Hunting in Virginia

Saturday early archery hunting season began. My brother and I woke up at 5am and headed out into the Virginia woods about an hour south of Washington D.C.. Sometime after 7:30am I saw a small deer approaching. I was sitting on the ground with my feet in a dugout pit. It was as if I were sitting in a chair where my butt was level with the ground.

The deer was approaching from the side that had almost no cover. The hunting blind was set up for the deer to come the other direction. When I saw it, I slowly leaned over and laid my chest on the ground with my bow extended in shooting position. The deer continued in my general direction, but was starting to angle away.

Mentally, I called to her and told her there were acorns by me which there were. She turned and came closer towards me. At one point she was about 12 yards away. There was absolutely nothing between her and me and yet she hadn't seen me. I had a perfect broadside shot.

I let her walk on. Why didn't I shoot? It didn't feel right. I wasn't confident that I wouldn't just injure the deer. I was laying in a awkward position, with a shirt draped over one eye, using an arrow that shoots crooked about 3 yards outside the range I practice shooting from at a smaller than expected deer. This was also the first day of hunting. I thought I would surely have better opportunities.

As it turns out I went hunting four more times over the next 3 days and saw that same deer again, but no others. We think that the rest of the deer are hanging out closer to the river at this time of year.

It was exciting and having a deer so close with nothing between between her and me was a thrill. I learned a lot from each time in the woods. I saw a fox and heard him barking. I heard lots of different birds including two barred owls squawking at each other which is pretty funny to hear.

This is my first all natural arrow. The point is dacite stone. It was hafted in using pitch and sinew. The shaft is viburnum and the fletchings are sinew and turkey feathers.


Her you can see the shirt I wore on my head. I did this because the mosquitoes were pretty bad. Here I have the side tucked tightly to my head. The first day I didn't so they draped in front of my eye. To get this look I first dabbed on white ash to dull my skin. The black is charcoal and the lighter color is clay.


One day my brother showed me how to make a carrying case for my bow. This is made from braintanned deer skins. I cut long thin strips to sew it all together.


8 days till I start my journey out west.

Open Season

Hunting season starts tomorrow. I write this as I'm about to head out the door to drive to Washington D.C. My brother, his roommate and I are going to hunt at a friend's property in Virginia. We will all be hunting with primitive self made bows and arrows.

The point on the left I'm hoping to haft into and arrow. It is the first point I've made that is good enough to hunt with. The notches are kind of bad, but the width is almost an inch at the greatest. I'm hoping to make the piece on the right look like the one on the left tomorrow.


I finished my bow string made out of yucca fibers, but when I shot with it, it broke. You can see at the top right where it broke. For now, I'm going to hunt with a nylon string.


Hopefully the next time I post something it will be a picture of me with a deer.

My First Indiana Hunt

I went on my first hunting trip in Indiana last weekend. I spent the weekend at the Receveur's home in New Albany, IN. Family and friends offered directions to many hunting areas, but I chose a place that I knew I could legally hunt. It is public land and they allow hunting. I've never been there before, but I found the location on line. It is the Clark State Forest. After getting a map of the horse trails in the forest, I found a spot that was as far from trails as I could find. It was also close to a lake so I figured it was a good place for deer.

I drove to this spot and parked. Signs said hunting was allowed to the left side of the main road. The right side is where the lake was. There was almost no one around which was a good sign. I found a trail and entered the forest. I was able to find a deer track on the trail. I thought deer probably bed up the hill during the day and come down to the lake at night.

I was having trouble finding a good spot to set up along the trail so at some point I decided to use inner vision. Since I couldn't figure it out based on my little knowledge and experience, I put it to my spirit to get me through. I was led along the trail up hill. As I got near the top I came upon a pretty wide trail. At the top of the hill was a large cylindrical tank so I thought the trail could possibly be a service road. The trail would have barely fit a car down it though so I wasn't sure. I followed this trail along the ridge. I was directed to a spot on the uphill side of the trail.

The spot seemed perfect. There were small beach saplings on the edge of the trail to use as cover. Beach trees are a type of tree that tend to keep their leaves during fall. While most of the trees around were bare my spot had leaf cover. Also the wind was blowing downhill which is the direction I expected the deer to travel so hopefully my scent wasn't going to be a problem.

I got settled in, picked out the shot I was going to take and made sure I had enough room to maneuver my bow. I put my back to the trail so that I could shoot after the deer passed me (refer to the picture below). This is a "quartering away" shot and is nice because it is less likely the deer will see you as you shoot. It's also easier to avoid hitting the deer's shoulder bone which will result in a non-fatal injury.


I next gathered materials to add to my cover. After all, a deer had to walk by me within 5 yards and not see me for this to work. Uphill were many more young beach trees. I now had the opportunity to practice the spiritual caretaking skills I learned at the Tracker School. I let myself be led to different trees. I was allowed to cut certain saplings and branches to use for my blind (cover). Some of the branches were from trees that dead trees had fallen on. One branch was entangled with the branches of a nearby tree. One sapling was the smaller of two that were growing together. I was able to take what I needed and leave the forest better than I left it.

After finishing up my blind I sat down. After a couple hours I heard the sounds of something coming down the trail. It didn't take long to figure out that it was a human. Deer generally take a few steps and then stop and listen. Humans just walk without pausing. It's completely out of the context of the forest. As the person walked by, I saw that it was a hunter with a shotgun. I expected to see him looking back at me but he must not have seen me. I was happy that my cover was good enough that he didn't notice me so close to him. On the other hand, he just left human scent on the exact path I expected the deer to travel and his noisy passing just guaranteed no deer was coming by for at least 20 minutes.

It was dusk now. I think it had been 1 1/2 - 2 hours since the hunter came by. The forest was alive. Birds came to the trees near me. I watched a Red Headed Woodpecker go to town on a branch to my left. A Great Horned Owl started hooting to my right. Then I heard brush crashing behind me. I new it was a deer. I was astounded because the deer didn't come down the trail like the hunter had, like I expected. It came from off the trail right towards me. It chose my spot to enter the trail!

In my last post I talked about the difficulty of shooting a deer from 5 yards. A big part of that is finding a place where you can intersect with a deer. I had just done that without ever being in this forest and the deer came to me not by a clear trail. To me, this was a big confirmation of my inner vision since it led me to this spot.

Since my back was facing the trail I couldn't see exactly what was going on, but I was sure it was a doe. It walked a few steps down the trail and got to the point where the deer is in my picture above. After a pause I heard it bolt up the trail. I turned in time to see its white tail.

I'd like to think it ran because it smelled the hunter's scent, but I can't help but think that I didn't have enough cover. Anyway, it was a success because I had a deer within 6 yards of me on my first solo hunt. I had used inner vision successfully throughout the experience to accomplish things that I couldn't do with my brain. The only negative of the experience was the poison ivy. I got it just by breaking a stem. There were no leaves to identify it. It's in a worse place than last time. Let's just say it's in a place I can't scratch in public and you get it if you concatenate two of the words in this sentence together: "The pen is black." Sorry, no picture this time.

The Sacred Hunt

The second class I took at PAST Skills was called The Sacred Hunt. Since I have no experience in hunting, everything taught was new to me. I learned a lot! The first two days we packed in a lot of lecture and shooting practice. The last three days we were mostly out hunting.

The rule was that we could only take a shot if the deer was within 5 yards. The reason for this is so that we are more likely to get a clean kill with minimal suffering for the animal. I think another reason is that from 5 yards you can know what you are killing before you kill it. I think you really have to be there for the right reason to go through with it once you see how beautiful and peaceful the animal is.

It is incredible the number of skills involved in hunting in this fashion. Imagine having to find a location in the woods where a deer will pass by you within 5 yards. Then imagine not being scented, seen, or heard as the deer gets that close. I forgot to mention that your mind also has to be clear because animals can sense your mood even before their other senses come into play. Also don't let any birds or squirrels know you're there either because they'll tell the deer. Then try to draw your bow without being seen or heard and make sure you hit the deer in the right spot. Hopefully the bow and arrows you made from scratch are of good quality. Finally, you better know how to follow a blood trail or your hard work is for not.

After this the work really begins. You have to honor the deer by using as much of it as you can. That means butchering the meat, boiling the bones and extracting the sinew for tools, tanning the hide, etc.

As Billy said hunting is the reason for practicing primitivie skills. You have to be able to track, use camouflage, build bows and arrows, flintknap arrow points, understand bird language, etc. to be successful at hunting.

So how did I do? First of all I didn't kill a deer. I didn't even take a shot. I did learn a ton of stuff each time I hunted though. For the record I did have two does broadside at 20 yards that never knew I was there. If I was hunting with a rifle it would have been an easy kill. I was content to see deer that close in a natural setting.

Long before the deer showed up, I determined through "inner vision" that I was going to see deer but not shoot any. At the time I thought that meant I would see a buck since we were only hunting does. I forgot that the other possibility was to see does that were out of my range. The last day we hunted I had the same vision and a doe came through my area again. This time it was actually right in my shooting lane, the only problem was that it was sprinting through it since it had seen me moments before.

That doe had been shot by another student minutes before. I like to think that it's hyper-aware state was part of the reason I got busted, but I know my cover and camo was pretty weak too. Later we followed the deer's blood trail for probably 600 yards before we lost it. It was determined that the deer was hit in the muscle of the leg and would probably survive. Even from 5 yards there is no guarantee of a kill. It was a tough way to end our class, but we learned many lessons.

I didn't end up taking many pictures since I was out hunting a lot of the time. Here is a picture from a 3d shooting course. This helped us practice shooting through brush at life-like targets.


For fun we took shots at a bear target off in the distance. I estimate the distance at about 60 yards. One of the times we shot, I was 2 for 2. One shot hit the bear in the eye. I was pretty lucky but I felt cool. No one else hit it.

Jackpot: Arrow Shafts

In my last post I mentioned a class I'm taking at the end of April. The class is called The Sacred Hunt. I will actually be hunting deer the way the Native Americans did. This means I'll be hunting with all natural gear. I already made a bow, but I don't currently have natural arrows. I've never made any before. I'm most worried about the arrow shafts.

The first problem is getting them. I don't really have any idea where to find them. The second problem is timing. Being summer any shafts I find now will need to dry out for many weeks before they are ready to shoot. I only have till the end of October to have them fully prepared. Another problem is making sure the spine or stiffness of the shaft will match the strength of my bow.

Last weekend I went to Broad Ripple Park (where my sit spot is) and looked around and didn't find any shafts. So yesterday (Saturday) I drove over to Eagle Creek Park to have a look around. It is a far bigger park so I figured I'd have a better chance. I ate lunch in a picnic area that was next to a wooded area. Afterwards I walked into the woods keeping my eye out for potential arrow shafts.

I didn't take long before I spotted a large shrub with a very long and straight sapling shooting up. I couldn't believe how straight and free of branches it was. I looked at the leaves and berries so that I could later identify it. I took a few moments to think and feel whether the sapling was really what I needed and when I felt confident I cut it. I continued walking around the area and found many more of these shrubs. I ended up harvesting six shafts. I cut them down to size on site. To make the most use out of the sapling, I kept the excess material to make a basket.

When I got home from the park I tried to look up the shrub in a book, but couldn't find it. Today I was in Bloomington at a Tracking Club gathering and showed my friend Kevin a picture of the leaves from the shrub. He didn't recognize it, but mentioned the possibility of Arrowwood Viburnum. Once he said that I remembered the email my brother sent me about Arrowwood a week earlier. I had the feeling that my shafts might be Arrowwood. Tonight I looked up Arrowwood and the leaves and berries both matched exactly.

So to recap, I've never harvested arrow shafts before. I went to Eagle Creek Park where I've never been before. I chose a random place to eat lunch and then wandered into the woods. There I stumbled upon shrub after shrub of Arrowwood Viburnum, a plant so good for making arrows, that it was named as such. Jackpot! The best part is that I can return there in the future and harvest more.

My six super straight shafts and the basket I started with the excess material.


My task now is to "train" the shafts to be perfectly straight by taking out the bends as they dry. Basically each day I'll bend the bends in the opposite direction and eventually they'll stay straight.

Before I left the park I decided to stop by the Nature Center. On my way in a man was walking out with an injured Great Horned Owl. He said he thought it had been hit by a car. If you look closely, you can see the lack of feathers between his eyes. He was alive, but was pretty much out of it.

My Hawaii Trip Part 3

I didn't get to go camping in Hawaii like I'd hoped, but that didn't stop me from playing with the local flora and fauna. There were so many plants with long blade-like leaves. Every time I looked at them I wanted to make cordage. You can see how I did this in my previous post about making cordage from yucca leaves. I tested a few different types of leaves. Some were definitely too weak to be much good, but I was able to make a decent piece of cordage from one type I found at the beach.

While I was in Hawaii, I finished the bow I made for Jon. It was a little difficult to get it down to it's final weight because I didn't have a scale to determine the draw weight. My target weight was between 50-55 lbs and the only way I could really tell was from comparing it to what I remember my bow feeling like. That and I also shot the 50-55 lbs spined arrows to see how they flew. I think the bow may be a little heavy, but it shot pretty well. I put 4 of 6 arrows through a beer can from 15 yards. The bow is made from Osage wood. I finished the handle by wrapping it in leather and adding an arrow rest.


We set up a little range on the side of Jon's house. It was fun to shoot unopened Diet Pepsi cans. They had a case of them and no one at the house drinks diet.


Before I left for Hawaii, I made earrings and a necklace for Carrie. All three pieces of jewelry had a knapped piece of colored glass as the focal point. Here you can see the earrings with light blue arrow heads. I don't have a picture of the necklace, but it has an orange arrow head that matches Carrie's hair.


This was a cat trap Uncle Sam had in his front yard. There are lots of wild cats on Maui. I'm not sure what he does with them when he catches them. I don't think I want to know.


My last night there Uncle Moe came by after hunting that morning. He showed us the crazy guns he has. One was a cross between a rifle and a hand gun if you can picture that. He also showed us the mountain goat he killed that morning. He said he took it down from 173 yards. It's pretty big for the area.


Sunday I will start my 7th class at the Tracker School. This time it will be the Urban Scout class. I'm not totally sure what to expect since the class has never been taught before. I'll be sure to post something when I get back.