Episode 7: Connecting To The Hunter

We're building a MOVEMENT - a community of like minded people who celebrate the code of traditional archery worldwide.

Our dream: Connecting everyone that loves Traditional Bowhunting, inspiring people through the sport we love, to carry on the legacy of traditional bowhunting.

🚨URGENT: First 1000 members get LIFETIME FREE access!🚨

Once we hit 1000, membership becomes paid-only.

Secure your spot NOW!

Join the ultimate Traditional Bowhunting community and get:

• 🔥 Join a community of like-minded hunters who shoot traditional
• 🦅 Expert tactical tracking and scouting strategies used by the best
• 🌎 Global connections with Traditional Bowhunting enthusiasts
• 🎯 Exclusive training tips to elevate your game
• 🏆 Contests, giveaways, and members - only perks
• 🌲 Gain exclusive access to resources 
• 👕 Vote on Traditional Bowhunting merchandise only available to members

The clock is ticking on FREE lifetime access!

Join now and be part of the movement of Traditional Bowhunting.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Code of Traditional Archery, brought to you by Primitive Stone Archery and the founder Grant Richardson. Welcome to the Code of Traditional Archery. This is episode seven in our Lessons Learned series. I am Grant Richardson, the founder of Primitive Stone Archery and the Arches Trinity Instinctive Shooting Method. We want to welcome all the new folks who are listening in for the first time, and this episode is about a turning point in my own journey from archer to bow hunter. In the process of failure and the drive to pursue and hunt quarry, we are given opportunities to succeed. Indeed, these opportunities in which success happens are often accompanied by tremendous planning and effort in a process that continues long after a game is taken. In the process and difficulty of hunting with a stick and string, the reality of being a competent bow hunter and not just a shooter becomes relevant to anyone who has delved into this unique world of hunting close. The very first primitive weapon seasons and lengths of those very seasons centered around hunting with archery equipment being difficult. It took time. This episode is entitled Learning Curve Complete Connecting to the Hunter. And I suppose this is where my journey and connection as a hunter truly began. I had had several opportunities that year deer hunting. I was still young in my teens and had the time that youth gives to all hunters, without the responsibilities that adulthood brings with it. Time to walk, sit, and hunt alone. Make mistakes and the drive to be out in the woods almost every day. I had blown several stocks that year and had begun to home in on some of the important lessons I had learned hunting the hard way in the past few years, I'd been able to bow hunt on my own for white tailed deer, the unicorn of my youth. In those days, we had around on average five to six deer per square mile at best, and while our population was healthy being in the northernmost region of their range, it was still weak compared to many of the United States populations. My persistence had grown, and I was no longer discouraged by failure, and I fully embraced this, in fact, head on at times. Hunting had become life, and that life began to bear forth strength and self confidence that at the time was the dawn of my connecting with my own personal resiliency for the first time in a way hunting does for those that truly step into the realm that it offers. Earlier that year I had snuck up on a mature buck. I didn't get a shot, but that sneak took almost an hour and a half or so to cross a small field, and although I was busted by another deer across the next fence line, I had beaten the eyes and nose of a mature whitetail, and was only ten yards away from him leaning to shoot when the doe began to wheeze and blow at me, leading him to spring away right next to me, running a mere five feet from me at full pelt. I had resorted this day to head to a well known trail. I had found grouse hunting in September with my bird fevered Springer Spaniel. It was a hidden area, a grown over log and road cutover from a hundred years prior, now effectively camouflaged from its original purpose, with tangles of grapevines, buckthorn, and blowdowns, skirting a dried swamp. I'd been sitting in front of the very large oak tree three times already that season, my preferred destination, and I liked to switch up between the two areas I was hunting that year. I had chosen to walk into one of the harder areas to get into and hunt that day, and it had been a slow season, and it took me many, many yards and lots of time crossing carefully, watching my wind and checking my back trail. It had been a slow season, as I said, and earlier in that week it would close and open to rifle season for an entire week. I knew two different crews would be pushing the edges of the woodlot I was hunting that night, and it would affect the remainder of the season when our tree opened up again. I crept into and through a tangle of buckthorn and grapevines to get back to the old logging road, now overground, and little more than a pathway now. Now some trees, still weathering the effects of saws and axes, discarded, still left. I was startled quickly by a grouse that took off from one of the grapevines that was intertwined around a small cedar tree. It had been sitting on, gorging on the frostbitten dark purple fruit hanging heavy in the afternoon sun, and I thought of my Spaniel Erin and her happy tail wagging furiously whenever a bird took off from a flush. She would have missed that, I thought. However, she was not with me, and the grouse banked high, giving a picture perfect rising shot as it crested the tops of the grapevines, and hit the setting sun still fairly high in the sky, its brown face feathers turning to brilliant copper as the rays of the sun struck its rising flight. This spot was special for me, a magical place as difficult as it was to walk into. It was worth it. Once inside the mess of bramble, the brush opened into a small overgrown clearing, two of them, in fact, connected by two trails paralleling the openings. The centerpiece was an old giant white oak that loomed like some ancient monument, a survivor of the clear cut that had occurred so many years ago, and it stood defiantly with its long branches hanging down, as if weary of being so magnificent. The grouse had broken my focus, making me feel like my cover was blown, as I tried to sneak in like a shadow to the base of the oak tree where I had the perfect area to sit, blending in at the base of its monolithic shadow. Back then I would just find a good spot, blend in, and kneel motionless. It worked for me then. And this was an effective and flexible way to hunt in my youth. An hour had passed. I was watching a nuthatch crawl around a sapling in front of me, chasing out bugs from the bark of the tree, when I heard what I thought was one of the grouse coming down the trail to my right. My eyes strained to see the source of the noise, now realizing that it was most definitely a deer and not old Ruff walking to me, and I could make the shape out of the deer paralleling the main trail that ran down in front of me. I had been busted that year at my other location already, two days prior, and worry began to creep into my mind as the evening thermal swirled around me, and down the path, changing direction, it seemed almost every few seconds. I had my bow up at this point, my feet pins and needles as I tried to slowly adjust for a better angle of the shot. I took several deep slow breaths and focused on the animal as he made his way through the tangles. I knew the deer used the main run as it happened prior, though they used it mainly at night, and the buck seemed to be using the secondary trail that paralleled the main run, and that was exactly where the buck was now taking and exactly where I had set up. The deer, now only twelve yards away and directly in front of my shooting lane, abruptly stopped and stared in my direction. Time slowed, and I'd waited with a little fifty six inch, fifty pound browning recurve in my hands, breathing slowly and focusing on the deer's chest and not the antlers which I had fresh moss hanging off its brow tines. Looking for any gap he was walking into, I picked a small area in front of his path where a cedar had formed a blowdown that opened up for around a foot or so. He walked up into the gap and began to turn away from me. In one motion I drew, hit my anchor point, and released. The arrow disappeared as it reached his chest, and he bolted, kicking up clods of mud and grass as he ran. Yet it all happened in slow motion, but truly lasted only a few seconds, and in those moments of heart beating stillness the air had gone where I wanted it to, where I thought it had. The crash I heard further into the woods told the end of the story. Or did it. I glanced at my watch, checking the time, and closed my eyes, forcing myself to stay still and stay put and focus on the sounds ahead of me in the thickness of the woods. I sat back on my haunches, standing slowly to let the pins and needles leave my feet, and kneeling back down, taking a deep breath against the old tree. I looked up at the branches, the sun fading onto the yellow leaves now dry and brittle, some falling around me, and I wondered how many wild dramas the tree had witnessed over the years between weather and animals, that had used it for shelter and collected its acorns in the hundred plus years it had been growing there. Stepping forward after almost a half hour of waiting after the shot, I walked gingerly into the clearing to the path where the deer had been and located the arrow. The old autumn orange shaft I found stuck firmly in a small cedar after connecting with the deer, and I studied it closely for signs of that, and it was evident. Dark guard hairs lined it, and the arrow was crimson right back to the fletch. I tagged the tree and arrow with some orange trail tape, and looking back down the path the arrow travelled from the base of the tree where I'd taken the shot, focused in on the deer's hoof prints in the mud. Picking my way slowly into the cedars which formed a tight cordon around the clearing, I was forced to crawl in and around many of the trees until it opened up enough for a clear sight in the fading light. There, only several yards away was the buck, expired and serene against the forest floor. I sat down several feet away with my bow across my knees and watched the deer. In that moment, I don't know if I was awestruck by the fact I'd just taken my first deer after all the time and spending in inclement weather getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. Or partly it was disbelief that the bow had done what I knew it could do, but now it was it was at my hands and my connection to the animal and not someone else's. The intimacy of that moment struck me deeply, and I was in awe of the animal in a reverence I had not fully experienced prior, even finding other people's deer for them. The process had now become something else. And the hard part was now no longer the hunt, but the entire process, one that had become caring for the meat and the heightened responsibility I had for the animal. It dawned on me suddenly I should go get my father to share this experience, and we returned together a short time later as it was now getting close to dark. And as I hurried back down through the trail, he kept telling me to slow down, make sure I get to where I need to go, take a deep breath, we'll get there. We sat together for several minutes without a word spoken between us, and after saying a word of thanks and dressing the deer out, the work began to get him out of the woods. My father and I said few words that night on the drag out. I insisted on doing all the work while my father accompanied me through the fortress and tangle of brush and trees which surrounded the opening. An almost three kilometers slogged where the truck was waiting on the fence line, it took what seemed like hours. We finally got the buck into the back of his pickup. Catching my breath, I looked up at the stars shining now. The wind had picked up at that point, and in the ambient light of the moon I could see lines on my father's face I hadn't noticed before. It was a moment of reflection, one that I will never forget. Something changed in me that day. After following him around for years in the woods and waterways of my youth, something had now broken through, and I was now walking beside and not behind him. A connection with my father into the recesses of our ancestors had been reached by both of us through this process. I now realized that it was in this connection of living and pursuing to hunt to live, I was feeling the resilience and self-reliance that has guided our species survival over the time we have walked this earth. My respect, admiration, and knowledge of the whitetail had also grown. I had now had an appreciation I had not felt before, and a thankfulness for the deer and its life and habitat I had pursued it in. My persh personal protection for that ecosystem and the wildlife that had habituate had grown fiercely as well. To this very day I've connected to our environment and the struggles all creatures experience and coexist in nature because of hunting the hard way. The circle is always constant, surrounding us as we go about our business in the concrete world we've created, whether we like it or not. The experience was hard-earned and not given. And I am now teaching our youngest. I'm no longer in it for me. I am now deeply immersed in fostering her own traditions, her own legacies, as it was passed down to me to create those memories that were lived through both failure and success in its unforgiving and immersive way. I've hunted in some archery only areas in the U.S. that required a shoot test before being able to proceed. Minimum weights are also present for a reason as well, and it's the generality that blankets certain species to ensure adequate killing efficiency across the board again surrounding ethical hunting. And those restrictions are there for a reason. Those very laws are the driver for our ability to hunt with archer equipment. Shoot whatever you want, but stay within the limits of what is established for good reasons, whether you agree with those reasons or not. And let's talk about that for a moment. I'd been shooting since I was very young and had developed enough that I was shooting a bow of adequate weight to take a whitetail with. And I insist our own daughter does it as well. And she won't be hunting with that bow until she can consistently put arrows down range with broadheads, with accuracy, in her own effective lethal range, even if it is only 10 yards. I have zero issues with equipment folks use as long as it's ethically sound. And your limitation with the bow should not limit how well you learn to get close. I believe with right effort and the right mechanisms in place that I can get most folks hunting ready with a stick bow in around 30 days if they follow the shooting platform and practice. The issue is their own comfort zone, and they may still be restricted to shooting at game from 10 to 15 yards away. And that's the part where getting good at hunting and not just shooting comes into play. Walking out of the woods empty-handed is common. Although each of those walks results in something being approved upon or learned. I dare say the driver of hunting with a stick and string is more connected to our inner connection to those that walked before us, because they had no other weapon of choice. No hard powered rifles, scopes, compounds with extraneous let off, nor the comfort of modern clothes and a warm truck or car to head back into. These are choices which are all available to us. Either way, the idea of a simpler way of hunting, of becoming effective in that method of hunting, forces one down the path to history and a reckoning with our modern selves. It is within that process of deconstructing the modern hunter into something closer to our ancestors, a place we all come from. We recognize a part of who we really are. The limiting of the hunting platform will bring us to the forefront of your endeavors quickly. A reliance not on just technology, but on ourselves, our instinct, our ability, and in the end, with the traditional stick bow. Something that is more about the connection we have using a primitive weapon and how that weapon ends up becoming a part of the ancient hunter we all are. Hunk close is not just a term, it is an essential part of being a good bow hunter. The one obstacle I see continuously is that many folks simply just don't believe they can get good with the stick bow, or that it can be even an effective weapon. And sorry, but to use, you know, Yoda's response to Luke, Skywalker upon raising his X-wing out of the swamp. I don't believe it in your responding, and that is why you fail. The same rings true for folks often when shooting a stick bow. The mental game, the struggle stick mentality, has in some cases ended up becoming an excuse for poor shooting, then developing a strong connection to one's bow. A mojo, you could say. In order to connect and become effective with any process, it requires failure. And failure is the primary driver to push through and maintain momentum in the face of adversity. I find those that are the finest bow hunters and woodsmen I have ever met have told me story upon story of how many times they failed over and persevered to challenge themselves again and again to get where they are now. They don't rush, they're slow, methodical, and harness an effectiveness in their approach and manner and application that allows them to see missteps and take corrective action. I'm often asked how much I practice shooting, and my response surprises some folks. You must shoot hundreds of arrows a week. Archery, arguably, for the most part with a stick bow is to an extent a perishable skill set and requires direct input to maintain it. Even after shooting regularly for 45 years and hunting for 38 of those years, I still shoot weekly year round. But it's not the quantity of shooting I do. It's the quality of training in the shooting which I do. Allow me to explain. If I believe I've reached a certain point in my shooting, then my ego will begin to take over and I will begin to plateau and stagnate, since my mind and myself will believe I attained a level of ability, a level of proficiency. The problem lies in the ability and that belief. If I'm shooting at the same target and the same three arrows and the same distance over and over, I'm getting good at that shot setup. This causes comfort and no longer challenges the brain and growth ceases. You get good at shooting that target distance and shot cycle. In order to grow, you must challenge yourself. And I'm not talking distances. I'm not talking obstructions like trees and rocks either. I mean positions and angles with good ethical shot presentations, just like real hunting situations you would take, not might take. When I taught combative martial arts and coached MMA, when we did large seminars and training camps, we would not allow the students, regardless of rank, to wear white belts. This was for the most part a no ranking system in the systems I was teaching at the time, with the exception of BJJ. Your ability did the talking and not your belt. We could pick out the brown belts of those traditional systems almost every time apart from the black belts. Why? The brown belts were still hungry. They had not reached a point where they felt they were plateauing subconsciously. They had drive and would let it all out and were still self-competitive. They were still growing. Now throw BGJ into the mix and you see a different beast. A senior blue belt knows most of the submissions, positions, and defense a black belt does. But what does the black belt and BGJ have that the blue belt doesn't? Flight time. The black belt has more time in, tournaments, competition, pressure, and is created based on the same structure, base, position, control, defense, submit, etc., his or her own application based on resistance training and rolling with many people of all sizes, schools, ranks, shapes, competition, gi, no-gi, as well under a fully resisting opponent. In other words, they develop their own application that evolves. What does all this have to do and how can this translate into traditional bow hunting and shooting? By adapting your shooting with your hunting skills, setup and flight time, attributes under pressure, and in isolating the individual pieces that make a shot work instinctively through training instead of practicing the same way at the same distance every time. That's how. Folks that do trick shots isolate the trick shot. The end result you see on video, on social media, has been isolated in practice and failed at over and over again until success is attained. It isn't training for bow hunting, it's training for a specific trick shot. While visually appealing, quite often you'll notice a large black background target face in order to the object to stand out for clarity to complete the shot objectively. This is visualization. I'm not taken away from these amazing shots. They are what they are. Mastery of the trick shot. But isolate your own process in what and how you're setting up your shots. And not so much how you're shooting your bow. And you'll find you'll improve much faster. You'll be changing your shooting every session if you challenge your natural sighting system, the brain, hand-eye coordination that goes along with it. And that's doing most of the work. It's one of the main reasons I do a lot of work on focus and focal point drills when I am shooting and not the standard three-arrow grouping often seen. I never want to lose that aforementioned drive. I have to add resistance. So get in your flight time. Switch your shots up and increase the difficulty in your own effective lethal range. Add pressure and develop an application from good consistency that works for you. The individual, as I've said before, is more important than the established style or system. One of the toughest shots I've ever seen is a fellow I know from Ontario here who can shoot a candle flame out from 40 yards or more in a dark barn. He was self-taught primarily, and in my opinion, one of the finest instinctive archers I've ever seen in my entire life. Almost a Ronan of archery, if you will. Try that shot out with the moving flame sometime and even 10 yards. It will help your focus and humble you at the same time. Take my word for it. Remember, seeing those three arrows all connected together makes the brain happy. It doesn't necessarily challenge us to exceed and grow. I want confidence in the folks I coach, not ego. Look at your process like honing a blade. The sharper, the better, and the easier it will be to use. Just like a sharp knife. A sharp knife is safer than a dull one. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. And as the saying goes, I want to teach people to fish for themselves. Not give them a fish every day. Break up your shooting specific to as many of your own personal hunting situations you can, and you'll shoot better. I have let down on three times as many animals as well. I have released a string on. This could be for many different reasons. The animal was nervous, maybe a branch got or an obstruction got in the way. It turned and the shot wasn't there. Another animal got in the way. For whatever reason, I let down, something wasn't right, and I waited for the right shot. I am not in the business of coaching folks for Olympic archery, nor field archery, or even 3D shoots. My aim, pardon the pun, is to show folks that anyone with the time and effort and dedication can not only learn to shoot effectively in a reasonable time, but be hunt ready to pursue wild game with a bow and arrow and one string, no matter who they are. There is no guarantee with anything. Success is a matter of personal process and one's own experiences. For some, it's bringing home game to the table. For others, just getting out to be in nature. And if the result means food, then all the better. For others, it is a way of communing, centering, and connecting with our past. In any regard, for whatever reason, this becomes the individual's path. And you'll notice I stress that quite often. The lessons learned process from that first year had taken shape. And it still resonates with me today as it did all those years ago. And the following lessons learned from that have been compiled. Take your time and prep for the shot, control your breathing, and focus on where you want that arrow to go. Focus is a hallmark of the Arches Trinity shooting method and far more critical to making a shot on a gaining animal than just picking a spot. A spot moves as the animal moves. Structure does not move as much as bone and muscle. Being able to focus on where that arrow is going is critical. Without concentrated focus, you'll have a hard time being able to point your bow and send that arrow where you're looking. And focal point drills will help this ability we all possess. And I call this shooting for the crease, which is picking the center of mass of the crease you're shooting for. Shooting for center of mass is a common principle I teach to folks in the hunt ready accuracy course. It helps maintain your composure after the shot and take note of how the deer reacted and where the last place you saw the deer was. This is all part of the mental prep. How did the animal react when it hit? Did it run, walk, kick, or act like nothing happened? Before and after you shoot, take some good long deep breaths, tactical breathing, in for four, out for four. This increases auction to your brain and assists your memory in the urge to get up and look immediately, which can cause some serious issues in recovery if you start too fast. Wait. When the shot's made, let your follow-through happen and watch the animal. Rarely does it drop in sight. It's not the time to jump up and cheer and give high fives. Believe it or not, you're halfway there. The other half 25% is finding it, the other 25% is dragging out and processing it. I wait a minimum of 30 minutes after the shot or longer if you think you made a marginal shot. Continue to breathe. Find the arrow and mark the spot where it was found and ensure you have control over your actions. In other words, do not rush into the trail and get help if you need it. Take your time and go slowly. And as the saying goes, when in doubt, back out. Remember something. Anyone who is hunting for any length of time has lost game. It doesn't matter what weapon they're using, it happens to everyone. If you come face to face with the reality of that statement I've just made, you will pick and choose your shots very carefully. If someone claims they have never lost an animal, they're doing something else, but they're not hunting. I know a lot of old timers know a lot of this already. For some new folks, these are very common questions I get asked. The resilience and being immersed within the difficulty of the path of walking with and relying on the individual self-sibility with the stick and string in the woods and wilds of our world will most certainly bring forth an honesty and stronger individual, embodied in the self-reliance, centered in the knowledge of what they're truly capable of, which, frankly, in today's world is very needed. Thanks for listening. We are very excited to announce as a thank you to our podcast listeners, we're giving a one-month free access to our Hunt Ready membership platform, our 39-9 value that will give you access to our rapid entry into traditional archery course, trad tips videos, a weekly group coaching call, which is safe for viewing at any time, as well as our private Hunt Ready community page. Thank you for the feedback and thank you for joining us. The positive feedback we have had confirms for us the intent of what we are doing based on the three pillars of the code of traditional archery for us. Weapon proficiency with a stickbow, ethics to guide us and conservation in order to protect the very wildlife that inhabits the woods and fields we hunt as our themes are resonating with folks all over the world. We encourage you to check us out on Facebook on the Edge of Instinctive Archery, on Instagram at Primitive Stone Archery, and our membership platform in our podcast description. We often get asked about bows and who we recommend for custom bowers, so we will be showcasing some grassroots bowers from time to time. If you're looking for a true custom longbow, check out Riverbend Longbows on Instagram. You will find Ray makes a longbow that is truly a functional work of bow hunting art. For self bows, check out Heritage Bows on Instagram. Out of Vancouver Island, BC, Peter Graydon makes some uniquely powerful self bows that need to be seen to do them justice. If you haven't already, check out Compton Traditional Bow Hunters, a great organization that ensures the traditions of bow hunting with a stick and string is alive and well, not only now but for future generations to come. Compton has a great women's membership drive on now for 2022-2023 with an entire traditional bow hunting package to be won. Check them out at Compton Traditional Bowhunters.com. Thanks again for listening in. We encourage you to immerse yourself and your friends and family in the art of the stick bow and walk with us.