Saturday, February 20, 2016

Something New...or Strings and Sticks and Assorted Pokey Things

My wife generally observes my birthday by dropping me off kicking me to the curb out of a moving vehicle in front of the sporting goods store with instructions to "go buy something." If it's not been a very good year, i might walk out with a box of shells or a pack. A good year has seen a nice rifle or two, a shotgun and a new pair of binos. Since I'm firmly ensconced in my "middle youth" I generally just skip intermediary steps and buy what I want from the outset since I'm likely going there anyway.

I've hemmed and hawed about archery for a couple of years now. I haven't shot a bow even semi-seriously in decades but it is something I've been wanting to try again for no particular reason other than it is a facet of hunting I've got little experience in. Alaska doesn't really have much in the way of a "bow season" the way the Lower 48 does, but we do have a few areas that are relegated to archery only and some fantastic tags there.

This year, I got kicked to the curb outside the archery shop. Which was pretty nice....so expect to see some archery content in the future. As of now, I've been shooting it for a couple of weeks and managed to take the online portion of my IBEP certification (required in Alaska for bowhunts). The bow is a Mathews No-Cam HTX, which came highly recommended by my archery oriented friends and I have to admit- it's been far easier to pick up than I imagined.