At Last
After all these years, I always thought that arrowing my first big game animal would be more...epic. For many years, every September has brought pictures to my mind of the screaming bull tearing apart trees even as the arrow speeds toward his ribs. I imagined multi-hour stalks on big muley bucks. I sort of figured I would have to fend off grizzly bears as I quartered my animal in the deep wilderness. As it happened, the big event took far longer than I ever imagined it would. And when it finally happened, it was surprisingly straight-forward. I've had a rather tumultuous relationship with archery for around three decades. My first bow cost me $15 at a garage sale: a 70 pound, osage longbow backed with a strip of fiberglass that was starting to delaminate. I mildly startled a few rabbits with it, but that was about as far as I got. I never could really get the thing to full draw without my bow arm shaking. I never quite understood why I missed some shots and was close