This article was originally published in the September 24 edition of Traditional Bowhunters of Georgia magazine.
My name is Michael Huska. I am 35 and have lived in Georgia my whole life. Growing up, my grandad was like my dad. He put a .22 in my hand at an early age, showed me how to line the sights up and squeeze the trigger on his semi-auto Winchester. I would bug him to let me take the rifle and hit the woods behind his house in search of squirrels. We would see them all the time around the house but my grandmother forbid me from shooting “her squirrels” that she could see through the windows from inside the house that would eat from the bird feeders and a number of fruit trees on the property.
Grandad would take me deer hunting a few times a year with him. I would often sleep in the stand as a boy, he would wake me up when a deer showed up. One time I remember him shaking me awake and handing me his Marlin 336, chambered in .35 Remington. I was barely awake when I shot at that doe. As I looked up from the rifle to see deer scatter and hear my grandad say “you missed”.
That was devastating, I was only 8 years old but I felt like I should have killed that deer. She was only 40 yards which was a chip shot for this scoped rifle. I was used to shooting much smaller targets with iron sights.
We took the rifle out to a range where I shot a few groups and gained confidence. The next time grandad took me hunting I didn’t miss. I was so proud of that doe and the accomplishment. I will never forget it.
I didn’t hunt very regularly for a number of years. My mother had remarried and my step dad didn’t hunt. We also moved away from my grandparents to the mountains of North GA where I had plenty of space to explore and play with my friends outside. I was given a Bear cub compound bow as a gift but I never considered hunting with it, no one I knew bow hunted, I didn’t even know that bow hunting was a thing until many years later.
When I was 14 I went to live with my father in West central GA. He had only hunted a few times in his life and declared “it was too cold and boring for him” but he did have some land behind his house so I built a stand out of pallets and would sit with my Marlin 30-30 in hopes that a deer would walk close enough to give me a shot. At that time I knew nothing about hunting besides where to aim on a deer with a rifle. I didn’t know about the wind or anything, I was just huntin.
I remember the morning that buck came across the ridge that I was hunting on. I heard him walking and turned to see a little 5 point to my left with his nose to the ground, 40 yards and closing in fast so I turned, found him in my scope and squeezed off a shot. The angle I was leaning out was so drastic that my body wasn’t really behind the rifle, so the recoil from the rifle
caused the scope to strike my brow. I barely felt it, I was so excited. I ran inside and told my dad what I had just done. He looked at my bloodied face and said “you sure you didn’t shoot yourself?” I am sure I looked pretty crazy and wished that I had taken the time to get a picture of my first buck but the memory lives on in detail in my mind. It was extra special because my younger sister was there at that time and held the legs of that buck as I dressed it. She was disgusted but hung in there and helped me since my dad could not due to just having surgery. She always told me that experience ruined hunting for her, haha. She died a few years ago so that memory is one of my favorites. I still have the antlers on the skull plate, with hair still attached. It is one of my favorite bucks on the wall at the house.
After graduating high school I went into the military and stayed away from home for a few years. I got back into hunting a few years after coming back home. An old friend from high school and I would hunt with our rifles some but I still had not considered bowhunting until his brother moved down from Oregon, his name is Travis.
Travis was a member of the Wapiti Bowmen in Oregon and had some good experience bowhunting the Northwest US. I realized that first deer season that Travis knew what he was doing in the woods. He consistently killed mature bucks by use of heavy scouting and a hang and hunt technique. He gave me my first hunting compound bow. It was a PSE thunderbolt from the early 2000’s. He got me set up and told me to shoot a thousand arrows before I tried hunting with it.
I remember the first time that I shot a deer with it- it was a windy day in early rut. I was sitting on a platform that I built in a tree on the edge of a pond. This little doe came to about 20 yards but I couldn’t be sure of the distance because I didn’t have a range finder at that time. I put my 20 yard pin on her and hit her middle of the body. I backed out and got ice. When I came back she hadn’t gone 60 yards and already had flies all over her from the smell of stomach contents. I think back now to how lucky I was that it was a younger deer because that first bow kill fueled me. I felt like an Indian, I couldn’t get enough- I wanted to learn all I could about deer and hunting and becoming a better woodsman.
I have never been very wealthy, for that reason I have processed my own deer since I can remember, it is very much a labor of love. At times I have wondered why I make the time to do it myself and I think it has something to do with passion for the entire experience and genuine appreciation for the animal’s life and the meat it provides. At this time in my life I had still not fully committed to hunting exclusively with a bow. I remember the day that changed. It was around Thanksgiving, and the stage was set in the woods, deer were everywhere. I didn’t get a chance to hunt much at that point in the year so I was excited. I showed up to hunt with both my rifle and compound bow. Travis gave me some brotherly advice and suggested “take the bow” to which I obliged.
At about 7:50 I remember hearing leaves crunching behind me, I turned to see a long nosed doe trotting out of a thicket and up the hill past me. I could see that behind her was the largest whitetail buck I had ever seen. I was shaking so hard, he came down the trail that was 20 yards in front of me. The problem was that he was on the edge of the road and that extra few yards made enough of a difference, I shot him low in the brisket. He ran out to 50 yards and stopped, looking around for what shot him and probably wanting to get back with his doe. I took my time, anchored and shot him square in the shoulder. When I got down and realized that both arrows connected but that neither were lethal, I was devastated. It was suggested by friends that I “get back out there” and “try again”, but every time I would sit in that stand it would eat me up and I couldn’t stay. I remember seeing a light colored, almost white coyote running the fence several days in a row and I thought “im going to try to catch that yote”. That experience started me trapping.
I did continue bowhunting but my bad luck was far from over. I ended up shooting 3 bucks within the season and didn’t find any of them. I wanted to quit and go back to the rifle but Travis motivated me to continue. We shot all summer and began preparing for the season in 2018. I remember being pretty confident due to all the practice but still not top of my game. When season came in I killed a couple of does early in the season and then in November 2018 I killed my first buck with a bow. The stand that I was hunting in that morning was at the base of a ridge, over looking a creek bottom that funneled deer movement through this property. I remember that 5 point coming out of the bottom and cruising within 10 yards of my stand when I anchored and shot him while he was walking. I actually hit him square in the shoulder but at that distance it was enough to get the job done. I guess I hit my stride after that first buck because since 2018 I have killed a buck every year since, including a really nice heavy 9 point at close range in 2019.
I would also take a number of does each year for the table and never had a problem filling the deep freezer with the compound. At that time in my life I was an insurance agent so I didn’t get to hunt as often as I would like, mostly weekends and holidays. However, with the network of like-minded hunting buddies, lots of good hunting spots and what I believed to be proficiency with my equipment, it wasn’t a problem. Life was good, I thought I was a badass bowhunter and that any deer inside 30 yards that I wanted to kill was mine.
That was until I was speaking with a client of mine during the pandemic who told me about how he had killed 3 Tom turkeys with a traditional bow (back before bag limits were reduced) I was in amazement, I had never tagging out on any animal, much less on turkeys with a bow! I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. He invited me out to a 3D archery shoot with the Traditional Bowhunters of Georgia, no pressure- just come have fun and shoot. I wasn’t sure about shooting these “camp bows” as I always thought of them as but he encouraged me to come and even got me set up with my first trad bow at that shoot. That man’s name is Matt Tyler.
Matt is a great teacher, he is passionate about the sport and has vast knowledge and years of real world experience that would rival most. I experienced a similar- brotherly connection with Matt that I had with Travis and so began absorbing all I could to be able to excel at this like I had with the compound bow.
Similar rituals with shooting all summer and preparing for deer season, but Matt had a way of narrowing the playing field down to a single trail or a fence crossing or a creek, really looking at bowhunting as a game of “how close” and how not to get detected in the process. Hunting with him over the next few years would completely change the way I approach hunting in general.
I remember hunting with Matt when I killed my first trad deer. Matt has a way of pushing the envelope and setting a goal that is seemingly just outside of reach. He proposed that I try to shoot a deer from the ground with no blind- just sitting in a chair up against a tree, in a ghillie suit.
I had a spot picked out at a farm by the house where a group of does would get up off bed and walk the pond dam every evening to hit a persimmon tree at the end of the dam. The first time we tried to make this dream a reality, it worked out perfectly. The deer came out, down the dam and offered a shot at 7 yards. I was so nervous that I ended up shooting a fallen tree that was laying on the ground in front of her. You have to anticipate the drop of a deer with a trad bow but I had missed by a good foot under her. Matt reminded me “you gotta pick a spot”.
The next weekend we went back and the same scenario played out, only this time I didn’t miss.
I am so blessed to have been able to learn from such great outdoorsmen. I am going to credit the people and the environment with my early success as a traditional bowhunter. Sure, my experience with a compound bow helped out some but I would have quit that first year for good if not for the encouragement from the community that was in place. I eventually sold my compound and really don’t think of hunting with traditional archery equipment as a disadvantage at all. I now realize that through the struggle I am a better hunter. Hunting this way will either make you better or it will make you quit. It has done the former in my case. I am proud to be a traditional only bowhunter. I feel comfortable going in to a piece of property Ive never set foot on and having an opportunity at a deer within 3 hunts. It may be (and often is) in a thicket where I cant see 20 yards, but it’s a byproduct of having to get close and asking questions like (where are those deer bedding, where are they coming from, where are they going to, what are they eating right now, where are water sources, what time of year is it (what are the deer doing right now) and all that plays into a mental process of putting a plan together and giving it a shot.
I think a HUGE part of being successful at anything in life is to have the right attitude. I have chosen to redefine failure and success. Failure is often part of success. Success is not always the kill. Be thankful for the people in your life, they are the most important thing. Don’t take anything too seriously. Trust that God cares for you and has a plan for your life and have fun because life is so short.
Through this last year and a half, my life has been extremely challenging. I am so thankful to have this wonderful sport to lean into and use as a way to unplug from the world and plug into creation and the creator. There are few things in this life that don’t change- traditional archery and the woods seem to be two of those things. If you are on the fence about trying out shooting or hunting with these “camp bows” I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and reach out, show up to a shoot, let the guys love on you and show you the way. I think you will find that the instincts of our ancient ancestors that used similar bows, still live in our DNA. You will be surprised by your abilities, and how the mystical flight of the arrow hitting its intended target, satisfies in a primitive way.
Good luck, shoot straight and may God bless us all.
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