Hunt Smart, Fish Hard
Leon Mettler

Frank, Roger, and I have been practicing for bow season for a few weeks now in an- ticipation of opening day in New Jersey. We have already built some tree stands on my buddies property. We saw some nice bucks while scouting this area. We also found a couple of scrapes a few days before the sea- son came in. Our bows are fine-tuned and ready to go.

We had two weeks to go when Frank said he got a flier that promoting a bow and ar- row shoot for money and prizes for the en- try fee. The entry fee was $10, giving you chance to shoot at 3-D targets. The targets had a red sticker attached to the spot on the kill area. The other areas were marked with a number ranging down from 10 to five. The kill area was either to the left of the dot, to the right or you just didn’t know. The only thing known for sure was that the red dot was worth 10 points. You couldn’t see the other areas and what the points were worth.

We got to the show, and it was crowded. I didn’t know there were that many bow hunters around. We got in the line; we had a little bit of a wait. We listened to the guys talking about what they have seen while they were scouting their places to hunt. A lot of it sounded good, but a lot of sounded like bull.

After we paid the entry fee, a person in charge said to not notch an arrow until told to do so. Frank went first, and walked up about ten yards and took his spot. He took shot at the elk feeling good about it. Roger’s shot wasn’t close to the red dot. I took my shot, and I thought I did good.

Once the course was clear, we retrieved our arrows. Frank’s arrow was in the “eight-

point range”. Roger hit the “five-point” area. I hit the “nine-point” area, but I was one- and-a-half inches close to not scoring at all. The goal was to get as close to the red dot as you can.

We had a lot of fun shooting this course. On the closer targets, we all scored well, but the 30- to 50-yard targets were out of reach; no one did well on them.

We were set up with three pins for dis- tance. Our first pin was set from 0-15, then 20, and then 30 yards. Shooting anything farther was just guesswork. Besides, we wouldn’t shoot that far if we were actually hunting. The last target was a huge caribou. Frank hit the bottom of the target and Roger hit the abdomen area. I’m proud to say that I hit the tail, which no one else did!

While waiting for our scores, we walked around to visit the vendors, and heard this “pinging” sound. It was coming from a metal deer. There was a hole in the deer that served as the “kill area”, and it was one a metal track being pulled by a motor, like a rollercoaster. The metal deer traveled up and down the incline and through the straight paths. The “pinging” sound came from hunters miss- ing the “kill area” and hitting the metal of the deer. The course began from 10 yards, then moved back to 20 yards, and finally to 30 yards. Once the metal deer reached the end of the run, the operator would turn it around to go the other way. Frank, Roger and I all lost three arrows. That was enough for me because arrows cost more than that little deer trophy they were given away as the prize. Still, it would have been nice to come home with one.

Until next week!

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