So today I was reviewing our blog posts and had to laugh a little. Man we come off like a bunch of rookies. With Travis loosing his sites, Fred (Tim) breaking the limbs on his bow, and me not knowing how to place my trail camera. As they say all things come in threes, so maybe instead of looking at the glass half empty I will look at it half full. Since we have gotten all three out of the way nothing can go wrong on the hill right? I hope that is the case.
We are 4 days away from the opener and I hope 4 and a half days away from dragging 4 nice bucks up the hill. With everything going on I thought I would give all my equipment a once over and get everything ready for the hunt. I started with my clothing made sure it was all ready to go no holes that needed mended made sure that I had two sets cleaned and ready for the hunt. I then put them in bags with scented cotton balls. Next was going over my arrows and broad heads making sure the carbon wasn’t stressed and the broad heads were tight. The other thing I checked were the Fletch’s (I have a funny story about Fletch’s I’ll share sometime) its important that you check them and make sure none have come loose. I cleaned my bow and then made sure the string was nicely waxed. I then checked my radios, range finder, camera, head lamp, and flashlight to make sure they had new batteries and then made sure I had some extras. The next thing to check was my pack. You hear a lot of stories about people that get turned around in the woods and get lost. Some of us say we know this area like the back of our hand. That may be true but it is always best to be prepared for anything. I check my?pack and make sure that I have a survival kit, bandages, any medication that is needed, compass, Identification, gutting gloves, meat bags, scent sticks, matches, Knife (make sure its sharp), wet wipes, and most important licenses. I will make sure that food and water make it in there before opening morning. Everything looked good and now I can relax and know that I’m ready for the hunt. It can take alot of time to check this stuff but in the end its nice to know that you are ready to go and ready for what may or may not happen.
All of us have “mishaps” when it comes to hunting. I don’t care if you have been hunting for 50 years, or 2, sometimes you just can’t be prepared for what is about to happen.
I was just going through my gear last night-taking inventory, and seeing what I needed to purchase before this season. Of course my season is over a month away, so I’m jealous that yours is only a few days away.
Good luck. I love the anticipation of opening day.
Shoot – it just means you’re human – not rookies. I swore to myself I would have my bow ready to go well before the opener this year – and then I started shooting really bad out of the blue – I took my bow in last week – just three weeks before my antelope season begins. Scared? You bet. But, it’s worth regaining the confidence in shooting – even if I’ve got to zero it in in a limited amount of time.
You guys are right that is the joy of the Archery hunt, there is a big reason archery hunters only have a 16 percent sucess rate. I remember years back we had a guy up hunting with us and the night before the opener we were up and camp and he wasn’t paying attention and hit his broadhead on his bow string and it snapped. Unfortunatly he didnt have a spare and spent the opener looking for a string instead of a buck.
If you weren’t out there, you wouldn’t be having these kind of problems. I’m the king of “stupid” mistakes. Doesn’t mean I’m a rookie, just too comfortable and confident sometimes so I neglect things I shouldn’t. I’m sure you’re the same way.
Sounds like you have it all together. Maybe this will be your year to shoot the big one. Sometimes it is important to just go through your hunting stuff and get ride of some of it. I know we have things around our house that we never use…sometime it is good to do some spring cleaning before hunting season!