Hello All,
I've been tinkering around on this site for about a year, but haven't posted much. I've been making my own primitive bows for about 2 1/2 years now, and moved to Houston, TX from Pittsburgh about 1 1/2 years ago, where I work as a Geologist for a major Oil and Gas company.
Since switching to Traditional 3 years ago, I've struggled to put meat in the freezer, but the drought is over! I went on a PBS member hunt in the Davis Mountains of West Texas last week, which was a backpack/horse pack trip into the backcountry. This is a spot and stalk hunt for hogs and javelina in some pretty rough terrain. It was an awesome experience with some great people, that I met for the first time on this hunt. On the last day of the hunt, having seen tons of sign, but only one group of hogs, I was climbing a ridge just above some ancient native american rock paintings with one of the other hunters in the lead. Suddenly he was hissing frantically at me "Javelina!" and motioning me up front. He had already harvested a javelina and the Ranch foreman had requested we limit ourselves to just one. By the time I reached him, there were javelina all over in the thick brush not 15 yards away. I moved forward,to where I thought I had a good shot on a larger one, drew, fired, and watched my arrow deflect off a twig and the Javelina ran off with a grunt. Realizing there were still a bunch of them milling around, I snuck forward a bit while my hunting partner found my arrow and confirmed there was no blood. I found another Javelina about 15 yards up hill hiding in the tall grass, but with most of her body exposed, and took the shot. The shot was a little far back, and she burst out of the brush twirling and I watched her bite the arrow and snap it off and then she charged right at me as I readied my second arrow. I took the second shot as she ran by me at about 2 yards (I was relieved she didn't start chomping on my leg with those gnarly teeth!), again a little far back, but a liver shot that angled back and broke her hip. She crawled under a bush and started snapping her teeth at me, but I was able to find a clear shot through the brush, and watched the third arrow hit where I was looking and sink to the fletching. That's when I realized I had just made my first traditional/primitive harvest. A little messy, but I'm thrilled with the results. I don't know who was more excited, myself, or my hunting partner, Mitch. It was a great experience to share with a great new friend.
The bow is a 67" ntn, 58# @28" Osage selfbow. Arrows are Surewood shafts with 125 gr Zwickey Eskimos backed by 100 gr woody weights. My goal this year is to up my primitive game by making my arrows more primitive for this fall.
Thanks for looking.
This Javelina "Purse" was a pretty effective way to hike with the little gal the 6 miles back to camp.
