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UNITED
BOWHUNTERS
of
MISSOURI
2
UNITED
BOWHUNTERS
of
MISSOURI
The Official Publication of The United Bowhunters of MissouriSummer 2017
Check out - www.unitedbowhunters.com
Please feel free to contact the editor of the United Bowhunter to place a FREE classified ad in this publication. Please, no commercial or retail ads.
Submit all photos and stories to: Darren Haverstick, EditorThe United Bowhunter, 10276 N FR 183 Fair Grove, MO 65648or you can email: [email protected] Cell phone: (417) 693-5304
— On the Cover —
Calendar of Events
August
June
Discount for commitment of 4 issues. No advertising will be accepted that promotes anti hunting or animal rights issues or anything derogatory to archery or bowhunting. The editor reserves final right of approval for inclusion in publication. Prepayment is required.
deadlines for submitting copy and pictures to The United Bowhunter
Feb. 15th, May 3rd, Sept. 15th, Dec. 10th
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President ------------------------- Brian Peterson
Vice President --------------------------- JIm PylesExecutive Secretary -------------- Brenda Hudson
Membership --------------------- Brenda Hudson
Graphic Designer ------------------ Elise Haverstick [email protected]
Editor ---------------------------- Darren Haverstick [email protected]
Webmaster ---------------------- Darren Haverstick [email protected]
It is the purpose of The United Bowhunters of Missouri to support and upgrade the sport of bowhunting and foster a spirit of sportsmanship.
The United Bowhunter is published quarterly by The United Bowhunters of Missouri for the membership. This publication is a public forum available to the members to voice their ideas, concerns and to share their experiences.
Written materials, photos and artwork for publication are welcome. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with the materials you would like returned. The editors can assume no responsibility for any submitted materials.
The editors reserve the right to edit or reject any material and the right to crop any submitted photographs.
Send articles and photos for submissions consideration, question and comments to:
The United BowhunterAttn: Darren Haverstick10276 N FR 183 Fair Grove, mo 65648
Opinions expressed, or materials used in this publication, are not necessarily endorsed by: the Board of Directors, officers, membership of the United Bowhunters of Missouri or the editor of The United Bowhunter magazine. Advertisements for merchandise or services are not necessarily endorsed or approved by the Board of Directors, officers, membership of the United Bowhunters
of Missouri or the editor of The United Bowhunter Magazine.
27th -30th- Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, Denton Hill State Park, Ulysses, PA
12th-13th-Family Outdoor Skills Camp for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Children, H. Roe Bartle Boy Scout Ranch, Iconium, MO
9th-11th - Cloverdale Traditional Nationals, Cloverdale Conservation Club, Cloverdale, IN15th-18th - Compton Traditional Bowhunters Rendezvous, Berrien County Sportsman Club, Berrien Springs, MI23rd-25th - United Bowhunters of Missouri Rendezvous, Panther Creek Traditional Bow Range, Fordland, MO
July
Dan Novotny shows off his prize after an amazing long distance shot.
3
From the Laptop
Time, once again, has flown by! My long term family
commitment caring for my mom has come to an end with her pass-ing on Easter Sunday. As I write this, I have just finished all the estate paperwork and am awaiting probate. Those of you with living parents probably know what I’m dealing with, if you don’t, you likely will. Encourage preplanning (I was lucky that my folks set up every-thing ahead of time), mend fences,
and give your folks a call to tell them you love them. Life is short!
And with all this came the spring rains…. Epic rains! I know we had well over 12” during one storm here, and while many were affected, at least one UBM family felt the wrath of the flooding first hand. Our hearts go out to John and Kris-tine Banderman of St. Clair who lost their home to the Meramec River. Many members of the UBM family have jumped in to help clean up and rebuild, both with their physical efforts and with their gen-erous donations. Thanks to all who have helped our family.
I guess the next order of busi-ness is to elect this year’s board members. We have four very good candidates to fill three positions. Members will be receiving a sep-arate mailing shortly which will
include a short biography for each candidate and a post card ballot. Please take the time to vote (it only takes a moment and it’s well worth the stamp) and return your ballot as soon as you can so we can tally the votes before the Rendezvous.
And speaking of which, the 2017 Rendezvous will again be held at Panther Creek Archery Range in Fordland, MO,
the last full weekend of June (June 23, 24, 25 this year). Lots of fun on the books again this year including the Friday Fish Fry, Saturday Squir-rel Fry and Crawfish Boil, and the ever popular 3-Man Skirmish and open shooting on the range with prizes awarded for top shooters. If you haven’t been to one of these rendezvous, they are a hoot and Panther Creek puts on a good show with great primitive camping spots, food available for purchase and plenty of entertainment all week-end. Bring a potluck side dish for Friday night and if you have some extra SWAG to donate to the can raffles, anything archery/bowhunt-ing related would be appreciated.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is my last year as President—8 years in the president/vice-president/president cycle is plenty. Time for someone else to step up for a turn. I’m still on the board and will be intimately involved with the run-ning of the club, plus advising and teaching the new officers, but my head is tired and needs a break from wearing the Poobah’s hat! It’s been fun, but….
See ya soon, and as always, “Keep ‘em Sharp” n
Brian Peterson, President
Like us on
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Be on the lookout
for our new website coming
this summer!
4
Archery for Home Schoolers Kristine Banderman
On April 4th and 18th, Jim Pyles, Tom Dickerson,
my husband John Banderman, and I met up at Bolduc House for Homeschool Tuesday in St. Gen-evieve, MO. The topic for April was “The First Inhabitants.” Can you guess what we taught? If you guessed archery then you are correct! Each Tuesday we had four groups of approximately 10 kids in each group, plus parents. The kids were kindergarten age through at least tenth grade. Each student got to shoot approximately 15 to 20 arrows and each class lasted for two to two and half hours. Some kids had never shot before while oth-ers had bows and arrows at home. Some did very well and others did awesome, as you can tell by the pictures. Since I am writing this article I wish I could take credit for the two young men by their tar-gets but I wasn’t the one who was helping them. These young people were very well behaved and polite. Several from each group came back and thanked us. A special thank-you goes to Jim Pyles for setting this up and including the UBM. n
5
MDC Continued to Address Feral Hogs Problem Brandon Butler
Feral hogs are a much big-ger problem in Missouri than
most people realize. Across much of the Ozarks, they are causing sig-nificant damage to both private and public lands. The Missouri Depart-ment of Conservation (MDC), with help from the United States De-partment of Agriculture (USDA), is working hard to remove these invasive pests from our landscape.
In a recent press release issued by MDC, Alan Leary, the Depart-ment’s Wildlife Management Coor-dinator and leader of the Depart-ment’s feral hog eradication efforts said, “We made significant progress in 2016.”
MDC reported total of 5,358 feral hogs removed in 2016. That is a significant increase over the 3,649 reported in 2015.
“The key to eradicating these destructive, invasive pests is coop-eration with private landowners and partners in efforts to report hog sightings, continue trapping and deter hog hunting and the ille-gal release of hogs. The majority of land in Missouri is privately owned, so it’s crucial that we engage the public, educate them on the dan-gers of feral hogs and engage them in our trapping efforts. Through our communications campaign, more landowners are learning more about feral hogs, asking for help and ridding their property of this invasive species,” Leary said
Trapping is the best way to sig-nificantly impact hog populations, but it takes time and a lot of work. First, the large, corral-type traps must be built. Then they must be consistently baited for several days or weeks to attract the targeted
group of hogs. You want to catch as many hogs as possible at once. To build the trust of the entire group at a bait site takes weeks. In order to ensure traps sites are left alone from hunter disturbance, the Conservation Commission pro-hibits hunting of feral hogs on all lands owned, leased, or managed by MDC. Meaning conservation areas, certain Army Corps lands and oth-er public properties will now be off limits to hog hunting.
“Some hunters intentionally release feral hogs in new areas to establish populations to hunt and hunters usually only shoot one or two hogs out of the group, while the rest scatter across the landscape and become more difficult to catch,” Leary said. “Hunting actually com-pounds the problem.”
On my property in Shannon County, I have been able to regu-larly capture images of hogs on my trail cameras. They have destroyed a beautiful creek bottom and are costing me a lot of money by eating the corn my feeders dispense for deer. I called the department and they came out and surveyed the dam-age. Now they are planning to trap the area.
If you have hogs damaging your land, you need to reach out to the depart-
ment. They are taking the removal of feral hogs very seriously. The department, with the financial help of partners, has invested in state of the art trapping equipment to be set up and operated on both private and public land.
Across North America, feral hogs cause an estimated $1.5 billion dollars a year in damage, including $800 million in damage to farms. Hogs are voracious eaters, and can decimate an agricultural field overnight. They outcompete native wildlife for food. For example, a 200 lb. hog will eat five times as many pounds of acorns a day as a 200 lb. deer. It doesn’t take many hogs to eliminate critical food sources for deer and other wildlife species.
“In the deep south, the battle is already lost. In Missouri, we still have a chance to stop the spread of feral hogs,” said Parker Hall, an An-imal and Plant Health Inspection Service scientist with the USDA.
See you down the trail… n
This large, Shannon County feral hog returns to the same bait pile day after day and will hopefully be trapped soon.
6
Solunar Tables Provides Prime Times to be Fishing or Hunting Brandon Butler
Fisherman and hunters are constantly in search of new
and improved ways to either boat more fish or harvest more game. From new rods and reels to bows and arrows, sportsmen are not afraid to spend money in order to stack the odds in their favor. What many of these sportsmen don’t realize is one of the most important factors in achieving a successful outing is completely out of their control.
Sun and moon phases have been studied extensively to determine if they have any effect on fish and game. The resounding results of these studies find fish and game activities to be highly influenced by the phases of the sun and moon.
Solunar tables are not new. John Alden Knight is credited with being the father of the solunar table (Sol for sun and Lunar for moon). It is said that Mr. Knight was interested in the behavior of salt-water fish off the coast of Florida and that he came up with 33 factors which could possibly have an effect on fish behavior. Of those 33 factors he proposed, he eliminated all but three. The remaining three being the sun, the moon, and the tide.
Further research was done to determine the importance of these three factors. Dr. Frank A. Brown, a biologist at Northwestern University, conducted a very unique and interesting study. He had oysters brought to a lab in Chicago. Since oysters routinely open their shells with the high tide, Dr. Brown wanted to see if this activity would continue once the oysters were removed from their natural habitat. The oysters, which were placed away from all sunlight,
continued to open their shells with the high tide of the ocean of their origin for the first week in the lab. But by the second week, the oysters began opening their shells when the moon was directly overhead or underfoot. Thus proving the oysters were influenced by the moon.
Fisherman and especially hunters have long been aware of dawn and dusk as the prime times to be in pursuit of fish and game. These are the periods when fish and game are likely to be actively moving about and in search of food. It is important to pay attention to the solunar table because it will tell you when the peak of these periods is to take place.
A solunar table will tell you when the peak times to be fishing or hunting are each day, but we as sportsmen know that each day is not always going to prove to be a stellar outing. The peak of a great day on the water is going to be really great, while the peak of a bad day is going to be, well, bad. The weather always has a lot to do with fish and game activity. While fishermen know cold fronts will turn off the bite, hunters know the same cold fronts can elevate feeding activity.
Barometric pressure plays a role in activity also. Watch the barometer rise and anticipate activity to increase. If the barometer is falling, fishing and hunting activities are going to suffer.
The first solunar table was published in 1936. If these tables are still around and popular today, there must be something to them. There is no doubt that anytime a sportsman can be out on the water or woods is a great time to be doing so, but if you have the opportunity to scientifically stack the odds of success in your favor, why wouldn’t you?
See you down the trail… n
7
The Archery Knight Darren Haverstick
Many of you have proba-bly wondered what Mike
Horton has been up to since he sold The Nocking Point to Terry and Sheila Lightle and retired to the life of a gentleman farmer. Well, I guess a little farming does take place and I understand that he gets to hunt a little more. However, an unknown facet of Mr. Horton’s personali-ty (unknown to me at least) has emerged and I have the pictures to prove it. I hope you’re sitting down, dear reader, because Mike Horton is also an…ARTIST! The monu-ment you see here is his latest cre-ation and it is entitled “The Archery Knight”. Terry Lightle calls it Big Iron Man. Whatever it’s called, you
have to admit that it’s pretty dang cool! And Mike says it’s also for sale. Get yours before it’s gone! n
8
It's Never Too Late: A tale of two does that lead to two tough old bucks Ethan Grotheer
Truth be told, I had a fan-tastic season this past year
when it comes to experiences in the field with some decent bucks. Only in the last few years have I found myself dedicating some foot work and time towards killing a mature buck every season on the public or limited private hunting grounds that I have access to, but the 2016 season paid off in a big way when it comes to encounters with mature deer! It would take too much space to give a written account of all the encounters that I had this past fall, but to say the least, I was coming face to face with more good deer than I have in the last five years combined. Of course, this is bow-hunting that we are talking about here and so the occasional wind direction gone awry, unforeseen tree limb in my shooting lane, and
simple cases of the “fever” also wreaked havoc on my season more than ever before as well... Go figure I guess!
So, by the time December 17th rolled around and I had yet to accomplish my goal of taking a good buck, my hopes weren’t en-tirely dwindled down but a realist mindset also prepared me for the possibility of not filling the tag. Al-though, thoughts of my experience in the 2015 season gave me a little extra “push” to keep putting my time in on stand.
On December 8th of the 2015 sea-son I found myself hidden behind a small briar patch from a ground hunting position on an afternoon set. This location showed signs of being recently used as a transition to late season food source, and as
I expected, deer movement didn’t start to take place until around 4 P.M. that evening in the form of two mature does that filtered into view on the thin trail 25 yards in front of my ambush. I absolutely love venison in every edible shape and form. That’s a fact that anyone who knows me well can verify, so as soon as one of the does took a step forward and offered me a slight-ly quartering away shot, I drew my bow. Unfortunately, I hadn’t checked ahead of time for the clearance of my bow riser with the out-reaching thorn vines in front of me so when my bow snagged on a couple of the vines during the draw cycle, it made just enough of a commotion to alert my target. She seemed curious but not overly edgy so I opted to aim low in the armpit to account for a possible dip in re-action to the shot. Boy was I wrong! That doe’s belly hit the ground as near as I could tell and I watched in dismay as my arrow voyaged harmlessly more than a foot over her back and she and the other doe bounded off and over an old worn out fence into the south woods ahead of me and, fortunately, didn’t let out any snorts as she trotted far-ther away. Little did I know that I would come to appreciate this miss a mere 15 minutes later.
Just as I began to mentally scru-tinize myself over taking that shot to begin with, I began to hear the faint sound of the familiar cadence of, not just one, but multiple deer coming from the south and quite fast at that! It wasn’t long before I spied through the tangled hard-woods several does running around in circles with no rhyme or reason to their pattern. The thought of why they were behaving this way had not really occurred to me until I
9
heard it,.. “MEHH!” I knew in-stantly what that meant and before long a short and wide-tined eight point came blazing through the woods, hot on the tail of a young doe. When the group of seven does began bounding over the fence seventy yards down the fence line from me, I assumed the buck would follow and that they would all dis-appear from my life forever.
Though, for a reason that I would later discover, this buck wouldn’t jump the fence. Instead, he paced back and forth down the fence line grunting at the does. Once he slowed down to a trot, I noticed the limp. He was still rutting in December but he had run himself completely down! I quickly dug my old spare grunt call out of my pack and let out a few loud and assertive grunts. To my utter surprise that buck replied with an even louder
grunt and began pick-ing up his pace head-ing my way down the fence line. With only a few seconds to pick a low spot in the fence to shoot over and range, I quickly set my sight pin and came to anchor. This buck must have recently been read-ing scripts from a hunting video because he came to halt completely broadside in my shooting lane as I settled my aim in firmly on his kill zone. With light waning but just
clear enough, I was certain that I watched my arrow impact precisely where I intended it to, but as the explosion of white tails engulfed the direction I last saw the buck run to, doubt started creeping in over me.
Thirty minutes later, my hunt-ing partner, Lyle Shaulis, met up with me at the fence line just as I discovered my fantastically frothy arrow buried in the ground just past where the buck was standing at the shot. My worries quickly
vanished when we soon picked up an ample blood trail that lead only thirty yards to my deer! I’ll never cease to be amazed by the lethality of a well-placed arrow.
Of course, the celebration came to a quick delay when I realized that my deer now only possessed one side of his antlers and had dropped one side after the shot! A quick backtracking revealed that he had “popped” that side off when he took a face-dive as he fled the shot location. We took the success pics with my hand securing the antler in place and you may recall this deer as an example photo from the last article I wrote on ground hunting.
Upon quartering the deer up, I later discovered that within a cou-ple of days of my taking the buck that he had, in fact, dislocated his right hip from its place. Not only did this buck make a great Europe-an mount with “wormy” character-istics of his main beam, but he was also a tough ol’ warrior to boot!
For next few weeks after killing that buck, I ended up grunting in several good deer that were still exhibiting rut behavior. Of course, I was tagged out since I’d taken a smaller buck before rifle season
10
that fall, but it was nonetheless exciting to watch bucks, some of which had already shed their ant-lers, come charging in to my grunts. I was starting to think that, given the minimal pressure that hunting properties receive in the late sea-son, that there could be something to this late season hunting.
With that in mind, on Decem-ber 17th of this past fall, I found myself rushing into the woods an hour later than I would have pre-ferred due to school assignments and work. But, being as I was late already, I decided to make a detour on the route to my set up and check the trail camera that I had set up in a “hunch” area the week before. Boy was I glad that I did that! My camera revealed that in this small clearing that still had a few active scrapes leading into it, there was a buck, which I nicknamed Brow Tines, for obvious reasons:
Brow Tines was now frequenting the area most evenings at very last shooting light, as were some other good deer, so with only an hour-
and-a-half of light remain-ing I made a gutsy move…
The sce-nario didn’t lend itself to a ground assault due to the height of the native grasses, but I had a 10’ ladder stand located not 70 yards away in another loca-tion so I quick-ly took it down and picked a tree with some
decent amount of cover to place it in and strapped it in. The problem though, was that there were several limbs preventing any kind of shot opportunities to the scrape areas and runways. So, having already made enough of a disturbance as it was, I opted to just bite the bullet, pull the handsaw out of my pack, and cut away. By the time that I had trimmed the proper shooting lanes, only 50 minutes of legal light remained.
The evening just had that “any-thing could happen” feeling to it, and not 10 minutes after settling into the stand, I spied two does bounding across the field to the west of my stand. One had already passed any possible shooting lanes, but the other was about to pass through a lane that would be the extent of my comfortable shooting range. I had not really expected to have any shots to the west so there were a couple of limbs extending from my tree at waist level that proved to be difficult to get my bow maneuvered around. I did manage
to get it finagled around and finally got drawn. I wish I could blame the shot on the wind, debris, or anything else really, but the reali-ty is that I simply pulled the shot low and underneath the doe as she passed through the shooting lane.
Luckily, the doe wasn’t all that alarmed so with nothing to lose from the ordeal, I re-nocked an ar-row, pulled my grunt call from my pack, and began letting out some semi-aggressive grunts her way. She seemed curious, but not quite curious enough and eventually disappeared into the tree-tree line where her compadre had vanished earlier. I wasn’t very pleased with myself over that shot, so I let out a few short and loud grunts in frus-tration and hung my bow back up on a limb. Then I heard a deer jump the fence to my east and land with a fairly heavy thud.
I barely had time to grab my bow back off the limb and turn around in my stand before the buck came charging into view. As he stopped behind a few young trees to survey that area, I came to the quick conclusion that he was both wide-racked and legal to shoot. It was then that I instantly readjusted my single pin, as he let out a quiet grunt and came barreling forward into a lane between two locust trees 30 yards away. Like the buck the year before, he stopped perfectly in the lane and gave me just enough time to settle in and release my arrow. Though, as the arrow made the short distance, the buck made a subtle step forward, and in the low light that remained, I thought I saw the arrow impact a tad lower and farther back than I would have pre-ferred. He made it 30 yards into the tree line south of me before stop-ping but I never saw or heard him
11
go down. I waited well past dark in the stand, and although it’s against my nature, opted to come back and trail him in the morning. The cold temps would allow the venison to keep over-night.
I wish I could tell you that I found the buck stone-dead a short distance away at first light, but only half of that proved to be true be-cause not long after we took up the trail, Lyle Shaulis, who had accom-panied me that morning, spotted the deer bedded with his head up not 40 yards from where I had last seen him the night before. I won’t go into detail about the mad dash ¾ a mile back to the truck through some of the nastiest brush you could imagine and back, or the 2 more double-lung shots which were required to anchor the buck. What I will tell you is that my personal autopsy of the buck revealed that my first arrow, although it impacted a tad low, wasn’t really back any and
had indeed cut through that mass of arteries in the top half of the heart. I’ll never understand what gave that buck the tenacity that he had to keep fighting, but I will say that my hands smelled like a bot-tle of buck lure for two entire days after dragging that deer out! That ol’ boy was rank from still rutting hard into mid-December, and even had some battle scars on his body and broken up tines everywhere to prove it. This must be why he had come charging in to my grunts intended for that young doe.
What I’ve learned in the last cou-ple of seasons is that, perhaps, the late season is as good of a time to fill your tag on a mature deer as any other. If a guy is willing to put some work into deciphering late-season transitions in movements to differ-ent food-sources, be aware of some later breeding possibilities, and maybe even use some aggressive calling tactics,
you might just get the opportunity of taking a good deer still. So, don’t hang that bow up after rifle season! Instead, hit it hard and keep your optimism high, because you never know... n
UNITEDBOWHUNTERSofMISSOURI
UNITED
BOWHUNTERS
of
MISSOURI
The UBM, in cooperation with Queensboro.com, now has its own online store selling quality clothing
branded with the club’s logo. There are hundreds of items to choose from and the UBM makes a modest 5% pro�t from each sale. Visit often because there
are new sales taking place each week!
Don’t wait for the Festival or Rendezvous to get your UBM apparel. Order yours today online at
http://ubmmerchandise.qbstores.com/
12
MTP Drivetrain Services, LLC205 McDonald DriveMany, Louisiana, USA 71449
Office: 318-256-2083Toll-Free: 866-873-2454Web: www.MTPDrivetrain.com
Mobile: (816)591-1350Fax (866) 320-2336Email: [email protected]
Thomas CarderCustomer Solutions Manager
$50 plus $5 shipping
From the Designer Elise Haverstick
Hello again
UBM readers! I hope that your turkey seasons were fruitful and that there was a
minimal amount of cursing at the sky because of those troublesome and infuriating feathery devils. I heard from my mom that there was a fair amount of it at the house, but luckily, for me I don’t live there any-more, and the only cursing I hear is my own.
On to the oh-so-event-ful first few months of 2017 in my life. As you are well aware, I am an antisocial hermit so my routine consists of work, home, sleep, and repeat. That being said, I did manage to do a couple of interesting things.
First off, I got another tattoo, a tax return present to myself. This one has sentimental value, as it’s my take on the old school traditional mom-and-dad heart tattoo. In this case, it’s a cupcake and some movie tickets, real intimidating I know.
In other news, I have now been living on my own for a year and for the first time in my adult life; I don’t have to move after one measly year of residence in a place! In the past, I had roommates that would move out so I had no choice but to
find a new place to live, or as I call it perk #234 of living alone. I have to say I’m enjoying
not having to pack up all my stuff and hunt for a new apartment. That is a special kind of torture.
In other news, I have finally de-cided to venture into the world of coffee. So far I like the sweet Star-bucks bottled fraps or an iced coffee with enough sugar and sweetness to mask the strong coffee taste by about 50%, but give me a few more months and I will be drinking it like I prefer my tea, black and strong.
That’s all I have to say. I haven’t done a whole lot in the last few months and I’m nearing the end of my allotted space in the newsletter. I hope all your hunting ventures are successful and that you all enjoy the Rendezvous! n
The newest addition to my “food sleeve.” The cupcake is for my childhood nickname, and favorite toy, Cup-O-Cake. The movie tickets are for me and Dad’s tradition of seeing movies together for Father’s Day, birthdays, Christmas, etc.
13
Some Thoughts on Turkey Hunting Darren Haverstick
Spring turkey season is finally over and I, for one,
am damn glad of it! For the past month, my life has been on hold while my emotions have been on the Rollercoaster Ride from Hell. I’ve been teased, tricked, ignored, bitten, stabbed, rained on, and deprived of sleep. I’ve spent a king’s ransom pursuing an animal that I could have purchased at the gro-cery store for around ten bucks. “Insanity’ is a word that comes to mind to describe what I’ve recently been through. That, and the word, “exhausted”.
Now for those of you who are veterans of this sport, I know I am preaching to the choir. You will spend the rest of your time read-ing this article while nodding your head and saying, “been there – done that”. You have already suc-cumbed to “The Disease”, as Mad-Hatter Calls founder, Redbeard, refers to it. There is no hope for you except maybe an early death so you can finally be rid of it.
No, this article is intended pri-marily for the novice turkey hunt-er, or some-one who has never been but who is thinking about giving it a try. If you fall into this category then my first piece of ad-vice for you is, “DON’T DO IT!!!!” Just put that
silly notion
out of your head and take up a different activity that will be less taxing on you like radioactive chainsaw juggling. If you continue on this chosen path, you are just setting yourself up for a lifetime of sorrow and misery. However, if you don’t have sense enough to heed my warning then read on to learn some valuable wisdom that I have gathered the hard way.
Now the first thing I want to share with you is that taking up the sport of turkey hunting is not all your fault. You are most likely the victim of an evil global marketing scheme concocted by the hunting gear manufacturers. It’s all about revenue to them and they don’t care one whit about how many lives they ruin in their pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. To illustrate my point, let me paint a mental picture for you and you tell me if it looks familiar.
It’s the end of January and you are in a funk. You are weak and vulnerable and want nothing more than to go to sleep and not wake up until next October. Bow season is closed and you have nothing to do with your time except catch up on all the chores you let slide while it was open and try to reacquaint yourself with the strangers living in your house. One of these strangers, who appears to be the boss, keeps harping at you to complete some meaningless task so you decide to go outside to get the mail so you can also get some relief. You get up from your easy chair, slide on your bunny slippers, and shuffle out to the mailbox. However, instead of finding the usual offering of Christ-mas credit card bills, you find a catalog from Bass Pro and, sudden-ly, you find your spirits lifting just
a bit. You have a little skip in your step now as you go back inside, plop down in your chair, and begin pouring over this multi-page, full color, get-well-soon card sent to you personally from Johnny Mor-ris. On the cover of this card is a strutting gobbler in all his glory and inside are 1001 different items that you will need to kill such a magnificent beast. You are drooling like a simpleton by the time you reach the last page and you find yourself reflexively reaching for your credit card so you can buy a couple dozen of these must-have doodads. You don’t know a single thing about turkey hunting but you know that April is a lot closer than September 15th and if that’s what it takes to rid yourself of the blues then, by golly, you’re all for it!
Does this ring any bells? Of course it does, we’ve all been there. It’s in our DNA to hunt and we will do anything to keep on do-ing it, even if it means pursuing a critter that I know for a fact is the direct spawn of Satan. How do you think javelina hunting became popular? Nobody just woke up one day and said, “Hey, guys, let’s go crawl around in the cactus and rattlesnakes and hunt a critter that smells like a dead skunk and is not fit to eat.” No, folks started look-ing for things to hunt between the close and reopening of bow season and turkeys and javelinas are two of the very few varmints available. Personally, I’d rather hunt javies but then I’d have to go to Texas to do it and that there is a subject for a whole other article. But I digress. Right now I’m here to talk about turkeys and expose some of the ugly truths about hunting them.
Ugly truth #1: In order to hunt The author with the only bird he got this season.
Elise Haverstick
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turkeys, you need to buy a lot of gear. And I’m not talking about a closet full of goodies. I’m talking about enough junk to fill a good-sized storage unit or a utility trail-er. Does any of that stuff actually make you a better turkey hunter? Nope. Are you going to keep on buying more of it anyway? You betcha! Now I know this doesn’t make any sense at first but let me try to explain it to you. Our bow season is currently four months long. On opening day the oppor-tunities to kill something seem endless. I know a lot of folks who don’t even stretch a string until sometime in mid-October; what with a month of the season already gone. A person doesn’t feel rushed to accomplish anything because we have so much time in order to put some meat in the freezer. Now let’s look at our spring turkey season. It’s three weeks long and closes at one o’clock every day. Of those 21 days of season, you can automatically scratch off seven due to it pouring the rain. Take off another seven for work and other obligations and you are left with a week of days that you can hunt. Of that week you have left, the turkeys won’t even utter a sound on four of them so you are down to three actual days of decent hunting. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but as soon as I get up on one of those days, I can hear the stopwatch in my head ticking down to closing time. I know I have to make something happen THAT day because time is running out. So how am I going to do that? I sure as hell ain’t gonna get any help from the longbeards so my only option is to purchase every doohickey I can to tip the odds in my favor. As I stated earlier, I know these de-vices aren’t really going to make a difference but to admit that openly is also admitting that my failure as
a turkey hunter is due to my own deficiencies and that, my friend, ain’t gonna happen! Therefore, I continue to add to my mound of turkey hunting paraphernalia in false hopes that one of those items will someday help me kill a gobbler.
Ugly truth #2: Turkeys do not come to a call. Oh, sure, one might amble by as you’re sawing away on that box call but you can bet that his appearance while you were calling was merely a coincidence. How do I know this? Because I have been highly trained in math-ematics, that’s how. Let me ask you a few questions. During an average season, how many times do you call to a turkey? 100? 1000? 10000? Let’s be conservative and say it was 100. Now of those 100 times that you called, how many times did a gob-bler actually show up? If you’re like me, that answer is once or twice. So 2% of the time that you called, the desired effect took place. In statis-tics, they would label that result as negligible. Hell, you’d probably have just as much chance of get-ting a bird to show up if you were out in the woods singing, “Happy Birthday”, or, better yet, being quiet altogether. And this ugly truth just creates a feedback loop for the first one I mentioned. No seasoned tur-key hunter will admit that he can’t lure a bird in with a call. It’s just that he hasn’t found the right one yet so he continues to buy different ones in hopes that the next call will have that magic tone to make it all happen. I currently own two vests and two packs to haul all my turkey stuff in and I have enough calls to fill all those bags plus two or three others. Did any of them help me kill a tom this year? I don’t want to talk about it.
Ugly truth #3: Let suppose, by some miracle, that you and a gob-
bler arrive at the same spot at the same time and you manage to kill him. Guess what? Nobody wants to hear about it. Well, no veteran wants to hear about it. You newbies who still have a soul left might be eager to listen to the tale. You are still under the misconception that the pursuit of turkeys is still about the hunt, being outdoors, enjoying Mother Nature, blah, blah, blah. It isn’t. It’s about killing those bas-tards by any means necessary! Us oldtimers start each season on high moral ground but quickly slide into a cesspool of loathing where we fantasize about lobbing a grenade into a flock of our feathered foes or taking a flamethrower to a roost-ing tree. We become obsessed with turkey death and when someone else actually gets to partake in that pleasurable act, while we remain unfulfilled, the last thing we want is to hear a blow-by-blow account of the deed. We may smile and nod our heads at the right times while you regal us with your conquest but inside we have just added you name to the list of Things I Hate about Turkey Hunting. By the way, this also goes for morel mushrooms and crappie. If you’re finding them and/or catching them – keep it to yourself unless you are showing up at my house with a sack full of each one.
Well, dear reader, I’m going to close this now. I have more infor-mation to share with you on this subject but my wife keeps asking me why that vein on my forehead is throbbing which means my blood pressure has reached an unsafe level. Besides that, I still have a pile of turkey gear to sort through and put away after the season closed last week. The next one is only 11 months away and I want to be ready before it gets here! n
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Vice President's Report Jim Pyles
Well turkey season is over. As usual, no birds
were harmed on my expeditions, but to be fair I did not hit it real hard. Not a big turkey hunter. I know a lot of you scored so CON-GRATULATIONS!!!
I want to thank Kristine and John Banderman ( sorry, John, ladies first) and Tom Dickerson for rep-
resenting the UBM at the Bolduc House in St. Genevieve and teach-ing a two-day archery class for the home school kids. I think all had a good time and they would like to have us back next year.
Please keep the Bandermans in your thoughts and prayers. As most of you know, they lost a lot in the flood. Darren has set up a GoFund-
Me page for them that has reached its goal a couple times. That just goes to show you that we are a close community. Thank you everyone!
Plans for this year’s Rendezvous are well under way. Hope to see you all there. Don’t be on a diet!!
n
Trophy Pictures
Don Orrell
Steve North
Larry Diehle
Looking Back
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Larry Bauman
What archery shoots do you remember most? 3D
shoots are usually judged by the number of targets, the quality/size or brand of the target, placement, range location, plus who is the host. Most shoots follow standard scor-ing and rules. I quit keeping score some time ago. You know if your shot was good or bad and I find writing down scores is a distraction when looking for arrows. Shot placement that would be accept-able when hunting is ok with me. Relaxing and enjoying those I am sharing the day with, comes first. Visiting and sharing hunting stories while waiting to shoot is what bow-hunters do. Comparing equipment and shooting techniques is always a learning experience. Everyone has their own style or method that is comfortable for them. No matter how long you have been shooting, someone will show you something you haven’t seen or tried before.
If I had to single out any one “Bowhunter” shoot that is most memorable, it would be Clinton, Indiana back in the 70’s. We used to refer to it as the Woodstock of Archery. Over 1500 shooters with 4,000 people camped throughout the fields and woods. I remember one prominent individual within the more formal archery world
saying that it set archery back ten years. An archery group within a sportsman’s club was the host and it eventually became too big and too much work for their organiza-tion. This was one of the first large Bowhunter 3D shoots in the mid-west. It would almost remind you of a state fair. Their kitchen served three meals a day, bands in the af-ternoon and evening, large groups
sitting around the many camp fires. Not only did they attract large groups of folks from around the country, they also brought in the major vendors and manufacturers. By the time you left on Sunday night or Monday morning, you were worn out.
In order to keep people enter-tained while waiting on everyone to finish shooting, most clubs/or-
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ganizations held novelty or benefit events. As I reflect on the many shoots over the years, I remem-ber the novelty events the most. They were fun then and fun again when remembering and reliving the stories for the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity to experience such. These were the stories most told when talking about a given shoot.
The 100 yard plus target with a fifty-fifty pot has always been a standard and still is. A spin off of that was the helium filled balloons (30’ in the air) dancing in the wind at 50 to 80 yards. This was also in a large open field with you shoot-ing your target arrows. Would you believe that you can glance an arrow off a balloon? Or does a balloon ricochet off an arrow? The field looked like you planted wild flowers, plus it was a long walk to retrieve those flowers.
The foam disc’s flying through the air with about six shooters lined up trying to hit one disc created a bunch of fun and laughter in iden-tifying whose arrow actually hit the disc. Flu flu arrows were provided so you couldn’t necessarily claim or identify your arrow. There is always a bit of exaggeration exchanged among buddies trying to claim
the hit. This can be addictive. I’ve heard some say, “I’ll quit as soon as I hit one.”
Running deer and turkey speed-ing down a hill on a cable, in front of a bank, keeps you coming back. Somehow, this reminds me of a car-nival activity. Attempting to shoot a moving target reassures you why not to shoot at live moving targets.
We once shot at floating foam fish in a creek and our arrows were retrieved by their members in hip boots. Feathers took a beating. Should I mention that this event
happened because of a heavy rain during the shoot?
Have you tried to shoot 3D fish off logs while standing in a ca-noe sitting on bed springs? Your buddies are sure to add rough water action to the canoe. Of course, ev-eryone is then anxious to get even. The last person in the group doesn’t stand a chance. You could hear the laughter and hollering throughout the range.
How about shooting 3D squirrels off the side of a post held on with Velcro? There is no doubt when you
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hit one, because they become flying squirrels along with your arrow. If you’re lucky, your arrow will be attached to the squirrel.
Then there was a 55 gallon barrel (meant to be a horse) welded on a car coil spring. This was intend-ed to give you a feeling of shoot-ing while riding. The first time I climbed on (test ride) it threw me. Landing flat on my back it knocked the wind out me, making everyone break into uncontrollable laugh-ter, except for me. I was lying on the ground, desperately trying to reclaim the air that had so quickly left my body. Once everyone got over the hoopla of my test ride, it was decided to lower the barrel and weld vertical strips on the coil spring to make it a bit more stable. You better believe I hung on tight when testing it the 2nd time.
Have you been introduced to the bionic duck, ground hog or deer? These are quarter inch steel targets with cutouts/holes in the kill area. The target would be suspended in
front of the matt or butt in order for the sound to resonate when hit by an arrow. This would excite the crowd when they heard the bell like sound of your arrow hitting the steel. Of course, hunt-ing buddies continued to dare each other to try again and again. You should only shoot this one after you have finished for the day to avoid running short on arrows. There was a five gallon bucket filled with unsuccessful attempts.
How about the bow throw? Everyone would see how far they could throw an old two wheel com-pound bow. It looked as through people always wanted to do this
and were getting it out of their system.
Do you remember the Saunders Speed Round? This was
one on one competition, trying to knock a circle target back to your opponents side (left to right) using blunt arrows, in a timed event. There was netting behind the target to catch the missed shots.
Remember dunking tanks that used to be so popular at picnics? We once built a target with a solenoid at the center that would trigger the lever on a dunking tank sitting beside the shooter. Fred Bear shot this one when he was eighty years old. He was shooting brother Jerry’s left handed Hoyt recurve. It took him approximately 13 + arrows to dunk my wife. Boy,
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did he draw a crowd and what a great sport he was. I think he was laughing harder than the crowd. He laughingly told everyone that this might take a day or so. What a great role model. When he did connect, the crowd roared. As you might guess, this remains one of those special events for me. Fred wasn’t worried about image or sta-tus; he was happy to join the crowd in having fun and just become another source of entertainment.
The bow pulls always drew a crowd. The Red Neck Mother (116 pound red 2-wheel Jennings com-pound) and a 250 pound recurve with a clothes pin on the arrow that could be used to measure the inch-es pulled to determine the pound-age you pulled. I left this one to the big boys.
One of the wildest novelties that I got to ride was, “Old Josh”. This was a real hoot that was talked about for a long time. A club in Illinois mounted four wheels that were welded and then re-drilled off center on a hay wagon, mak-ing them turn like cams. All four corners of the wagon would jump, twist and turn independently like a rough riding horse. They mounted a log/telephone pole down the cen-ter of the wagon with saddles on it. One was backwards for left hand-ed shooters who would therefore ride backwards. The wagon was pulled with a tractor and you were to shoot at 3D deer standing on a bank between the shooting ribbons. Needless to say, the compound, sight shooters had a difficult time with this one. It was a good day for the instinctive shooter. But they got their evens when shooting at a charcoal briquette hanging from a string at approximately 28 yards.
Would you shoot at a large 3D bug hanging from a rope with a swamp as a background? You know
you are giving up an arrow if you miss. It was time for concentration. Naturally, I entertained my buddies by glancing off the side of the target and sending an arrow into the sea of trees, muck and water. The bug was hanging off a weighted 2 x 4 seesaw pole holding it approxi-mately 20 foot in the air. There was a rope to pull the target down for those who were lucky enough to claim their arrows. I didn’t get to use the rope.
We have all shot the Poker Hand with cards - game of luck since the cards are placed on the target face down. My challenge was to hit a card.
Of course, the UBM has the three-person skirmish that has be-come one of the main attractions of the Rendezvous. One three-person team goes against another attempt-ing to break three stationary clay birds. But then again, the Friday/Saturday food fest might be the real hit of the Rendezvous, or is it the music which continues to provide great entertainment? Don’t forget the shoot & long distance buffalo. It’s hard to say which is a favorite.
After reflecting on these novelty events, I guess stump shooting isn’t that bad after all. When I read this story, it almost sounds as if we were try-ing to get rid of, or punish arrows. You soon learn to bring those well used, ready to be retired arrows that we commonly refer to as “fighters”. I often wish an arrow luck or give it a good-by kiss before send-ing it on its way. Good thing I build my arrows or I might have to change my ways or slow down on the
rough stuff. If you are like me, you don’t pass up the novelty shoots. This brings out the kid in us. It is sure to put a smile on your face and provide a fun memory to carry with you. Looking back and remember-ing these events is almost as much fun as when we first participated in them. n
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I have been throwing a study on this here Pope &
Young Record Book; trying to cipher where as not it is a good thing or iffin it is a bad thing and after a fair amount of pondering I have decided that they is a little of both in it. I guess folks has the right to know who killed what, and where, and how big it was but I know that most of you fellers and gals out there that bowhunt are like I am my ownself; humble, modest people who don’t put much stock in records or awards. Sure, they is a few showoffs out there that want to see their names in print with numbers beside them and they make it hard on us less flashy hunters who would just as soon stick pins in our eyes as to brag about the monster buck we just kilt. But the number one bad thing I see about record books is that they bring up that dreaded four letter word, WORK.
Now I ain’t a feller that knows a whole lot about work, as I have tried to avoid it as much as possible since it can really cut into a man’s hunting time, but I think the following example will illustrate the point I am trying to make. Let’s say some bowhunter has the #1 buck on record and then another hunter comes along and kills a bigger one. Why them folks at Pope & Young would have to measure and take pictures and such; to say nothing of changing the dang record book by moving #1 to #2, #2 to #3, and so on. As you can plainly see, this all boils down to nothing but WORK.
I, in my time, have killed many a monster whitetail with my old
1962 model Bear recurve but I never could see the point in making them poor record keepers at Pope & Young come out to investigate. Even after measuring them my ownself, naturally holding to the low side, and finding out that I have a record I won’t turn it in. It just don’t sit right with me to possibly be the reason for somebody to break a sweat. Now you’re probably saying to yourself, “The only
reason he don’t want nobody to witness that deer is because it never happened in the first place”. To that all I can say is I would druther be whupped nekid through a briar patch with a piece of barb wire than to lie about the size of a buck’s horns. Bragging just ain’t in my nature and I don’t have much use fer folks that cotton to that sort of behavior. Sometimes, though, things get out without you putting them there. Like the time my barn fell over. That young feller from the insurance company told me I had to quit nailing all them monster racks on the same side of the barn as it was the weight what pulled it over.
But let’s get back to this record keeping. Besides the work and frustration it causes Pope & Young employees, let’s look at how it affects the hunter who got one of them records. Say some feller has just got the #1 buck in the record book. His wife falls in love with him all over again and both his kids become straight A students. Neighbors stop by and bring him stuff out of their garden and
even his old Walker coyote hounds seem to hunt better. Ain’t I painted y’all a pretty picture?
And then some young upstart goes and kills a bigger buck and this sad individual is now dropped to #2. His wife runs off with a storm winder salesman, his daughter drops out of college and becomes an exotic dancer in East Jesus, Idaho, and his son joins Greenpeace and pickets city hall to save the prickly pear. Neighbors don’t stop
by no more or speak to him on the street, the game warden don’t even come to check his freezer no more and, on top of all that, his hounds start chasin’ house cats! And all this happens because of a silly book ranking one dead animal against another. This man becomes so down and out that he takes to strong drink, burns his bow, and goes to work in a sawmill.
And that, dear friends, is another reason I have never took none of my many big racks into be scored. I would never want it to be said about myself that I was the cause of another man going out and taking a job somewheres, especially in a sawmill.n
Pope & Young's Record Book Kenneth Haverstick
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Brian Peterson, President (2018)3097 State Hwy KKCedarcreek, MO [email protected](417) 331-1135
Joel Davis (2018)110621 S Alley Jackson RoadGrain Valley, mo [email protected](816) 522-4260
Bob Burns (2019)11507 S. Cave RoadLone Jack, MO [email protected](816) 520-5361Michael Morgart (2017)14085 Cairo LaneDixon, mo [email protected]
John Banderman, Secretary (2019)1427 Ramey RoadSt. Clair, mo [email protected](314)402-0206
Ethan Grotheer (2019)P.O. Box 62Fairplay MO [email protected](417) 399-3265
Jim Pyles, Vice President (2017)22815 Coffelt RoadSt. Mary, mo [email protected]
Tom Dickerson, Bowhunter Ed.226 Country Road 436Jackson, MO [email protected](573) 243-7113
Elise Haverstick, Graphic Designer4314 S. Timbercreek Ave Apt. 28Battlefield, MO [email protected](417) 693-6084
Brenda Hudson, Executive Secretary24933 Helium Rd.Newtown, MO [email protected](660) 794-2591
1. John Marriott, 24435 State Hwy JJ, Clearmont, MO 64431 [email protected] (660) 778-3514
Max Medsker, 22363 State Hwy A. Graham, MO 64455 [email protected] (660) 254-4558
2.Brandon Snider, 6784 Shelby 472, Shelbina, MO 63468 [email protected] (660) 651-4875
3. Open Position
4. Carey Breshears, 33330 HWY AA, Edwards, MO 65326 [email protected] (573) 347-2670
Rev. Dr. Nicholas J. Gray, 121 E. 32nd Street. Sedalia, MO 65301, 660-827-2448
5. Todd Goodman, 504 Willow Grove Ct., Troy, MO 63379 (636) 528-2278
Steve Bostic, 4234 Dogwood Lake Ct., Wentzville, MO 63385 stevenbostic @yahoo.com (636) 828-4923
Jim Pyles, 22815 Coffelt Rd., St. Mary, MO 63673 [email protected] (573) 543-5357
6. Mike Smith, 2512 N. Highview, Joplin, MO 64801 [email protected] (417) 529-9255
7. Darren Haverstick, 10276 N. Farm Rd. 183, Fair Grove, MO 65648 [email protected] (417) 759-6522
8. Open Position
9. Justin Glastetter, 721 Corinne St. Jackson, MO 63755 [email protected] (573) 225-9098
Out-of-State Members Representatives:
Byron Whitlock, 105 2nd Street Oswega, KS 67356 [email protected] (620) 717-5340
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Start planning for the
UBM RendezvousJune 23rd – 25th
At the Panther Creek Traditional
Bow Range In Fordland, MO
3D Range – Novelty Shoots – Live Music Vendors – Camping – Lots of good food
Come Join The UBM Family For A Great Time!
