I haven’t shot my bow since I shot my whitetail in November, so I’ll dust off the bows today. I used to shoot every day of the year, but I seemed to pick up the odd bad habit during my close range practice in the house through the winter. The first winter I trapped, I didn’t shoot at all, because most days I was lucky to get 6 hours of sleep between working for 12-16 hours, checking snares and putting up my coyotes. I was also foolish enough to take on custom skinning for a couple of guys, which added to my workload, but got me good at skinning, and then fast. By the end of that first season, I could skin a previously frozen coyote in less than 4 minutes. Anyway, when I started shooting again in the summer, I noticed that I didn’t have any of the bad habits that I normally do after a winter of shooting at 5 yards. I was able to jump right into my regular shooting routine; one broadhead tipped arrow from 50-80 yards, without any issues. Since then, I give myself a break for the winter. I have just over a month to prepare for this hunt, which is plenty of time, and I’ll begin shooting today.
I’m also out of shape, at least compared to what I normally am, and I just had fairly extensive sinus surgery, but I have a follow up appointment on Thursday, and I’m sure I’ll get the green light from my surgeon to begin exercising again. I haven’t done much in the past year or so, as my chronic sinus infections left me with little energy and ambition, and it was too easy to use that as an excuse.
Follow along here if you want to hear more of my extensive ramblings regarding my preparation for the hunt, and of course, the hunt itself!
FUZZ
My flights are all booked now. I’m surprised at the price, considering it’s just over a month away. I expected they would be much more. Round trip from Winnipeg to Auckland for $1750 CAD, so closer to $1300 USD. Only $150 CAD for the short connecting flight from Auckland to Taupo, where Gerald will pick me up. During the few days that I’m there, they only have one other hunter there, and he’s hunting for Sika, so I’ll have the red stag all to myself! The roar will basically be over but the younger stags will apparently still be roaring some, so I’m glad I’ll get to experience part of it, anyway.
I didn’t get a chance to shoot today, got caught up with catching up on coyotes and lost track of the daylight, but I did get the snowmobile out after dark to make a path to my target backstop.
Here are the first two arrows I’ve shot since November 11. The first was at 40 yards, the second at 50. This is my hunting setup, so the arrows are tipped with broadheads. I’ve shot the same bow and arrow setup since 2012 and see no reason to change. I actually have piles of extra arrows and components in case something is discontinued, that’s how much I like it.
The arrow is a Carbon Express Piledriver Hunter 450, cut extra short to get it stiff enough to handle a 100 grain brass insert and 150 grain 3 blade Vantage Point Archery broadhead. My “fletching” is a Starrflight FOB, which I take an endless amount of teasing over from my taxidermist. I shoot an 80 pound BowTech Invasion CPX that scales in at 84 pounds, and this combination has broken more heavy bones than I can remember. On most animals, I’ll take pretty much any shot angle presented, because this setup has proven to be a bone breaking penetrator.
My shooting partner is our loveable family idiot, Rome, who believes himself to be a master shed hunting dog.
Not familiar with the starflight fletching...had to look it up.
On another note, does anyone know how I can move this thread out of the “Hogs” section? That is not where I intended it to go and just realized today that that’s where it’s been posted.
I haven’t done a hunt where I’d have to fly for several years, so I started packing last night, just to give my packing memory some time to catch up.
I decided to pack the same way my wife and I did on our trip to South Africa several years ago, as it minimizes the risk that you’ll be without hunting gear for a day or two. We split everything up half and half into two bowcases; one bow each, half the arrows, half the hunting clothes, etc. The other couple in camp with us didn’t do this, packing both their bows, clothing, medication, etc. into one case, which was delayed several days. It’s just me going this time, but I’ll still split everything half and half into two bow cases, and put my camera, medication, etc. in my carry-on.
We use SKB bowcases, and I’ve watched them be treated pretty roughly, with no damage to show for it. I’ll start with a layer of clothing as extra padding, then the bow goes in next, with a bow sling on to protect the strings and cables. The sight and rest get stuffed and wrapped with socks to protect the “snaggy” bits if the cases are inspected. Binoculars and rangefinders get wrapped well then placed in a corner. My broadhead, FOBs, nocks and a windchecker bottle go into a small plastic case to protect everything else from the broadheads. Arrows are wrapped with elastic bands then packed wherever they’ll fit. Then I pack the rest of my hunting clothing around everything to keep it from shifting.
Deserthunter, that’s how I normally do it, but figured since I can borrow my wife’s binos, I’ll split everything evenly. If I was headed to a less reputable destination, I would definitely pack them in my carryon.
I wonder, would the pressure change in the baggage compartment affect them? I’ll change my packing plans if it may affect the fogproof seal. If that’s the case, I might pack my rangefinders in my carryon as well, and just remove the batteries.
They do have a pretty interesting airport, from what I’ve been able to see from the International Departures annex.
I always enjoy watching the flight tracker map, and the coldest the temperature outside the plane got was -71F, our altitude was around 40, 000 feet and the fastest airspeed I saw was almost 600 mph.
Also, don’t worry if your bow cases don’t show up in the “Fragile and Oversized Luggage” area. There’s a locked cabinet controlled by the police near baggage claim 3. There’s a Police kiosk across the aisle from it. If there’s no officer at the desk and no one walking around with a detection dog, press the red button a few times, and if that doesn’t work, try the phone.
Also, make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to claim your case! Another bowhunter that I met in line waiting for his case only had an hour to claim his case, clear biosecurity and customs, check in for his next flight and then make the trek to the domestic departure terminal about 2/3 of a mile away. He probably made his flight but it might have been close. I would give yourself at least 3 hours from your scheduled arrival time to your next scheduled departure time. Security and customs weren’t at all busy and it still look nearly half an hour to get through, and then you still have to check your bags and make your way to the domestic departure terminal.
After breakfast this morning, Joe and I headed out for a morning hunt.
I also saw 2 stags over 400”, some young stags and had another stalk on around a 360” stag, but he got up to chase a satellite stag off just before I was in a position to shoot. I lost track of how many fallow deer we saw tonight, but dozens, at least. One was a really neat management buck. He was very light, almost white, and had one great big antler with a spike on the other side. There’s quite a few fallow bucks here with damaged pedicles from crawling through the cattle fences while in velvet. They’re sure fun to hunt though, and cheaper!
