BIG DAN

                Spring, 2023

For whatever reason, I was contemplating my mortality one weekend while sweeping out the garage. Blessed to have lived a life thus far filled with little regret, I thought long and hard what my biggest regret would be if I perished today. Almost immediately, not hunting with a traditional bow sprang to mind. My entire bowhunting career thus far had been undertaken with a compound bow. You may be asking yourself, “why would not hunting with a traditional bow be that big of a regret?” Considering the seemingly inconsequential nature of hunting with traditional archery gear, that is a perfectly valid question. To better understand why it holds the gravity it does, I need to tell you about Big Dan.

Before moving to Wyoming, I was living in northern Minnesota, working at a ceiling tile manufacturing mill. While I would have much preferred to spend all my time chasing whitetails and walleyes, a large portion of my time was spent making ceiling tile. Luckily for me, I found myself on the same shift with a man we call called “Big Dan.” At least twenty years older than me, Big Dan was tall. He stood at least six foot four inches, if not taller. Somewhat quiet, somewhat gruff, he was more than a little intimidating. He worked at the tile mill because the shift work schedule gave him plenty of time to hunt. He was a mountain man enthusiast. And he hunted exclusively with traditional archery equipment.

               I cannot recall how our first conversation came about; I was probably making a mess of things on the line and he had to step in and fix it, but eventually Big Dan took me under his wing. Big Dan was one of the nicest human beings I had ever met, and we quickly became friends. Working the production line together, he would often impart bits of sage wisdom, such as “find yourself a job that gives you plenty of time to hunt.” Big Dan was an advocate of living a nontraditional lifestyle in order to fully capitalize on his passions; namely bowhunting and being in the wilderness. Talking loudly over the constant hum of machinery, he would regale me with countless bowhunting stories, continuously trying to persuade me to depart from my compound ways and give traditional archery a try. “Someday Dan, someday,” I would answer back, shaking my head, smiling.

               To this day I am still not sure what he saw in me; perhaps a younger version of himself. Either way, he spent countless hours sharing lessons learned, advice (both hunting and life,) and, of course, the countless benefits of putting down the compound and picking up a recurve bow. Right up to the very day I left the mill, Big Dan never ceased in his efforts to convert me to a traditional archer.

               It was snowing the last time I saw Big Dan. We had just finished our 12-hour shift and were standing in the parking lot. It was my last day at the mill, I was moving to Wyoming the following week. The glow of the parking lot lights cut through the winter night as Big Dan shook my hand. “Watch your topknot,” he said with a grin. “Watch yorn,” I replied, smiling back, a reference to our favorite mountain man movie, Jeremiah Johnson.

               Shortly after moving to Wyoming, I got the news. Big Dan had passed away. A traditional nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday existence never caught up with Big Dan, but a heart attack shortly after retirement did. Despite the sadness of knowing I would never be able to tell Big Dan about my Wyoming adventures or eventual traditional archery successes, I smiled upon learning that he passed away doing what he loved; bowhunting.

               While I swept the garage that spring day in 2023, I figured Big Dan would be mighty disappointed that his workplace protégé had yet to hunt with a traditional bow. It was time to change that.

               The following week I made the drive down to Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear, an archery shop in Colorado specializing in traditional bows. Walking up to the attendant, I confessed that I was a recent convert from the compound world and needed a guide to show me the way. Felix, the attendant, smiled and agreed to help. Felix was a traditional archery expert and was exactly what I needed. He must have spent at least three hours with me that afternoon in the shop; grabbing different bows for me to try, teaching me how to shoot a traditional bow, and patiently fixing my form, shot process, and everything else I was mucking up.

               Finally, just before both Felix and I were about to lose patience, a bow came along that was different. I could tell from the first shot that this bow just fit. It was a Heartland Recurve, 64 inches from tip to tip, drawing 53 pounds. Gently used, it was in good shape. The lines were elegant and the bow just plain felt good in my hand. Unlike the cumbersome weight and odd angles of a compound, this bow felt balanced, lively. “This is the one,” I told Felix. A short while later we bid goodbyes and I was in the truck with a recurve bow, headed back to Wyoming.

               Shooting a traditional bow is hard. When I say hard, I mean really, truly, hard. Being a somewhat competent compound shooter, I severely underestimated just how difficult shooting arrows out of a wooden stick and string with no sights was going to be. I lost count of how many hours I spent shooting that bow, struggling to achieve any kind of consistency. I lost count of how many times I wanted to send that bow sailing through the air, end over end, or snap it over my knee. I lost count of how many hours I spent looking for arrows that had sailed over the target into the sagebrush, or how many times I just wanted to pick my compound up and forget this nonsense. But I had made a deal with the memory of Big Dan, and I was going to see this through.

               As summer reluctantly faded into fall, something miraculous happened; I started hitting the target. Then I started hitting the target consistently. Eventually, I started grouping arrows on the target. Amazed, I started to believe that I could pull this off.

               Opening day of archery season, 2023, found me perched above a bear bait, the recurve clutched in my hand. Knowing that my range would be severely limited compared to a compound, I had set the bait barrel a mere fifteen yards from the stand. By this point I was comfortable shooting out to 20-25 yards, but closer is better, and I aimed to get as close as I could.

               The morning sit passed by quietly, with no sign of bear. The evening sit passed by in much the same manner, until just before dark, when the snap of a branch came from the timber. Slowly turning, I spotted a bear. About forty yards behind me, he was slowly making his way towards the barrel. Just before emerging from the thick pines behind the stand, he took a detour. Sniffing the air, he placed his front paws on the tree I was sitting in, licking the length of rope I had used to haul the bow up. Interesting, I thought. Shooting straight down out of a tree with a five-foot long bow was not something I had practiced. Luckily, the bear quickly tired of examining the tree and resumed his journey.

               Taking several steps towards the barrel, he passed behind a large aspen. I drew back. The wooden limbs of the recurve bent, and my leather shooting tab settled near the corner of my mouth. The bow strained to be released as the bear took his time behind the aspen. The recurve had no mechanical let-off, meaning that one had to hold all fifty-three pounds of bent wooden stick back. Trembling with the effort, I prepared for the shot.

               After what felt like an eternity, the bear stepped out. He was quartering away at a steep angle, stopping between the tree and the barrel. Concentrating intently on the area behind his front shoulder, I picked a spot and focused. Vaguely aware of the arrow tip floating in my vision, I continued to focus on that spot as I pulled through the shot, the string sliding off my fingers, the arrow jumping off the riser, striking the bear with a loud crack.

               The bear jolted and crashed off through the brush, the sound of his flight quickly fading, absorbed by the darkness that had suddenly fallen. I had hit him, that much was clear. Where and how good was yet to be determined.

               Hiking back to camp, I met my hunting partner, Jesse, and filled him in. Grabbing headlamps and packs, we hiked back in to track the bruin. Even in the dark, it did not take long to find blood; good blood at that. Stooped low over the trail, the beams of our headlights danced across the grass and undergrowth as we quickly tracked the bear into a small patch of pines. Stepping over a downed log, we both looked up; there he was.

My first bear with a traditional bow lay quite still near a rotted log. The 600-grain arrow had entered just behind the front shoulder, the large fixed-blade broadhead penetrating exceptionally well, almost half of the arrow exiting his chest. He did not go far, expiring quickly as he ran. We decided to prop the bear onto the log, planning to take several quick photos before working on his cape. Unbeknownst to us, the bear had expired on top of a hornet’s nest. Things were about to get quite western.

               As soon as we moved the bear, hornets erupted from the ground like a biblical pestilence. It was bedlam. The air was thick with angry hornets. The lights of our headlamps jumped shakily across the darkened timber as we flailed wildly at the attacking swarms. Something stung my eye. Then the top of my head. Then my cheek. We dashed about the chaos and somehow dragged the bear out of the epicenter, trying to get clear. It was a losing battle. The vengeful hornets followed us. Snapping a few quick photos, the swarm overtook us again. My eye was starting to swell rapidly. “I’ll come get him in the morning!” I exclaimed as we beat a hasty retreat into the timber.

               I awoke early the next morning to find the eye swollen shut. Figuring a single eye would be sufficient to cape out a bear, I shouldered my pack and hiked in; Jesse was out hunting a different bait some miles away. Making it to the bear without incident, I found him where we had left him, the hornets mercilessly nowhere to be found.

               My traditional archery journey had come full circle. Several short months ago I quite literally could not hit a target. Now I was standing over a beautiful black bear that had fallen to my recurve bow.

As I caped out the bear, I grinned to myself, thinking about what Big Dan would say if he could have been here.

Loaded down with the hide, I shrugged into my pack.

Looking down at the recurve in my hand, I smiled.

This one’s for you, Big Dan.