisted my body or which windows were open for the limbs, I couldn’t draw that bow inside the blind. So I stuck my chair outside the blind that morning and hunted there. And nothing showed.
When waiting for a deer during a crisp fall morning, one can clear the mind of life’s mundane responsibilities and ponder the things we really want to do. How can I hunt from these smaller ground blinds with a traditional bow? Today’s compound bows are typically 30 to 33 inches long, but classic longbows can exceed 70 inches and recurves are normally in the 54- to 60-inch range.
The nice thing about being a collector is that every now and then, you remember you already own what you are looking for! I have a modest collection of around a dozen traditional bows (the last one added from a great little store on the edge of Shawano called War Bonnet Native American gifts, which is a mini-museum of trapping and Indian artifacts, furs and crafts), and remembered I had a few short bows.
I strung up a vintage Bear Kodiak Magnum, a 52-inch beauty with a 40-pound draw weight (around 45 pounds at my 29½-inch draw length), and voila. I could actually shoot from inside the blind this time.
I’ve been carrying this attractive, featherweight bow to my Waupaca County spot, too.
Nov. 3 found me at a slightly larger blind on the same Clintonville-area land, and I almost drew on a nice doe at a distance of 30 feet. There was no wind and the doe was looking toward me, then briefly offered a shot angle I didn’t like. She eventually trotted off. Earlier, I had seen a mama doe and her twin fawns, and about 20 minutes later, a small buck came through, following the three does with a soft grunt. The rut is on.
If you would like to try a traditional bow, whether you want to hunt with one or just shoot targets, I suggest you shoot a draw weight that is at least 5 to 10 pounds less than your compound bow’s draw weight. With no letoff, it’s difficult to hold a recurve bow at full draw for more than a few seconds. If you can’t find a used recurve at a yard sale or pawn shop, try online shopping or check your local archery shop. Traditional archery sites like 3 Rivers Archery and Lancaster Archery offer a variety of low-cost bows for newcomers, including some imports.
Be sure you buy some arrows fletched with feathers, not vanes, because arrows shot off the bow’s riser shelf won’t shoot straight with vanes. Your archery dealer or online store can explain why.
Can you shoot a traditional bow as precisely as a compound bow? Of course not. Sure, Fred Bear, Howard Hill and Byron Ferguson could all do trick shots with their old-time gear, but the average shooter will never match the accuracy and consistency of even an inexpensive compound bow.
Maybe that’s why it’s so fun to shoot a trad bow. You aren’t using an arrow-launching machine. You are using a weapon closer to those of primitive man than almost anything available. And if you succeed, that doe or forkhorn buck will suddenly become the trophy of a lifetime.
Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.
Size does matter inside a ground blind
