A crash course in archery season preparation

Greg: In August the North Florida summer showed no sign of ending. The regular cycle of heavy afternoon thunderstorms were the only temporary relieve from the heavy heat and humidity. But with archery season opening September 14th there was no time or reason to focus on the weather. It was time to focus on scouting, gear and planning. Like every archery enthusiast I did what we all do well…try and justify why we need new gear. For me it was easy (it always is) to see why I needed a new bow. I had been shooting a Martin, Phantom II compound bow that had served me very well for quite some years. It was only the second bow I had owned, the best bow I could afford at the time and had taken quite a few deer with it. But with a sight that wasn’t working for me anymore and string that was in poor condition I decided to do a little research on new bows. It don’t take long to determine that I absolutely needed a new bow. It didn’t even take that long to justify making the purchase even at a time when my finances were crying out…don’t do it!!!

Hoginator: What Greg is leaving out is he also convinced me that I too needed a bow, my first bow in fact. Never mind that I had never bow hunted. And never mind my wife was voicing concerns about my new interest. It didn’t help when she heard some of the many encouraging words from Greg often ending with, “You can’t put a price on love!”

Greg: Finally with just a couple weeks to go we were getting in a barely adequate amount of practice and getting a few small food plots planted. One weekend in the end of August after had been planting some iron clay pea patches and hanging a couple stands on a small plot of private land in Levy County we were driving home discussing unverified reports that the bucks had started running does, although we had not seen that yet. I was also remarking that archery season is the best time of the year to see amazing deer behavior when we rounded a wide bend in the road where just ahead a doe shot across the road. Just as I applied the breaks expecting to see another doe or yearling following her, a young buck in hot pursuit emerged from the woods and made contact with the front bumper of my truck, throwing him to the shoulder. Within the time it took us to pull off the road and jump out to take a look he had jumped to his feet and continued his run.  We had now seen some early rut behavior of our own, albeit a little too close for comfort.