The management of the American Crossbow Federation assembled a panel of crossbow hunting experts to evaluate the newly contracted bear outfitters for our trek into Manitoba for our annual Spring Fling. Our outfitters were David Bouchard and Wyman Sangster; and our guide was Evan Proctor. After a week of hard and at times, very wet hunting, hearty affirmation was unanimously awarded by the team to our hosts for a job well done.

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What is it about the middle of August that turns the radar on for us hunters? It is still summer, the weather is still hot and the days are still long. The leaves are still green, the grass still needs mowed (unless it is crunchy and brown like mine) and the kids are not yet back in school.

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February, although the shortest month of the year, can seem like the longest, especially for those who call the northern-most tier of the United States home. In the mid-winter, February’s rationed sunlight, accumulating snowfall and below zero temperatures can turn an outdoorsman’s days into a miserable sentence of hard time if there are no adventures to look forward to in his immediate future. My personal remedy for curing February’s doldrums is making the annual trip to the Rio Bonito Ranch in the Texas Hill Country for the ACF Winter Rendezvous. Six days atop the Edwards Plateau traipsing across its ruggedly handsome landscape while chasing the Rio’s plentiful and varied big game population is all that is necessary to break up the winter and rejuvenate one’s ebbing spirits. It also provides an opportunity to add some delectable cuisine to the family larder.

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Heading into the field on the next hunting trip is a jubilation that each of us that pursues wild things is very familiar with. Visions of trophy critters and epic deeds of great cunning and courage dominate our thoughts as we head for our destinations, fired up with all of the anticipation that can only be meted out by the thrill of a hunt in wilderness, wherever that wilderness might be. In recent years, however, one more facet of added excitement for this aging writer has been included in my personal recipe for adventure. With the onset of each new hunt, I have another make and model of crossbow to put through its paces and evaluate in the field. The objective of that task is to become familiar enough with the bow so that I have a thorough understanding of it and will then be able to write a review, answer specific questions about it and share my personal thoughts about that particular bow with our readers when they call to ask my opinion.

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Daniel - Regarding the article, New York Crossbows Mean Big $$$ For Conservation Fund, Summer 2010 edition, the comment was made "I have left a bow cocked for several days while in camp and it caused no harm." Can this be true? I have been an avid crossbow hunter for 10 years and from the beginning was instructed and with everything read that you should not leave a bow cocked for more than 3 to 4 hours.

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Dear HBM - With only 4-days left in the season, I set up 3 decoys and called at dawn, a half mile west of the roost of a large group of Turkeys. I had scouted and hunted the area previously and noticed that they tended to head west to feed early. The hunt was ideal, in that I spotted the Tom coming to my call and answering while he was still 200 yards away. He took his time and hung up a couple of times, fanning and calling, it was neat...

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My Little Person – only in physical stature, in all actuality she’s larger in heart and personality than most I know, including myself – didn’t kill a turkey again this season. But that’s not from lack of drive on her part – she just picked the wrong two guides: Chevy and me.

Chevy isn’t that bad anymore and he had a great season (in one of these columns, I’ll identify Chevy but that will be a long one). Me, well let me just say that my turkey flaring device sent seven jakes and two long bears on a run – when they flew down from the roost after gobbling all over my hen tree call – in the direction of our next county. And we haven’t seen them since. I think she sticks with me because I taught her to shoot the crossbow, and she insists on hunting turkey with it and not a firearm. Maybe, too she has faith in me because I did help her become a successful crossbow deer hunter.

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Daniel - I wanted to go hunt, or at least visit, with a diehard crossbow hunter near where I live. I am in northwest Georgia, about 45 minutes from Atlanta. Do you know anyone who is a well-known crossbow hunter who lives in this area, or someone who has a few crossbow records to their credit?

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Good morning Daniel – I went up at the cabin for Father’s Day to check my trail cameras. What a great thing, I got a picture of the same cinnamon bear that I got a shot of last week. The really neat thing about it is that it came through at 10:18 and we arrived there at 10:35. I also got a photo of another bear that came through at 3:47 that morning. Seems to be a lot of activity right now and I believe it is the "season" for bears to seek each other out to make little bears. Hopefully a sow with a cub or two will find her way to the Cuddy Back.

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Well I put in a few days hunting in Wisconsin this weekend.  It paid off to stay in the blind as long as possible.  Yesterday I got in the blind at about 5:30 a.m. and did not come out until 7:50 p.m. or so.  Oh what a long day.  I saw lots of birds, they were gobblin’ till noon on Saturday and I think this bird and his buddy came in yesterday at about 11:00 a.m.  The shot was too long so I let them go.  Today (Sunday) I moved my blind up the hill into the food plot to get the best shot possible at any birds that might come to the plot.  The plot is mostly clover and chicory with some trefoil and other things deer and turkeys like.  Anyway, I was extremely tired and falling in and out of sleep about every half hour.  I would wake up look around and then drift back off to sleep.  At about 11:00 I contemplated calling my brother-in-law and asking him to come and get me but something told me to wait until noon.  I had seen birds pretty late in the morning yesterday.

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Dear HBM-Attached are a couple of pictures of the black bear I killed out of Red Pine Lodge, near Foleyet, Ontario, last week. Six of the hunters in our group of 7 took 4 boars and 2 sows, 5 with bolt action 30-06s and 1 with a lever action 35 Remington. Another rifle hunter from MI, with his wife filming in a pop-up blind, killed one with his 30-06. Two of three bow hunters from MI, also staying at Red Pine, got the heaviest bears (they hunted close to the Foleyet town dump, while we were out 15 - 25 miles on baits). A summer resident from Indiana also killed one with his muzzleloader. That's 10 for 12!

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Tom’s 196 square mile lease is covered up with antelope and I mean some real dandies.

A respectable number of requests for a good Pronghorn Antelope hunt have crossed my desk and I promised to see what I could uncover. Maryland member, Ron Williams provided me with a lead for an outfitter operating out of Douglas, Wyoming and guaranteed that we would like what he has to offer based on twelve consecutive years of hunting there. I spoke with the owner, Tom White about his company, Tom’s Antelope Adventures and he invited me to come out and see what he had to offer. Ron Williams said that he would come along on the maiden voyage and when I mentioned an Antelope Roundup to ACF member Gene Strie, he said he would come along to help evaluate.

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If you are a subscriber to the Horizontal Bowhunter Magazine, and even if you are not, we invite you to join us on one or more of our upcoming hunts. We travel to some unique and terrific locals that are teeming with wild game and natural beauty. Our host outfitters are some of the very best that our industry has to offer and the food and accommodations are always great. Here’s what we currently have scheduled:

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We are offering a limited edition ACF Long Sleeve, heavyweight (6.1 0z) 100% cotton T-shirt. It comes in handsome Dark Chocolate color with a large, cream-colored ACF logo screen-printed on the chest. We washed one to check for shrinkage and there was none. There are only 44 of these shirts and when they are gone, they are gone. Handsome, comfortable, easy to care for and best of all it lets folks know that you are a proud member and supporter of the American Crossbow Federation.

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With ever more states in the USA encouraging the use of the crossbow for hunting, an enormous market has opened up.Crossbow sales have increased on an unprecedented scale, so much so that crossbowyers can scarcely keep up with demand.Predictably, in a society driven by free market forces, and with material and sourcing cost increasing, the retail price of hunting crossbows has increased apace; for some of us, perhaps prohibitively so.

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