First Blood

The Alabama Archery season opened this weekend with perfect weather; sunny with highs in the mid-70s and lows in the low 40s. My new PSE Bow Madness is setup and sighted in. I replaced the factory string with America's Best custom bowstring and installed a DragonFire ThermoGrip heated handgrip and stabilizer. This is a really sweet shooting bow with this setup and I've been looking forward to breaking it in.

Saturday morning I decided to hunt a piece of property close to home where I had been getting some pictures of nice bucks on my trail camera. I set up on a well-traveled trail that ran parallel to a fence line about 15 yards inside the woodline of a hardwood flat. Most of the water oaks and the red oaks in the area were dropping acorns and there were lots of sign showing that the deer have been feeding on the acorns. I found a fence crossing that intersected the trail and decided that this should be a good place to setup. Saturday morning began with high hopes. Randy Adams (my camera man) and I were setup before first light. About 7:15AM, a couple of deer starting working their way down the fence line toward us. But, the wind betrayed us and the deer blew us out before they got into bow range. I decided to move our setup about 20 yards down the trail in a large pine that offered a little more cover and elevation. Sunday morning we were back in the new setup before daylight. About 7:30AM, we had two does work their way into range. Both deer were acting a little nervous (probably the same deer that had blew us out the day before). The lead doe turned to look back at her companion and gave me a perfect 25 yard broadside shot. My TEKAN broadhead hit her behind the left shoulder. I would have liked to have waited a little longer so that Randy could have gotten more footage but the trailing doe was acting really nervous. So, I decided to take the shot while it presented itself. My new PSE was fast and true.

I have one more week to hunt here in Alabama before I'm off to Carmi, Illinois for the Campbell Outdoor Whitetail Challenge. The Campbell Outdoor Challenge is a 5-day team event where a bow hunter and camera man team compete against other teams across the country. I'm hoping we get a little more practice in this week. We will need to bring our "A" game to compete against the caliber of hunters that we will face next week. Look for us on the VERSUS channel. Game ON!