Greetings Dan! - Hope this note finds you and Karen doing well. Our elk season began September 1st  and is now over. I called in a spike for Judy on the 4th and as luck would have it, her arrow clipped a small branch and she shot under him. 4 days later I called him back up and Tim Martell, a friend of ours managed a 20 yard shot from his Hoyt. Then on September 16th Tim called in a cow for me. I'd been practicing shooting with either hand and it paid off!

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Every year, smack dab in the middle of October, a half a dozen ACF members gather for the Fall Rendezvous in Houston, Missouri, the home of Ozark Mountain Outfitters.  Jim and Darlene Wilson and son Eric play host to our group in some of the most beautiful deer and turkey country that America has to offer.  The hunt allows the taking of a whitetail buck and doe as well as a wild turkey.  The hunt this year was a three day hunt, but in 2010 it will be expanded to five full days of exciting hunting with toasty-warm hospitality, lots of great home-cooked food and plenty of wildlife being seen by all who are sent out to guard Jim’s lush food plots.

This year I was joined by ACF members, Jackie Seale of Alabama, Harold Webster of Mississippi, Bob Jacobs of Minnesota and Randy Archer of North Dakota for four days of what turned out to be wet and colder than normal weather...

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I watched as the animal meandered through the dense brush, disappearing occasionally only to reappear closer than it was before.  Suddenly I thought that I saw sun glinting off an antler.  I raised my crossbow to my shoulder, located the deer in the scope and was delighted to discover that the fat doe I had been watching was a “Poke `em Young” buck.  It was show time!  Immediately the context of the moment changed.  The first surge of adrenaline immediately swept over my system causing tremors to ripple through my body as an increase in blood pressure made my eyes feel like they were being squeezed in a vice.  Oh how I love the very instant the decision is made to shoot!  It is the point in time that all hunters work towards and live for, the moment of truth and ultimate test.  And as the buck continued to close the gap that separated us, I prepared for my final exam.

The nearer the animal came, the more it angled directly towards my position.  Straight out in front of me was a 4-wheeler trail that would give me a clear shot out to forty yards, but as the animal angled closer, I knew that it would probably be under twenty when the it cleared the brush.  As luck would have it, the whitetail stepped onto the trail right in front of my twenty-yard marker and then started to turn away from me.  I had been focused on the spot even before the fledgling buck entered the kill zone so when it began to turn, my finger quickly applied pressure to the trigger of my bow.  As the bow’s bark shattered the quiet landscape, the arrow was launched, entered the hapless whitetail at mid-body, just short of the rib cage, exiting behind the scapula on the opposite side of the animal and buried its head deeply into the rich, black soil...

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For just about 16 years I have been “confined “to a wheel chair following an ATV accident.  Being an avid hunter and outdoorsman prior to my accident it has been very difficult for me to “settle” for the very limited access to the outdoors that I loved and still love so much.  Tim Swenson from Action manufacturing is now selling an item that redefines more than just confinement it redefines life for me.

The Action Track Chair by action manufacturing in Marshall Minnesota has come a long way in removing common obstacles from the person wanting heck needing to be outdoors.  Though not capable of going anywhere, it definitely makes most places and terrains accessible to the ambulatorily impaired individual.  From the elderly person that simply has trouble getting around the yard or garden. To the paralyzed folks that want to go to that place they used to go.  Hunting spots, fishing holes, hiking trails, beaches, swamps and just plain adventurous people have gained significant access once again!

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I first saw the Excalibur Exocet crossbow in the 1998 Cabela’s Fall Archery catalog. Thinking back over the bows I have owned,, most were recurves just like the Exocet, from one of those green fiverglass kid’s bows at age ten to the Ben Pearson Javelina 66” target bow I shot in high school archery club to the Bear Black Panther Hunter that I used to hunt everything from squirrels to deer. I just had to have an Exocet, and as easy as a phone call to Cabela’, my new toy was on its way. Having had the crossbow for the better part of a year, I needed to find somewhere and something to hunt. The answer came in the form of an ad in the back of an archery magazine “Where to Hunt” section. Forest of Antlers, located in Minocqua, Wisconsin offers hunts for whitetail deer using the crossbow. I was met at the Rhinelander, WI airport a guide named Bob. He told me the lodge was brand spanking new. The handsome building was handicap-accessible and the ground bathrooms were designed with the disabled hunter in mind. The food was top shelf and never ending. A large sitting room offered TV, books, magazines, a stereo system and a video library. After unpacking and lunch, I headed to the target range...

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Bad River Outdoors offers bow-type open sights for field or hunting crossbows, with mounts tailored to suit the crossbows made by the principal bowyers. When I was invited to test one I requested a mounting to suit my Excalibur. This is my favorite bow for shooting with the open sights with which it is already fitted, so I am use to how it performs without the now ubiquitous telescope sight.

The Tagged-Out aperture sight is a simple, robust peep, adjustable for windage and elevation and which mounts onto the rail normally used for the telescopic sight option on the Excalibur. Immediately I could see a practical advantage in this in that, were a telescopic sight to receive serious damage in the field, perhaps a far and foreign field, the aperture could be ready to replace it on the scope rail...

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This British made sight from Hawke Optics is the one Jim Kempf selected for his Scorpyd crossbow. It is a conventional multi-reticle sight with a particularly nice image quality and evidently, as you will see, robust build.

To the uninitiated, it might seem that a telescopic sight is just a telescopic sight, but actually the application for which it is intended has critical implications for the design, one size done not fit all. For a crossbow, parallax adjustment has to be within the same parameters as the normal shooting range of the bow, units of adjustment for elevation have to be realistic and the delicate innards have to be protected from vibration and done so specifically with regard to the directions from which impact will arrive – the recoil patters of a crossbow may feel like a medium bore rifle but are actually quite different...

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Starting in the Summer of 2007 the American Crossbow Federation instituted a new award to be presented on a quarterly basis to an outstanding supporter of the grassroots crossbow movement. The ACF Lion Heart Award is presented to a deserving member that has gone the extra mile in helping to promote and preserve the crossbow hunting opportunity during the course of his or her daily life.

Any ACF Member whose dues are current or is a paid Life Member may present the name of a nominee for the ACF Lion Heart Award.  The criterion is simple.  Each candidate should be nominated because of the effort that he or she is putting forth to expand the crossbow hunting opportunity.  We are not looking for the professional writers, TV personalities or other industry figures; we are instead looking for the grassroots crossbow advocate.  You folks know who they are when you see them.  They may be working with legislators or doing public speaking on a local basis.  They may be working to organize crossbow events or found organizations.  They may be posting on web sites and taking the lead in crossbow discussions and debates.  But, whatever they are doing, they are doing it to help create more opportunities to hunt with and shoot the crossbow, worldwide.

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My road to recovery, since my fall, has been a long and painful one. And, I am still not 100%. But throughout my recovery, I have set a series of GOALS to strive for. And yesterday I achieved one of my most difficult.

About a week ago, I climbed back into one of my treestands, to check it out, with the aid of my new full body harness! I have to admit that I was shaking a little. Considering that the last time I was in a treestand, I fell twenty-five feet, changing my life dramatically.

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Born in 1949 and schooled during the 50’s and 60’s, the year 2010 seemed a million miles away to me during those formative years. But now that it is here, not only does 2010 denote the passing of the first decade of this century, but for me, it marks another important milestone in my life as a hunter. This is my fiftieth year of hunting big game animals in the wild. Tacking on another four years or so for small game hunting is required to complete the report, but it was half a century ago that I shot my very first whitetail deer along the edge of a thick, willowed swamp after a long, cold day of hanging in the limbs of a small poplar tree (without a stand of any kind). I still remember it as if it occurred just yesterday. What a triumph it was for that twelve year old farm boy that was nearly frozen stiff by the time he pulled the trigger of the old Stevens 30-30 dropping his very first whitetail deer...

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The GT Flex crossbow is made by U.S. Crossbowyer TenPoint, but they label it “SixPoint” a logo type reserved for bows marketed within the lower end of their price range. Interesting as that may seem, anyone who reads my reviews will know that I recognize and applaud high quality; what is less well known is that I warn companies to take care over what they send me. If they want a good review it had better be a good product. And there, on my doorstep, I see an inexpensive bow from a company famed as the marketer of the Cadillac of crossbows. Inexpensive is a relative term, but the GT Flex is around a third of the price of some.

The box felt light. In it was a crossbow in two main parts, a recurve prod and a mainframe with stock attached, and some bits and pieces...

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Miss quick or eat well. It sounds a bit silly, but this is a question that all modern archers must consider when purchasing new equipment. It seems that every new bow on the market hypes its speed capabilities. Though the feet per second that a given bow has the ability of throwing an arrow is fun to know and even to joust about with other archers in the off season.

I submit to you that the real question is “how accurate” is this new bow I’m considering...

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I can remember like yesterday the first time I came to the end of a standing cornfield as a driver and witnessed what seemed like hundreds of pheasants take flight. Some today would trade sighting a dozen whitetail does for that experience. And obviously I remember the fall of my 11th year when I graduated to toter, and was presented with an Iver Johnson 16 Ga., single shot shotgun. But the learning process went on from there. We could hunt until 5 p.m. each day, and I was allowed to hunt alone with my beagle, so I’d jump off the school bus about 3 p.m., run in the house to change, grab the shotgun and my five shotgun shells, and dash across the street into the standing corn. If, when I needed more shells, I hadn’t added a combination of rabbits and pheasants adding up to three to the family table, I got a lecture. “Boy”—I’m sure if he were alive today at 65, I’d still be called Boy – “Those shells cost good money. Stop wasting them.”

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It was the eve of the 2009 firearms season and as was their nature the hunters in our family deer camp were bantering around the campfire.  Their normally jovial mood was slightly tempered, however, and I knew why.  The lack of deer sign had subdued their usually high expectations. 

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2009 has been a very “interesting” year for all crossbow manufacturers. “Interesting” in the Chinese sense, as in “may you live in interesting times” that is. Sure, it’s great to see the new opportunities opening and welcome all those new potential crossbow hunters into the fold, and yes, it’s great to see our sales figures soar in these uncertain economic times. That said, it’s been a madhouse here at Excalibur with new building expansion, new machinery, and lots of new crossbows to build, ship, and service. Personally, I was more than ready for the sales season to trail off and I have really welcomed the peace and relaxation that deer hunting near my home has brought to me recently.

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The New York Bowhunters and New York Muzzleloaders Association are jointly floating a proposal which would radically change the N.Y. State hunting season structure. Everyone will benefit, except for vast majority of hunters who hunt the regular firearms hunting season.

The NYB is seeking an October 1 opener in the Southern Zone for the bowhunters, and they also want to run the bow outing late into the year. The plan will essentially “gut” the regular firearms season and move the majority of the hunting days into December.

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