Story by Tom Claycomb III

The common mind may wonder why today’s deer hunter doesn’t just hunt with a modern rifle. And that’s a good question. I don’t know if I can say the modern deer rifle has reached perfection but at this moment in history it is the best version that the world has even seen. I’ve got a couple of factory rifles that shot 1 MOA’s right out of the box. In the past, to obtain a 1 MOA you had to build a custom-made rifle and handload.

I know this is going to pop a lot of people’s bubble but I don’t see a need to handload nowadays. If I select the proper Hornady ammunition I can obtain unbelievable groups. I can count right fast at least three of my rifles that get sub-1-inch MOA groups with Hornady ammo. And if we talk about 1 ½-inch groups then throw another arm load of my rifles into that group.

So with the above hunting option available at a moderate price, why would someone pick up a stick-and-string and limit themselves to a 40-yard shot? Are we nuts? I guess hunters to some degree are always open to trying something new. We’re always trying new methods. I’ve shot deer with pistols, shotguns, bows, black powder rifles, airguns and high-power rifles.

I think the reason we bow hunt is more than a trendy deal. Hunting with a bow and arrow takes you back in time. It warps us from the modern high-tech world back to preceding centuries during man’s evolution. Suddenly you’re an Indian hunting dinner for your family. Things get primitive right fast when you picked up a bow to go deer hunting instead of your high-powered rifle. There is so much rich history in bow hunting you can’t help but get enveloped into it.

As a kid my brother had a bow that we used for frog gigging but that was about all of my time I’d ever spent with a bow. Then shortly after college I took a job with a company up in Nebraska. They had a lot of sandpits which were dug to get to build Interstate 80. A majority of them were full of carp and the local creeks and rivers had a ton of carp and gar in them.

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