) My dad got me started huntin with a .22 after the local jackrabbit and prairie dog population when I was just a little fart. We ended up moving to Throckmorton, cuz my dad got out of farming when it got super slow in the late 70’s, he bought a lumber yard, and he ran that for a few years, and for some reason we moved again, and we ended up here in Sulphur Springs. Through all this he kept all his grain harvesting equipment, and we’d travel “custom harvesting” all summer every year. On to the hunting passion! I got my first bow, a fiberglass green/white Bear recurve that looked like Irish spring soap! I had a handful of mismatched aluminum arrows, and was on the prowl daily for whatever I could shoot at. Killed my first rabbit with that bow when I was in the 5th grade, and I’ve been on fire about it ever since! Still remember skinning that sucker, salt drying the hide, and then cuttin it down/making a grip wrap out of it. My Irish spring soap colored bow with a rabbit fur grip wrap... I was THE master bowhunter!
I hunted a lot with my grandpa for the cat squirrels and fox squirrels with my trusty Savage 410/.22 OU. I officially got bitten by the archery bug in 1981 when I was shooting that ol green and white Bear and got to thinking “I want to kill a deer with one of these!” The first year I “bowhunted” was the fall of ‘82 with an old Grayling Bear Supermag 48 that a friend gave me. Scott prob knows the bow I’m talking about! 
No deer were killed that first year, or the next, but in August of ‘84, I thought “I had to have” a compound. I saved up all my hay-hauling money, went to Kmart, and bought me a Bear Whitetail with the lever wheel arms and everything! That year I killed my first deer ever, an awesome 5 pt buck! I was sooo excited when I shot him, when I went to climb down, I skipped the first step, and fell to the ground out of the 10-12’ wooden ladder stand. I bounced up, and went to get my deer. (I was a little younger then!) I was THE ONLY person that I knew that bowhunted, which made it hard, cuz I had no guidance. That Bear Whitetail was not even close to the right draw length for me, it was waaaay too long. But, I made it work! I learned most everything from my big paperback “Bowhunters Bible” by Chuck Adams. I first came to find out that with that draw length being way too long for me, I absolutely could not get my pins far enough to the left to hit where I wanted, so I had to “hold right”. I came up with the redneck idea of taking a fairly long piece of baling wire, making a small half loop in one end, and putting that loop eye behind a sight pin nut. Then I bent it straight out like a sight pin, and “sighted it in” using a pair of wire cutters! One small snip at a time, until I was putting them where I wanted! Started shortly after that hunting with the bow all season, as in keep bow hunting when gun season rolls around. Boy, that’ll get you some funny looks! Killed tons of critters over the years with that ol Bear, and several other compound after that. Then, in 2004, after many summers of bowfishing with a recurve, I said AGAIN, “I’m gonna start hunting with a traditional bow!” Once again, I had nobody that hunted with traditional gear that I knew, so I had to rely on books, and what little I could find/understand on the computer! And like I’m sure LOTS of y’all get, I got the “you’re gonna hunt with THAT, instead of your compound??!!” Cuz by then, there were a few bow hunters around, but they were compound hunters. Whew!! It took several years and lots of learning, but finally got my first deer, a big fat doe, with my Checkmate Crusader LB! It’s been Katy Bar the Door ever since! The 2017 season was pretty tough for me cuz I had my rotator cuff surgery bout 10 months before. That whole season, even though I was shooting “ok”, I just was not to the point of where I was like in 2015, before the injury/surgery. But I’m relieved to say, that FINALLY this year I feel like my old self again! I’m not 100%, but I’m shooting soooo much better than last year, it just makes me warm and fuzzy all over. I still have some rough pain days, but all in all it’s like night/day! I haven’t got a chance to shoot ol Sac yet, I have to work tomorrow till 3, but then I intend on getting here together, stringing her up, and slinging some before huntin tomorrow eve! Don’t know if she’ll go tomorrow eve, kinda hard to kick the Blueridge to the curb, but, she’ll be going soon! Sorry bout the novel guys! Good Huntin, and God Bless, Rusty
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