Let me say that I began shooting with a recurve back in January/Febuary of this year so I am relatively new at shooting with traditional equipment. This is also my first season bowhunting seriously. I had an old compound that I got from someone when I was a kid, it was a Browning and had about a 31in draw on it and it would draw to behind my head! I only hunted a handful of time that year with it and was never successful with it although I did get a shot at a small 4 point.
Anyway, this year I have already managed to take my first doe on the ground. I was still hunting and I was wearing a ASAT leafy suit. I killed it with a Quinn Stallion made by David Quinn in Texas. Its an absolute awesome little bow and I only paid $135 for it, so it also fit my budget really well.
I have continued to hunt hard and have found that I may actually prefer to hunt smaller game, like squirrel, turkey, and rabbit. I may inherit it from my grandfather as he absolutely loves squirrel hunting more than anything. I now have 5 clean misses on squirrels! They are one tough little animal to hit!
Yesterday I was still hunting for turkey and I was hunting an old slate dump from a coal mine that has moved on about 20 years ago. The area has now grown up with some kind of course grass and autumn olive bushes and its an absolute haven for elk, deer, turkey, bear, coyote, squirrel, and rabbit. I managed to stalk up to within about 30 yards of a gang of turkey and they had no clue I was there. I was wearing an old carhartt flannel shirt and dark gray wool pants. I got all tore up when I spotted them and let two arrows fly. The first shot was actually a decent one as it was just a little low and made the turkey jump up in the air. The other shot was at a big head stuck up out of the grass and I couldn't tell where it went nor could I find my arrow. I wish that I would have had enough thought to have just hit the ground and tried to get a bit closer but I was amazed that I had managed to catch them off guard and they stood there and let me get two shots off. They had no clue I was there and I think I could have gotten closer, but it may could have backfired on me also.
I also managed to stalk up within 10 feet of two does bedded under and autumn olive bush before I jumped them. The bad thing was I never saw them until they jumped and took off and I was that close and had looked really hard at the bottom of these bushes. In that tall grass and under those bushed make them tough, tough to see. I will be using my binos alot more from now on when I still hunt and spot and stalk.
Well, with all that rambling...how many enthusiastic small game hunters are on this forum? If there is some I'd like to hear about your hunts and how many you have managed to get. I had already subscribed to Dave Mullins youtube channel before I even knew he was Dave Mullins and not some guy called W8N4fall. I loved his squirrel hunting vids for sure.
Subject: Small game hunters? 
Sun 24 Oct 2010, 7:08 am
