Hunting With Bow And Arrow

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

Hunting With Bow And Arrow

JHE stalking and killing of game by an archer is to-day generally regarded as a practice pertaining only to savage tribes in remote areas. The bow and arrow is utterly obsolete as a weapon of the chase, a relic of remote years. Even the activities of the archers of Crecy and Agincourt have mellowed into a picturesque memory with the passing of the centuries. By some extraordinary twist of Nature, it has been left to the U.S.A. to stage a revival of the pursuit of game with the bow and arrow. In Michigan there i<s reserved a special area in tht deer-infested woodland wherein non< but ttiose armed with bow and arrow alone may hunt. Elsewhere the rifle ii king, but in Newaygo and losco coun ties, archers have been allotted a clos« season of their own which precedes the general hunting season. The sole stipu lation made by competent authority is that archers cannot be later licensed as rifle hunters in the same area, so that Jekyll the archer cannot transmute himself when the archery season has ended into Hyde the rifleman. ByW. L. Carter Some idea of the extent to which deer hunting is practised in Michigan may be obtained from the fact that 50,000 1 bucks are killed every year, while at i least a dozen hunters, mostly of the too 1 venturesome type, meet with death at 1 the antlers of their quarry, and twice as many more are injured through taking unwise risks. ! Some of the members are excellent • rifle shots, but say they prefer the added interest and skill of hunting with the bow. Nearly all the huntsmen asso- : ciated with this sport afe keen woodsmen and say they want to learn as , much as possible about the habits of i game, killing being of secondary imi portance. It is, of course, obvious that i with the almost silent bow and arrow deei can be approached far closer than [ when hunted with a rifle whose disi charge naturally startles every wild . thing for a mile round. I Last year, the Michigan Archery Asso- [ ciation —the governing body of the vari- > ous clubs—decided to send a deputation l to the State Legislature to ask that a l special season be set aside in which

their members could hunt deer free from sound of rifle shot. The deputation was greeted with considerable hilarity, and the deputies of the House held an amusing session. It; is recorded in the official proceedings that the Speaker, Georjre Schroeder, becamc angry when confronted with the ironical proposal tabled by a non-serious deputy that the hunting of elephants and giraffes with sling-shot in the "jungles" of Michigan State should be rendered illegal. Eventually, however, the House managed to compose itself for the time necessary to pass legislation licensing hunting in State-owned

territory by bow and arrow, and this became law. Thirty huntsmen thereupon took to the woods of Newaygo, ready for November 1, the date allotted to them for the first formal opening of the game archery season. Naturally, the name of Robin Hood cropped up, and in honour of the famous outlaw of the forest and woodland the camp of three log cabins was called Camp Sherwood. The assembly included some of the finest archery experts of the United States. Probably the most outstanding "shot" of all was "Nellie" Rcid, otherwise Nelson B. Reid, who is recorded as having brought down

a 13-stone deer with one of hie steelbarbed shafts whose points are sharpened to a razorlike keenness. Here, it may be noted, that it is strictly forbidden for either rifle , hunters or archers to shoot at any doe < or fawn. Poachers certainly do this, , and there are numerous cage's noted in . the archives of the Michigan State police and game wardens where does and fawns have been left to die after a disabling shot has not killed outright. Many of these cases are due to the use of the forbidden shotgun, but the penalties against the game poacher in Michigan have become so heavy—and rightly so—as to discourage much of the one-time frequent illegal killing. The unwritten code of the respectable deerhunter of the U.S.A. coincides with that of all reputable hunters elsewhere; namely, never to leave badly wounded game to escape and eventually to die a lingering death, if anything can be done to prevent this. The first archery hunt produced some strange events giving curious sidelights on the habits of the woodland deer. One party had been out all day, and although deer tracks were plentiful and freshly made, never a deer did they see until on their way back to camp for the night. Then the car in which they were travelling 011 a narrow mountain road halted to allow four deer to pass. There were two bucks, a doe and a fawn. The older buck was half-tame and trotted up to the car. It would have been easy to string a bow and drop him, but all he got was a bit of cake, which he refused to accept until it was tossed to him, whereupon he caught it in mid-air. ■ Several hunters loosed no arrow at all during the fortnight the camp was held, but approached so near to the deer that they preferred to use a camera instead, and filmed and photographed the scene. 4.1 • c<^? r(^l Jo many of the archers at tills first 'bow r.nd arrow" assembly, the Michigan deer is a diflicult target. They estimate the speed of a running deer at 30 feet per second, with that of a flighted arrow five times as fast. A shot at 150 feet distance therefore needs an aim about 30 feet in advance of the fleeting quarry, with an inclination of ! up to 10 feet above the target to allow • for a fall in trajectory. Few deer were J shot at when standing quietly. In a woodland surrounding with much under- : growth a successful killing shot with i the bow is a rarity, although the archer < has the advantage of a far more silent 1 weapon than the rifleman. < The longest arrow loosed was one of < about 150 yards. Only 21 arrows in all ] were released, although 480 animals i were seen. From that it may be seen 1 that killing occupied quite an unim- i portant aspect of the meet and camp. 1 Only three bucks were brought down, j