Episode #20: Lost Art of Tracking

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Transcript

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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 Podcast. I'm Grant Richardson, your host. We want to welcome all the new people joining us, and a big thank you to those who've been following us thus far. This is episode 20, and it's a big episode for us for more than one reason. We have launched the very first app solely for training and teaching the art of traditional bow hunting. The traditional bow hunting app is live. More to follow at the end of the podcast. Our original intent of this podcast was to bring back traditional archery and bow hunting to an older era where hunting ability met Archer. And together the two formed a bow hunter. A strong resurgence in shooting and hunting with recurves, longbows, and even self bows is being seen. And we intend to fill what I see as a gap in some parts of an art which is not so much a product, but a process. And this episode is entitled The Lost Art of Tracking. The sun was rising, and I half expected another day of rain to dispel the terrible weather predictions that were off the entire week. Except today I could see the sun clearly. It had been almost a week since we'd started our bear hunt on the eastern edge of the small northern Ontario lake. It was a classic Canadian Shield Lake, clear and covered with rock formations and tall stands of pine surrounding it. I'd opted to hunt the eastern side. It gave me almost two and a half clicks of glassing and stalking as it circled back on itself like some giant serpent, with smaller patches of rocks and pebbles on the edge of the beaches worn smooth like scales by the millennia of waves crashing onto their hard faces. This would give my friend Craig the best chance at airing a bear from his tree stand, which he'd been used to as a hunting method. A bear forage area we had scouted the spring pyre, and from the trees he'd picked overlooking a large berm of blueberries on the lee side of a very sunny ridge, intermixed with pine trees and a large cedar swamp at the bottom that ran into an old beaver meadow, a slough full of dead falls and soft spots that made walking treacherous. The bears, however, seemed to love it there. I had taken my first spot and stocked black bear on the opposite side of the lake around three days prior after a few days of failure, blowing three stalks on two separate bruins each day after painstakingly stalking, and at one point sitting cross legged for several minutes behind a wide granite rock, while two cubs and a sow had walked past above me on the short ridge only twenty feet away, and she chased off the boarer I'd been sneaking on for the better part of the morning. The wind had played havoc with my chances one afternoon, and spooked a boarer on the following day. A trout fisherman in a canoe had slipped quietly into the other side of the lake, spooked another bear I was trying to sneak onto, only to stop and chat with me astonished I was trying to bear hunt with that tiny bow, he remarked. Hope you don't get eaten, he said, as he paddled off in search of haloed brook trout. I'd been slipping quietly from boulder to boulder the day I took the bear to a low ground area and pebbled beach around fifty feet across from where we had seen plenty of bear tracks the spring prior when scouting, and I had seen what appeared to be a large bruin walking from the shore to a feeder creek around three hours prior when I glassed him, and I just heard a noise above me. The sow and two cubs who were off limits were again above me, and I wondered if it was the same one. I quickly made my way as far as I could downwind and stopped to pause, and just then the boar ran out in front of me less than a hundred yards out. His tail was on fire to get away from the sow who had evidently put the boots to him, and I closed the gap quickly out to thirty yards from me as he seemed distracted. I watched his snowed in the air, and I thought he'd scented where I was at least further above him. The sow circled back around to her cubs and gave me just enough time to get behind a large deadfall of cedar, now weathered and grey, like a Tolkienesque ent beard toppled sideways in grandeur still, framing the shoreline with its gray weathered bows. He came around fifteen feet away from my offside, and turning as I stood, I launched an arrow off the gray Damon Howitt, and I was able to place an arrow broadside into him, and for a brief moment he stopped. I took him effectively. He ran almost seventy five feet and dropped in sight down the shoreline, the large Zwicky Delta doing its intended work efficiently. However, on this day, my bow was not with me. It had been several days later I tagged out and I was fifteen feet up in a tall spruce and my old summit saber climbing tree stand. I had a camera in hand waiting for one of the great gray owls I'd spooked to return to the darkness of the dense conifers behind me. And then I heard it, quietly, but nonetheless, a hundred yards away over the small berm, a crashing, the running of what sounded like a bear, teeth popping, and a short groan. I wondered if Craig had got a shot. I thought this was Craig's first hunting year with a traditional bow. He'd hunted with a compound for years, and I'd known him. In high school, his father-in-law's property we were now hunting was a fantastic area for black bears. The stockbrooktook lakes were wide open still, and any of the brook trout in this area were now my intended quarry, and I was eager to get down and try my hand in the last few hours of daylight with my brown glass fencing rod my father had built for me many years prior when I was a child. I did regret not taking my bow with me on the walk in. I'd run into several fool hens, spruce grouse on my way in that morning, two particularly stunning males who strutted their rusty tipped fans at me in defiance only a few feet away from the trail earlier that day. I'd seen and waited for the moose that was across from me in the beaver swamp to try to come out on the edge of the lake to get a good shot with the photo camera. But he had never came out almost an hour and a half later after I heard him trudging around in the swamp below me, tromping softly. I waited for almost an hour and a half when Craig appeared, waved at me in the tree, and I quietly climbed down, being careful not to snag the two piece rod that I had broken down in my backpack. Craig stepped up whispering. I hit one. I got a shot. It looked good. He was sweating and almost looked panicked. Great, I remarked. Do you know exactly where he hit? Vitals for certain, he said. We opted to head back to camp not too far away and grab some lunch in return. Craig was sure he'd gotten a double long, and he knew Craig fairly well, and I trusted him as a hunter. He'd hunted with a compound for a long time and was very eager to take his first bear with a stickbow. I'd given him the best and really only tree stand area because it was just simpler and familiar for him. I started asking him questions. How far was the shot? Around 20 yards. Check, I said. Where did he come in from? He came in from the bottom of the swamp. Cool, cool. That's where you thought he'd come from. Did he come in to hit the old blueberries nearby? Yeah, but he was kind of standoffish, Craig remarked. He came down and then I thought he smelled me. He went around behind me, huffed a couple of times, and then nothing. Twenty minutes later, he popped down straight out in front of me and I took the shot. Did you find the arrow? No. Did you look for it? Yeah, I took a quick look, but I couldn't find it. Did you get a pass through? Man, I can't remember all these things. He said the arrow just disappeared. I was pretty excited. I tracked white-tailed deer before in silver bear for folks, including assisting a guiding operation for moose. I was pretty adept at finding an animal if it'd been hit well. But people seem to forget moose and deer, while antler, generally don't eat other animals. Bear have the potential to, if not expire, do things to you that are much different than a deer. Black bear have rather large teeth and claws and are omnivores, of course. They don't have hoofs and antlers. Nevertheless, I realized very quickly that although Craig had put everything together for himself, it appeared that perhaps some significant details were forgotten. We made our way around and we crammed ourselves downwind into the tight cover. I pointed down. If he isn't finished yet, I don't want him to smell us, and we decided to box the cover far above and came down on top of the area where Craig thought he had the shot. We got up to the opposing ridge, still covered in frostbit and blueberries, up to the tree stand, and we immediately noticed right away that other bears had been there since Craig made the shot. We took a few minutes to listen, the wind had picked up, the tall pines behind us creaking their branches like old shipmasts. I asked him to walk me over to where he thought he'd shot. He walked me over next to the tree. There was some broken sticks. I'm sure, I'm sure I shot there. I looked back up at the tree stand because the spot was screened in heavily by some low red maples and alder. No, this is where I shot for sure. Are you sure? I don't know how you got an arrow through that. Well, I wasn't the one shooting her up in the tree. Maybe it was that way, he said. We sorted this out over the next fifteen to twenty minutes until finally I found some fur and hair. Sure enough, it was cut, it looked like a hit. The only problem is there was no blood and no arrow. I was pretty confident in Craig's shooting ability. The longbow he'd picked was very effective. And I was sure that he'd taken a shot and he had the utmost confidence in it. We were on the trail for about 15 minutes trying to locate first blood, or even find a track, and there was just nothing due to the ground and the cover nearby. Listen, we've got about two hours of light left, and I'm getting a little concerned. He turned. I'm sure he went that way, but I've just got a total fog over what happened when I shot now. No problem, I said. You know, you understand we need to find that arrow though. He was frustrated, and I was growing concerned that we had a bear that was not yet down. I took a few more steps, and there was a bear print lying there as plain as day in the mud in the same direction I was walking. Now we've got to remember bears are a different creature to track than a deer. Bear coats are thick, they've got lots of fat on them and muscle. And the blood trail is a little bit different than whitetails or even moose. The fur can really soak up the blood. I turned and looked at him, dude. Did you walk down here? He looked, yeah, I got down. I said, Well, how long did you give him before he got down? Maybe a couple of minutes. He didn't look me in the face. I was so sure of the thought. I thought he dropped right over there. I heard such a big crash. I said to him, I was up in the tree watching that for that moose to come in, and I'd heard something crashing down through the opposite side. There's no way he could have done that. He didn't come down that side near you. He came down the opposite side, right over there. Right down through that path. That's where I heard him. You sure you heard him over there? Yes, I said. Did you follow him? Did you follow him down through here? I remarked. This is the last place I saw him, I thought. The ground was a mess of pine needles and rocks with little gro Did you see what happened when your arrow hit? No, he said. He basically came broadside to me, and when I let the arrow go, he reared up a bit, growled, and ran hard. I went back again and searched everywhere where he shot the bear. But I could still find no arrow. I stopped and flagged the last spot where I'd cut the only bear track. It was a bit of a scuff in the side of the mud in the tree, and most of the bear's paws had hit the base of the very large knotted pine. It hadn't done any damage to the base of the tree or the bark. But it was plain as day that a bear had run very fast in the leaf side of that tree and kicked out the dirt when he did so. The direction just seemed off to me in comparison where Craig claimed he made the shot. The direction of the track was not where he'd said he'd shot the bear at all. Look, Craig, why don't you go back to stand at the base of the tree and I'll just take a little skirt around, do a couple little arcs. A couple little circles. Just let me get the lay of the land here. Go have a seat and take a breath, I advised. He walked over, sat down, took a deep breath, and grabbed his flask of coffee. I cast around the ground in tightening circles, and on my third semicircle I stopped and realized I was looking for the wrong thing. Craig said he'd had a wide open shot on the bear. He saw the entire front half of the body and a cedar tree had been blocking the hindquarters. He'd shot when the bear turned slightly quartering away, moving. The bear had stopped. Craig had drawn and shot, and the bear ran. The problem was this cover where I was at was opened right up, and I realized quickly what I needed to do. I got up in Craig's tree stand, attached the safety line, and said, All right, dude, point to me from here. Not up there where you were, but from down where you are to where I am. Where do you think you shot the bear? He turned around and looked back, where I'd been walking around busting brush, trying to locate the arrow. Oh man, I'm so turned around. It's gotta be out there to the left. Did you lean out for the shot? Yeah, right to that spot he pointed. Okay, cool. I got back down from the tree. As I walked over, he shook his head. I've got to be honest with you, I heard him running. When I went to look for that arrow, I heard him running through the brush. I thought if the bear had been down and was starting to expire, I'd gotten a decent hit. Craig was just down the tree too fast, and the bear wasn't far. I felt he may have sprinted a long way, even hit lethal. And the cover was very, very thick. I was starting to get concerned. We had about an hour and a half of light left. We had almost a two-click hike back to where the canoe was, and we'd have to cover the back end of that lake, and then another kilometer and a half back to where we had the base camp. I'm gonna have a look, but I'm gonna let you call it. You took the shot, not me. I thought to myself, man, I do not want to go after this bear in the dark if it isn't down. I turned to Craig and said, Dude, we're gonna have to back out. I don't want to do this. He looked at me, looked back at the brush, and said, You're right. He went through the shot again, but there were too many variables at this point, and we were both growing tired. Craig had heard a crash and a woof, and he'd heard other bears as well after his had taken off. The cover was thick. The trees acted like an amphitheater, their great trunks growing never ending, it seemed to the sky, never seemingly ever to finish. Two ravens flew overhead, croaking distinctly. Hunin and Munin, I'm used to myself. Thought and memory. How fitting for this day. I stopped a moment, and there in the dirt, almost seventy yards from where Craig said he'd made the shot, was the seat arrow broken in half. I walked up very carefully. It was the back end of the arrow and it was covered in blood from one end to the other. The beautiful blue and yellow cresting still stood out. Artistically, Craig had completed himself earlier that summer. I waved over to him, whispering, listen, we need to be quiet, no more calling out to me. Stay right here and flag the spot. I stuck the bottom of the arrow carefully into the ground, vertically, acting as almost a flag or a pin. I opened up my top map and looked very carefully at where the bear could have been headed. And much to my dismay, it was right into the old beaver swamp and blowdown meadow. The problem was the majority of the pond had dried up, and the water that was underneath made it terrible to cross. It was full of deadheads, mud, and loon crap for almost two and a half kilometers square, and I shuddered to think about tracking the bear in that mess. I looked into it because there was a feeder stream that ran through it to another old beaver pond connected to the lake. And as we canoed across the first day scouting, several large brook trout had been rising in the back end of it, and it looked like such a mess to get into, we couldn't even penetrate it in the canoe because of the deadheads. I shook my head and decided to give up on the spot, hoping the truck would be back in the lake. But I knew it looked like on the opposite side of the lake, almost twenty yards down the trail. It was just too thick. There was absolutely no blood from where the arrow was, even though the arrow was crowded with crimson. I stopped and flagged an open area and took a look around for the path at least resistance, and there on the ground was a bear print, and on a leaf nearby a very small spray of blood, almost like a miniature drawing of red spray paint that had been artistically rendered onto the fallen orange maple leaf. Getting down on my hands and knees now, since it was unable to walk through, I crawled and I shook my head about how such a large creature could navigate such tight cover. It also made me think of what I would do if I came face to face with this thing, and it was still not down. I turned and realized I'd only gone almost 25 feet in the last almost hour, and it was painstaking to try to locate sign, and I had found only the one spot a blood spray. I stood up as best I could. I could just barely see where Craig was, his blaze orange wool toke for our tracking job on his head still. I thought to myself, he was shooting those huge three blade woodsmans. Good big broadhead, three blades. I started trying to figure out what we should do next. I decided I should not track alone. I backed off. I can see the bear for certain was running. It was evident. I'd found two tracks and they were quite a distance apart, even in the soft ground as we laid downhill into the beaver swamp. And the one little bit of blood. I was whispered back to Craig as I walked back. I'm gonna call it. It's gonna be dark in thirty-five minutes, and I don't know if this bear's down or not. Why don't we walk down the east side of the lake where you think you heard him crash and take a look down there? We can't get into the cover from the other side, it's just too thick. We argued for a few minutes. The tribulations are trying to track someone else's animal. We're rearing its ugly head again, and I knew how he felt, but at this point we needed more fidelity on the ground. And with the failing light, the last thing we needed to be doing was stumbling around in the dark and risking the potential of getting turned around and having to reorient ourselves just to get out. In his excitement, Craig had just simply forgotten several key details. He was so wound up that he'd gotten a shot, he got down too fast, had not oriented himself to the ground in relation to his tree stand, and had charged around for almost an hour on his own without waiting. I have no idea, I thought, of how this bear was hit. Maybe he just didn't think he got the hit he did. I just don't want to wander in a bear in the dark. We've been checked by a CO the first week, and he was surprised that he found two hunters using traditional bows. We had spoken about the ethics piece that day for some time, and I was sure we were making the right call. We'll come back at first light, paddle across, we'll come up the ridge and look again, okay? He nodded. You're gonna have to carry your bow though and be ready. All right, he said. We went back that night. I tried to console him, giving him a small shot of scotch I'd kept for celebrations. I don't think he got much sleep that night. I woke up at one AM and looked out and he was still sitting in front of the fire. Daylight came quickly. It was cold and there was almost a slight mist over the back end of the lake. Like a cloud had landed on the earth. I took a look again at the weather forecast and it called for rain at noon that day, and I was getting nervous. It wasn't supposed to rain until later on the next afternoon. It was supposed to be sunny, but it was clouding over already, and I did not trust the weather forecast. Even though it said cloudy with sunner periods, it was anything but sunny in the least. Craig was already up shooting some arrows at a small makeshift target we created on the edge of the berm near the least side of a feeder stream we'd camped nearby. I had been hoping for Brookroat to be on that stream, but nonetheless they'd left for the deeper parts of the lake nearby already. Nonetheless, I tied on a large Mickey Fin bucktail and after several false casts laid down some line and ended up tying into a nice five pound northern pike we stowed away for our dinner. We made our way across as the sun was up, trying to peek through the clouds off to the other side, and got into the area where his stand was rather quickly. Things looked a lot different than they had in the twilight the day before. I came up to the spot where the arrow had stuck in the ground, the back end of the arrow. We spooked under the bear off the blueberry patch as we came around the opposing side. He'd probably been feeding when we walked in and he ran off huffing and puffing. I told Craig to stand by, just wanted to make sure it wasn't the same bear. I checked around and it certainly wasn't. It didn't appear to be injured at all. I got a good look at it. It was healthy and it was gone, crashing down the opposite side, away from the area where Craig's bear had gone the prior day. For the next two and a half hours we were on hands and knees picking through cover, almost 70 yards thick. I again was getting concerned. This was coming to within about a hundred yards now of where I'd actually heard the bear run the day prior while I was up in the tree, almost immediately after Craig had taken the shot. And this was the only way to access the area, and it was treacherous. I turned to look back to Craig almost ten feet behind me, and he whispered, Stop, man. What's wrong? I said. He said, Man, take a look at the edge of your pants. I turned around and I could see something smeared on the lower end of my gray wool camel hunting pants. I took out a white tissue in my pocket and rubbed it, and sure enough it was It was blood. I took out two more tissues and told Craig to stay put where he was. I wrapped my hands around both tissues and I walked back slowly towards Craig, letting the Kleenex drag on some bushes and scrub gently. By the time I got to Craig there was two red smears down the tissue. Microscopically, the tissue had picked it up, and it was evident there was a blood trail we were on. We just simply couldn't see it through the density of the brush. I turned back at Craig and smiled. I'm pretty sure he got down to where the bear was in the right direction. I flagged the spot immediately and turned. I told him to get an arrow ready. We broke into the side of an open area, and there, on the edge of a little copse of alders in an opening, was a great mark of blood crimson red against the dark ground. It had taken some time, of course, the day prior, but nonetheless it was significant. He definitely stopped here. And I'm sure he went to the right, I said to Craig. We'll see him in the next fifty or sixty yards. I don't think he's gonna go much farther. But we may have a little problem if you need to finish him off. It's gonna be tight in there to draw. So you get ahead on the right, and I'll stay on the left side just ahead of the trail. If I see any sign of him, I'm gonna let you lead in, so be prepared. Will do, he nodded. It began to get steep. I found a spot on the side of the tree where a bear had stumbled, as if lying there, placed carefully by someone's hands, was the remainder of Craig's custom made cedar arrow, the woodsman broad head intact and the shaft covered in crimson. Above us a pine martin crawled down one of the jackpine trunks, like some northern fired eyed mongoose and stopped feet away from us as if wondering what the heck we were doing. He hopped down through a small opening ahead, in the same direction we were headed, and we smiled at each other. Tracking dog, I said to Craig. I took again a look at the top map. We covered almost 150 yards, but it felt like miles at that point due to the cover and dense undergrowth. I think he fell through here. Gimme a sec. I walked to the little open area to the left that overlooked a little outcropping of Canadian shield. I looked down and right on the path, almost 25 yards ahead of us through the brambles, I saw the back end of the bear lying still. This was almost a hundred yards east of where I'd been sitting up in that tree with my camera the day before when Craig had shot. It had taken us almost four hours to get through that cover on our hands and knees with very little blood trail. Craig approached the bear very carefully downwind. The bear had obviously expired very quickly at a dead run, but because of the lack of sign and cover, we would never have seen any of what we saw on the day that track had done the night prior. We could have stumbled around on that mess all night long, and at that point probably never would have found the animal. We felt like we'd hiked through a jungle, and we got to working on the bear so Craig could get it out with me. It was treacherous and took us almost four hours to recover the bear after he dressed it out. At almost dinner time we got back into the canoe with the bear, into the edge of the lake, managed to get across before the rain started. Back at camp that night, Craig shook his head a few times and looked at me. I owe you an apology, man. I said, No, you don't, it's hunting. I've been bow hunting for a long time. I just got so excited I got down too quickly and I didn't even orient myself to where I was. I had no idea where I'd even taken the shot after a few minutes. Sorry, man. We mused over the past two days. My bear track was easy. I had a line of sight on it. The lake edge was open, and I got lucky. I saw the bear fall. If my bear had gone into the thickets above, it would have been a very similar scenario. A bushwhack can locate him much like Craig's bear. We ate northern pike fillets and bear steaks that night, and I spent the remainder of the evening in thanks thinking about the brook trout I chased for our last day there. Tracking is becoming a lost art simply because of the technological reliance in some cases, and others simply lacking the will or the background to go on the process of learning. I urge folks getting into hunting of any kind, especially bowing, to go on or back up as many tracks as possible. They are great learning experiences. Luck helps, but if you have the 50% solution, it will play out much better for you when the time comes to track an animal. And here's some tips from our Lost Art of Tracking course, which will be available as a course on our traditional bow hunting app. Now, the situation we found ourselves in is not foreign to anyone who bow hunts. It is a critical part of the process. And this and many other situations I have documented is one of the main drivers behind the whole idea of a traditional bow hunting app. Some tracking basics, just some overview tips for you folks. One, no track is the same. Make a plan based around the shot. Each situation is different. You're not going to have the same sanitized experience that you were led to believe in over 90% of the hunting shows out there. It's just not reality. Do not get discouraged when the animal runs. It's not the time to yell in high five. The hunt is not over. And I dare say the most critical part for most folks, they forget about is the track. Recovering the animal and the skills needed to do so are just as important as all the other steps. Shooting, tuning, all that. How is the animal position when the shot was made? How was it behaving? What did it do when the arrow struck it? Did the arrow pass through in your sight or not? Whether other animals nearby are with it, you may have to account for other tracks on the hit trail. Right after the shot, stay calm and breathe. A lot of folks have an adrenal dump. Hey, I do still. Take some deep breathes. Take a breather, set a timer on your watch, take a breath, set a timer on your phone, depending on what you saw. If I think I made a lethal shot, I wait for a minimum of 30 minutes and then quietly get down to check. Your priority should be number one in finding the arrow and wait longer if you need to. But finding the arrow is your first forensic tick in the box as to what shot was actually made versus what you saw. Two, learn how to read the terrain. I cannot tell you how many times I've been on tracks with folks who say they know the area well, but what they're telling me does not trace onto a map, paper, or graphic I'm looking at. Know the area you're going to hunt. Orient yours and your hunt to the ground you hunt and to the very location where your stand is set up. And remember, the ground from a tree stand looks very different in relation to where you shot the animal and the arrow connected. Different levels of light, morning, afternoon, will also affect this. Shadows change perception and visual acuity. And three, be resilient. Do not give up. You must go into every track with a positive framework and plan. Go slow. Take your time. And if you run out of daylight, stop and come back in the a.m. when the light is better. I plan, you know, I plan to track plenty of animals after dark. It is a complex process compared to day tracks. If the weather is good, rain and snow are not incoming, and you're not getting fidelity on the animal and are hung up, make the call and come back in the daylight. Designate roles. If there's other people, ensure that if other help is present, it's not, they're not walking ahead, scouting around without a plan for each person on the track. If there's more than one person like yourself, have a point sign locator, have a flagger for sign indicator, and have a third confirming to ensure the team is not walking up on the track as well, but off to the side. Five. Stop every 50 yards or so. Turn and look back at your sign flagging. It will tell you volume is both handled the animal was behaving in relation to the terrain and path it took. Was it zigzagging, walking sick, a straight line, in and out of tight cover? Take stock of the situation, relax again, breathe, and think about where the shot was made. Where the animal is going. Each step you take on the track is closer to recovering the animal. Stay on it. Be determined. And finally, let the hunter make the call to give up. But if you feel there's a chance and it's too early to call for whatever reason, tell them, I'm going to keep on this and keep on it until you found the animal or exhausted all options. You owe it to the animal. And it's what sets you apart in your ethics as a true hunter, not just a shooter. Good luck to all out there chasing game. Looking for a handcrafted traditional bow with a legacy of traditional excellence, be sure to head to DamonHowardArchery.com and you will find their iconic line of handcrafted adventure waiting for you. If you haven't already, check out Compton Traditional Bow Hunters, a great organization that ensures the traditions of bow hunting with the stick and string is alive and well, not only now, but for generations to come. Look for our new podcast, The Ethical Predator, coming to Amazon and Audible or wherever you find your content. And our next episode covers Don Thomas, world-famous bow hunter and sportsman. We appreciate you joining us and all the positive feedback we've been getting from folks all over the world, which confirms for us the intent we have in our platform message based on the three pillars of the code of traditional archery. Weapon proficiency with the stick bow, ethics to guide us on our collective journey, and conservation with stewardship in order to protect the wildlife woods, fields, and waterways we haunt as our themes are resonating. And finally, it is here. The very first traditional bow hunting app. The one-stop traditional bowling app resource for education, ethics, and stick bow tactics in the palm of your hand, no matter where you are. Free to download, included in our app is a free quick start in your traditional bow hunting course on organic grassroots, no nonsense approach to getting anyone interested in learning what is involved in bow hunting with a recurve or longbow. You can follow that up with our six-week traditional bow hunting bootcamp intensive, covering off all topics traditional bow hunting. And it's designed for you to go at your own pace. And you can follow it up with our shooting method course and many other features related to the process of traditional bow hunting. Whether you're new to traditional bow hunting or transitioning from a compound to traditional, the online bootcamp was designed so there's something for everyone. This way of shooting will give you the framework for developing your own method. And as a member of the traditional bow hunting app, you walk the path of the traditional bow hunter together with like-minded people, a community that celebrates the traditional bow hunting legacy. New monthly content, pro tips, including our own podcast on the app with grassroots bow hunters just like you, and a daily tracking tool designed for traditional bowhunters to keep track of their practice time and document your gains or areas that you need to focus on. Become a member of the traditional bow hunting app and enjoy the modern approach to training using an app, whether you're at the cottage, in your backfield, or at the office. You can stay connected. Part of our mission is to get kids off-screen and out of their houses into the forests and fields where they live to become reconnected to the wilds. And parts of this app is aimed specifically at encouraging youth who are scrolling on their iPads and phones to stop and relate to a process that is both one of resilience but also right effort and patience. You can download the app now in the Apple Store, and it's coming soon to Android and Google Play. Thanks for listening in. We encourage you to immerse yourself in the art of the stick bow. Shoot straight and walk with us.