By Ralph Renfro

The journey began innocently enough four years ago when a friend of mine from Wichita called with a question. A young man in his church was interested in learning to build bows. He had received some money for Christmas and promptly purchased a drawknife, a four-way wood rasp, some scrapers, and a couple of books about bow building. He had everything he needed to begin his Bowyer Journey: tools, books, desire, thirst for knowledge, and a willingness to do the work. The one item he didn’t have was any wood to work with. My friend, knowing that I had been building bows since 1990, knew that there was a pretty good chance that I might have a stave that I’d be willing to donate to the young man.

After getting some contact information from the friend, I contacted the young man. Paul Hendricks was twelve years old, and I could tell from our conversation that he really wanted to begin this journey. I told Paul that I would be in Wichita in a couple of weeks to help man the Kansas Bowhunters Association booth at the Wichita Sport, Boat and Travel show. I promised him that if he’d get his dad to come to the show, I’d have a premium Osage stave for him.

The following week, I selected the best stave I had on hand. I carefully chased the top growth ring of sapwood to the middle of the stave. I then chased the next ring to within four inches of the first and so on, until I had the first growth ring of heartwood exposed. I used a sharpie to mark the ends of each growth ring. I only had one thing left to do and that seemed simple but necessary in this day and age. I sat down at the computer and wrote a biographical sketch of myself and what I had been doing for the last thirty-two years, namely teaching math and science and coaching football, basketball, and track at the middle school level. I wanted this young man’s parents to know a bit more about the man with whom their son was communicating via the phone and computer.

On the appointed Saturday afternoon of the show, Paul and his dad, Ron, came to the booth. I gave Paul the stave and explained the growth rings to him. We discussed the correct use of the drawknife, and I asked Paul to carefully chase the top sapwood ring to the end of the bow. Then he was to chase each successive sapwood ring all the way to the end of the stave. I told him that by doing it that way, he’d be learning how to correctly use the drawknife before he started on the heartwood. I had marked the desired growth ring for the back of the bow, trying to get a good one as close to the first heartwood layer as possible. An explanation of the necessity of having an un-violated growth ring as the back of the bow was given to Paul and his dad; as this was unfolding, a huge crowd of interested bystanders had gathered and were taking in this lesson in Bow Building 101.

Before Paul and Ron left I explained to Paul that, at some point later on, I would show him a much faster way of removing the sapwood but, at this point, I wanted him to gain some experience before he began removing heartwood down to the selected back of his bow. I joked that I didn’t want him screwing up a premium stave by attacking heartwood with any type of reckless abandon. We made arrangements for Paul to call when he was ready to “lay out” the bow.

About a week later I received the anticipated call that Paul was ready to turn the stave into a bow and I gave him the dimensions and an outline of what to do next. He emailed me often with questions, and I certainly had to be on my toes as Paul asked many “why” questions. Paul got the bow drawn out on the stave and took it to school to his wood shop class where his instructor agreed to help him rough the bow out with the band saw.

A few days later, I received another call from Paul. I was really excited that he was ready to begin making this roughed out bow into a thing of beauty and function. But . . . it seemed that the school instructor did not understand anything about what Paul was after; he had proceeded to literally cut the bow into two pieces. I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. Finally I asked Paul, “Where were you when he was doing this?” Paul said, “It’s as much my fault as his because I was so shocked to see him cut into the middle of the limb, I couldn’t say a word.” I knew then that Paul and his mentor had totally different dispositions. I would have been more than just shocked into silence!

Paul survived this initial setback and took from it the knowledge he had gained and a willingness to use the band saw himself. Within days he was working on a board bow. The emails and the questions kept coming and the journey continued.

The following July, Paul and a family friend drove to Marshall, MO, and attended MoJam. Paul camped out at the Okie Camp and met Mike, Terry, Doug, Shane, Tommy and the rest of the gang. He worked like a banshee, and we completed a bow for him. As soon as we got back to camp from shooting his bow, he wanted to begin making rivercane arrows. String making was also on his agenda and he purchased items that he needed from campers and vendors.

Over the next three years Paul found a way to make two more MoJams and two of the first three OJams. It seems that anytime a bunch of bowyers gathered, Paul was there. The fire was burning brightly.

This past August Paul attended the KBA Rendezvous and joined the organization. We shot a lot, and he was deadly on the 3Ds with his BBO that we glued up at OJam; I knew that if he ever started hunting, he would be able to seal the deal on an animal. By September Paul had his drivers license and drove 100 miles from Wichita when he found out that Mike, Terry, and John had all drawn for Kansas and were coming up for a work day to move and hang stands,.

Paul had planned on coming up to hunt with me in November; that didn’t happen, however, because one of Paul’s friends asked if he could drive his Toyota pickup and Paul allowed him to take it for a spin. Bad thing was, when it came back, the clutch was smoking hot and his pickup was out of commission. In typical Paul fashion, the kid had to fix it himself. So with Ron’s help, Paul learned a couple of more things on his journey.

Finally, a couple of days before Christmas 2007, Paul called and asked if maybe he could come up over vacation to hunt. Arrangements were made, and Paul showed up at my house in the old Toyota with a new clutch. Unfortunately, it was going to be really cold and this would be Paul’s very first hunt. Needless to say, the kid didn’t have the cold weather gear those years of hunting puts in all of our closets. I gave him a heavy fleece-lined flannel shirt to wear under his coveralls the next morning.
We decided that hunting from a blind would definitely be the best approach with ten inches of snow still on the ground and an inch of ice under that. The bow that Paul brought was going to be too long for the blind with two of us inside, so we decided that he should take my wife Dianne’s Sheepeater Spirit, which he had never shot. He pulled it a few times and thought it felt just about right to him; there was no practice that evening because of the tree limbs filling up my yard and covering up my targets.

The next morning, December 29, we were up early, dressed warmly and headed to the woods before 7:00 am. The temperature was a chilly 5 degrees and with wind-chill it was -12°. This was going to be fun: Paul’s first hunt, brutally cold, shooting a bow that he had never shot before. Not exactly a blueprint for success!

We chose to hunt from a blind overlooking a water tank. The woods helped cut the wind some, but I could see that Paul was cold; in his defense, he never mentioned it. I felt fine in my Mickey Mouse boots, insulated coveralls, and stocking cap. I did give him my polar fleece bavacqua, so that helped a little.

By 8:00 am we had seen some does and fawns, and several times I thought Paul was going to shoot one of the does but he didn’t have a good angle from where he was sitting. I watched him as the deer got really close, just to see his reaction. He was absolutely CALM! I was very impressed as I know guys that would have been hyperventilating with whitetails that close. The two does and one fawn moved off without offering Paul a shot that he was comfortable with. A one button buck was still within ten yards of the blind and finally presented himself broadside at ten yards when Paul was starting his draw. At that point, I saw a big-bodied spike coming and whispered for Paul to wait. The button buck moved off a few yards, and the big spike came by the water tank, took a look at all the ice and headed our way. He closed to about thirteen yards and did a funny thing; he turned broadside and looked up the hill, away from us, at the button buck. Paul came to full draw and released. The carbon arrow with the Bear Razorhead smacked into the kill zone, but a bit high. The buck bolted away through the timber to the south. I gave Paul a thumbs up and I swear he was more calm that me.

I told Paul that it was a good solid hit, but a bit high, and that we needed to wait awhile and give him some time. A few minutes later we got out of the blind to stretch and allow Paul to move around—he had finally told me his toes were really getting cold!
After about fifteen minutes, I told Paul it was time to see what the buck was putting on the ground. Within the first fifteen yards of following his trail, we began seeing a fine spray of blood on the snow. I explained to Paul that the snow was going to be a blessing. We followed the buck out of the woods, through some plum thickets and grass, then back into the woods. By now we were finding good blood every time the buck stopped. The buck went north, jumped the property line fence and was now headed into a three hundred acre pasture of rolling sand hills, with thickets of sand hill plums, sumac, and cedars. It was a perfect place to hide and not be found, except for the beautiful snow!

Just after I crossed the fence, I saw the buck walking away from us about a hundred fifty yards away. We sat down and watched as he bedded on the grassy hill. Several times I mentioned to Paul, “Where are my binoculars when I need ‘em?” After sitting in the snow for about thirty minutes, I could see that Paul was getting cold. Action was called for and plan B was on the burner. I told Paul that I would circle the buck behind a ridgeline and come up to him from the other side of the hill and maybe the buck would come back towards the woods; I really didn’t want him in that pasture. So I began my plan. Of course, even the best of plans sometimes go awry. Yep, before I got on the back side of the hill, I saw the buck stand up and walk on over the hill, so I immediately went straight to where he had bedded to see what he had left on the ground. There was good blood in the snow and as the buck moved off, he was still putting spray and drops in the snow.

I told Paul that as long as the buck was bleeding and walking, we’d keep him moving. So for the next four and a half hours we trailed him, watched him bed down, watched him walk off again, watch him bed again. We did this for over a mile as the crow flies, but several miles through the pasture. Sometimes he wasn’t putting much blood on the snow, but Paul quickly learned the value of smears on vegetation as the buck went through plum or sumac thickets. When the trails the buck was walking forked off, Paul would follow one and I’d take the other until one of us would find some blood. The good thing was that the beds were getting closer each time.

The buck barely had enough strength left to jump one more fence into a different pasture and Paul saw him hit the top strand of barbed wire. When we topped the big sand hill and crossed the fence, we didn’t see Paul’s buck but we did see about fifteen other deer running in the pasture. I told Paul that I knew that his buck wasn’t one of them because he was too weak to run. We searched but we couldn’t find exactly where the buck had jumped the fence. A good sized plum thicket was only fifty yards away, and we decided that the buck had to be in that thicket. We were right; however, as we circled the thicket, the buck got up and walked over the hill. We picked up his trail and saw him enter another thicket. Paul made a circle around the thicket where we thought the buck had bedded, but there was no buck to be seen.

I walked the hundred yards and tore right through the thicket, stopping about twenty yards from Paul. I told Paul that he had to be close because we would have seen him had he gotten up. About that time, less than twenty feet away, the buck fought to get out of the thicket. He barely made it out before he bedded on a ridge in plain sight on the grass.

Paul and I just sat there and watched, enjoying a “drink” of snow. It was now after 2:00 pm and Paul had hit the buck around 8:20 am; I told Paul that we would recover his deer no matter how long it took, and a few minutes later, Plan C was initiated. I circled the buck and came up the ridge from the downwind side. I was within fifteen yards of the bedded buck and could see that he was a hurting unit. I motioned for Paul to circle around as I had done. As Paul joined me, I whispered for him to move a bit to our left to eliminate possible interference by a couple of small plum bushes. He did that and when his second shot connected behind the front shoulder, the buck regained his feet and within five yards, was down for good.

I shook Paul’s hand and congratulated him. I let him know that without the snow, we would have done things a bit differently and I also reinforced the doctrine that you never give up on recovering a wounded animal. I then snapped some pictures of Paul and his trophy. As I positioned the buck for field dressing, I told Paul to watch closely, as this one was on me and he’d be doing this on his next deer. Once the field dressing was done, I told Paul that the easy part was over! I had to walk two miles through deep snow to get to the truck, and he had to stay with the buck to make sure the coyotes didn’t have deer for dinner.

How many lessons did Paul learn on his first hunt? I’m certain that he learned much more from his very first hunt than most of us do. He learned a great deal about the importance of good shot placement and about blood trailing. He learned that good boots are a priority in cold weather and to never give up in your efforts to recover a wounded animal. Finally, he learned that he really could take a big game animal with traditional equipment. Paul has confidence in his abilities and will undoubtedly continue on his Journey to become a proficient bowhunter. As one who has observed this Journey since its beginning, I am awfully proud of this youngster and am grateful to his family for supporting his interest in archery and sharing their son with me and my friends.