Episode #23 How A Cottontail Was My Teacher

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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, and a big welcome to all the new people joining us, and a thank you to those who have been following us thus far. The Code of Traditional Archery is dedicated to the efforts and legacy I was raised under with the former Ontario Bow Hunters Association. Those efforts and work to create, implement, and forge the original primitive weapons and archery seasons and laws in Ontario will not be forgotten. You can find this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Audible, or wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. 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. Shooting and hunting with recurves and longbows is more popular than ever. However, the approach is much more so an art and skill set, not a product, but a process. Stay tuned for a big announcement we are so excited about regarding our audiobook, The Code of Traditional Archery, following the podcast. This is episode 23, Cottontails were my teachers. The morning had started overcast, and I'd been waiting until the sun had finally come out to venture into the backyard of my grandparents' property, consisting of several acres of mixed trees surrounded by wild grasslands to the southwest and bordered on the east by a red fife wheat field now gone wild and overrun on its edges, by several Macintosh apple trees, chokecherries, and large clumps of juniper bush now very wild and overgrown. I had the roughly 30 acres to myself back then, prime upland cover, where rough grouse patrolled the fence lime edges. A particularly beautiful rust brown color-faced bird inhabited that woodline. And frequently after a rainy day, one could encounter a flock of ringnecked pheasants cruising the wild grasses and grapes that were interspersed in the high cover as well. I was, however, on this day after the two rabbits that were frequent in this area of Ontario in my youth. Cottontails and the revered jackrabbit, really a transplant and re European hair, that grew to immense proportions and were an extremely challenging target for a teenage boy in his recurve. I have always been an advocate of warming up one's eyes before heading a field, a routine hammered home to me by my mentors' habits and upbringing, and I'd watched a younger G. Fred Aspell warm up every day prior to heading out on a bear hunt as well, as several other folks that had an impact on my bow hunting heritage, and today was no exception. I'd made a rabbit target out of an old brown seat cushion foam my grandpa had sitting around. Using twine and scissors, I'd bundled up the foam trimming back into a makeshift target replete with foam ears. I shoved a coat hanger into the bottom as a stake pirated from my grandma's linen closet. I was hitting pretty bang on and carrying two steel blunts for smaller rabbits and three older Warren's wicky deltas for the jacks, which could run up to eleven pounds in weight. I've been tying flies for most of that morning in anticipation of casting for steelhead in an Ontario Great Lakes tributary the following day with my father. My eyes were weary from tying egg flies and some requested egg sucking leeches from my dad. The day was crisp and now sunny, and the breeze that came through my grandparents' den windows gave off the scent of autumn fully. Only once or twice a year did I ever get a chance at hunting this property that were connected to it by landownership. We lived almost three hours from my grandparents, and I would get updates on various events involving wildlife from my grandparents in between visits. They had not only been seeing ringneck pheasants, but cottontails and European hares, or jacks as the locals would call them. It was Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, October, and that meant two things. One, I would get a crack at the pheasants and rabbits, and two, the next day I would be hip deep in a fast-moving stream, trying to entice Lake Run Steelhead to grab my offerings. I had just three hours before I would be called to dinner with my grandparents as I stepped off the back porch and surveyed the fields and all planned cover ahead. The late afternoon sun cast shadows amongst the crabapple trees and oak leaves swirled across the lawn, now frostbitten by early October frosts. Walking through the openings of the backfields where I planned to hunt that afternoon, I wondered how my father was making out steelhead fishing at my other grandparents. It was my first year hunting, and although I was eager to cast to the silver tailed walking lake run bullets the next day, I was hoping I could bring a rabbit to our Thanksgiving dinner as well. I made my way around a group of blue spruce and carefully peered through and around the corner of my grandpa's old shed, half expecting to see a rabbit feeding nearby the lawnmower ramp where I toiled the summer with chores. Instead, there strolled a large ringneck rooster, plain as day, right out of a field and stream magazine, oblivious to my presence until I lost some balance trying to get an arrow off my old hip quiver sitting loosely on my belt. He ran into the hip deep native grasses and goldenrod, and I too hastily gave pursuit of him, knocking an arrow and wading forward into the sun baked fault angles, surrounded by blackberry bushes and grapevines. No sooner had I kicked around when he rocked it up behind me and towered quickly as his kind is wont to do, leveling out and cackling at my misfortune. I wish my spaniel had been with me for that, I thought. She'd have sorted him out, but she was back home over three hours away and not on this trip. I pinned down the location of the bird, where he had landed and began to make my way through the tangles to him. I'd taken five steps, maybe when a brown blur ran out to my right. I swung the recurve intuitively toward the fast running hare, a large jack that dodged my arrow easily and gained ground away from me, only to pause a moment, its ears perked and notably tipped black. His eyes appeared wild and ancient, much different than the smaller cottontails that were also present. I began to draw a second arrow, and he bolted out well past forty yards and ran as if he was never going to stop. At this point I stopped. Something just told me slow down, Grant. Glancing to the sun now hanging low in the sky, I looked back at my grandparents' house and yard, realizing it actually only taken a hundred yards or so into the property behind their home. Pausing, I knelt down and checked my quiver, ensuring no arrows were missing, and standing went to locate the arrow I'd loosed at the running hair. Not far from a half buried rock sat my arrow, the autumn ore and shaft laying there plain as day and intact, except for a small scar on its black cresting I painted the year prior. A wound of my own making, yet the shaft remained straight and true even with the glancing blow from one of the smaller rocks that was present. Straining ahead to try and locate the whereabouts of both hare and pheasant, I took another look over my shoulder at the sun shining onto the now red and purple blackberry leaves nearby, and plodded forward slower now. For every step you take, my father's words echoed in my mind, stop and count to ten, then step again. I recalled his counsel on still hunting and stocking exploits with me years before, and it rang true on this day. I'd been excited and had barged around as if I'd had his browning Satori in my hand following my springer spaniel, and not the stout recurb I was carrying that day. The ground rose slightly from there before leveling out. Old junipers covered this area away from the grasses and wheat stubble, encircling the area from early homesteader attempts centuries past. This was where the best cover lay, and I made a decision to forego chasing the sun-kissed gold feathers of the wild ringneck for another try at the hare, my original quarry. Far off across the end of the far field, I spied another hunter, a northern harrier or marsh hawk, gliding across the opposing property where I wasn't able to access. The acepater turned to reveal its giveaway white rump and dark trailing edge wings raised in dihedral angles, prepared to stoop at any moment. I watched as its languid wing beat suddenly became faster and it shot to the ground, as a hen pheasant rose into the air, feathers cascading away from its tail, with the hawk in close pursuit, missing a second attempt at the ringneck before flying to a nearby yellow leaf poplar tree, seemingly needing a break from its unsuccessful attempts. The hen pheasant glided to safety across the opposing wheat field, and moments later the harrier flew off in the same direction, and I wished him walk in his hunt. The distraction proved useful. Not only had I witnessed nature's circle of life unfolding in front of me, but it allowed me to center myself. I now realized that, taking in the setting sun in its orange lighted landscape and dynamically, I stepped forward eagerly looking for any sign of rabbits, as I knew they inhabited the rocky sided fence line I was approaching. And there, not a few steps away, I saw him, another large hare which darted out and zigzagged across to my right. I stopped myself from shooting and continued my slow, steady walk. With a pause and half crouch, drew my bow and released missing by inches as the wild eye jack ran across the stones and off to safety. I kept another rabbit moments later that offered no shot, and I bumped the pheasant as well. The nervous rooster ran ahead and jumped well out of arrow range when he ran out of the thick cover and glided a fair distance away, not to be seen again. I turned to look back at the sun now only an hour or so off to its left, and there, barely in eyesight, I saw the cinnamon ears of a rabbit. This was not the long-legged hare I'd been chasing the past hour and a half, no, this was a cotton tail, an eastern cottontail, a true rabbit, and I could just make out its shape as it hopped slowly near the edge of the old fence line and into some brambles and wild raspberries, now depleted of their fruit. I picked my way slowly across the field and avoided the fence line altogether, trying to cut the distance down to half by the angle I was taking. I closed the gap, drew another arrow from the old hit quebber, and knocked it without looking down at the sight window of the bow. I had now lost sight of the white cottontail's backside, and I watched the merge of the fence, and the animal had not come forward or across the other side of it, and I strode slowly forward, pausing every few feet, and remained riveted to the cover for signs of motion. I was not less than thirty yards from the hiding place of the cottontail when two rusty red grouse burst from the fence not twenty feet from me, and as they rocketed away across to the safety of the forest across the field, the rabbit bolted and stopped almost forty yards out and hunched down, trying to blend into the surrounding cover. Now keep in mind I'd already missed a couple of shots that day, and I did draw my bow, but something stopped me and urged to sneak closer. It did in fact become a game of stealth and slow motion at that point. I'd get to within twenty feet or so of the rabbit and it would burst away or sneak hop just enough to cause me pause to tighten the string and sling an arrow its way. Not this time, though. I'd become stone cold patient, forcing upon myself a slow resolve and intently stopping and kneeling five times as I closed on the rabbit. The stock was becoming a contest of wills and patience and survival. When the rabbit did stop, it was always behind or blocked by cover, and I was forced to move and bend to try to shoot. And I will say I was at full and half draw several times as I attempted to get an arrow off at him. Still, I kept at it until now only around ten feet away, the rabbit burst forward suddenly to my left to reach the safety of the last stone walled tangles. I do not recall anchoring or drawing the bow. In fact, all I remember from that moment was the arrow catching the eastern cottontail mid stride at a full run, almost at thirty yards, and I watched it tumble forward feet from the cover it attempted to disappear into. Walking to the downed eastern cottontail, I admired its cinnamon red-brown highlights and dark ticking, and sat on a stone nearby placing the arrow I'd taken with him into my quiver. The sun now waning behind me crested the goldenrod to the west as if it was on fire, and I looked for the steel-eyed marsh hawk I'd seen earlier and wondered if he'd found his dinner as well. Picking up the rabbit, I carried it carefully down the small ridge to my grandparents' yard. This was my first wild game taken with a bow, and the moment of that connection and learning curve flooded me with emotions. It was more emotional than I could have ever imagined, and my mind raced with excitement and accomplishment as I went over the events of the afternoon in my mind. I could not wait to tell my father of the hunt and the events I'd witnessed as well. As the day closed, I was still lost in the fields behind me, the colors, the wildlife, and the scents of autumn. The following day we arrived at my other grandmother's, and I was bursting for the two-hour drive to tell my success and details of the hunt, and I leapt from the car to relay to my father what had transpired. After a few minutes, a relative nearby stopped me and said, It's just a rabbit, Grant. It stopped me for that moment, of course, but I always wondered if that relative just did not understand I was speaking about the entire process of that hunt. Not just the kill, but all of the events, the atmosphere, and the day's hunt itself. And it seemed to me in my teenage years that that uncle in question was trying to discount the events and the significance of them, and of course the rabbit as well, and my experience. My father shook his head and continued to listen to me and asked me again about the hunt while we headed out later that day to drift streamers and eggflies to Eager Steelhead. I will never forget him wanting to hear every detail again. And I'm sure I talked about it at length many more times and recounted it and its details more than I can recall. It is more than just a rabbit, my father said to me after a few quiet moments on the way home the next day. I know, Dad, I replied. And that's all he ever said about that comment. Years later on social media, I recently congratulated a well-known bow hunter on a wild turkey taken with traditional gear, a feat that is no easy task, and one I wholly embrace with my recurve every spring and fall when I get the chance. In fact, you could say wild turkeys have become the rabbit teacher of my youngest daughter's bow hunting life. And indeed, all of our children's favorite hunting pastime is wild turkeys. Moments later, the influencer responded back to my congratulations with dude, it's just a bird. I have never understood that in all my life why someone would just make a living creature whose life they have taken for food, especially in a hard manner of hunting with their traditional stick bow, into a matter of insignificance. Which begets the question of why that person hunts in the first place and why they showcase their successes as well, for likes, comments, for followers? These are questions for that individual, and I don't get it, frankly, but I will leave the question remark for you, the listener, to ponder for yourself. That hunt and the Eastern Cottontail Rabbit had taught me more about patience, awareness, stalking, still hunting, shot placement, and appreciation that day for the entire process than any other big game hunt could have at that point in my young life. It played out a process of patience and awareness that was heightened by success, but certainly not just about taking the rabbit. I will say I feel strongly about the connection I make when hunting, not only to the wild places itself, but to the creatures that inhabit them and my own ancestors who had to hunt and forage in order to live and survive. Indeed, the primary driver behind my own writing and efforts in my membership and mentorship programs is my hope that I can even connect those non-hunters, even if they have never picked up a bow to hunt with, to see the world of hunting, whether with a stick or string or otherwise, is something that is not a product, but as I always say, a natural process that is embedded deeply within our DNA as apex predators. I dare say if folks looked at every wild creature through that type of lens, every bird, animal, fish, insect, tree, lichen, and blade of grass would mean so much more to them. There is a fever pitch for big game hunting and big antler pursuit these days that is unparalleled. At any and all costs for youth hunters to be successful and the products that accompany that success. Immersed youth and small game pursuits. There are valued lessons that can teach one about the successes and failures and more importantly, the nuances of the process and connection to the wild spaces they live in when hunting small game. The memories and education they will make will last a lifetime and indeed make them more appreciative when pursuing big game. Don't forget to hit the link to receive our free Ethical Predator newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly with tips and advice on all things traditional bow hunting and more. You can find that link for the exclusive Traditional Bowl Hunting app and newsletter in the comments. We are so excited to announce the launch of the audiobook version of the Code of Traditional Archery, featuring an additional commentary and narrative piece at the end of each chapter with David Tetzlav, co-editor of Traditional Bull Hunter Magazine and former president of the Florida Traditional Bull Hunters. David and I get into the rabbit holes of traditional archery and bow hunting with what is a first for a bow hunting audiobook discussing important key issues in the future of traditional bow hunting as well. There is almost eight hours of bulk content, bonus as a result, and it is sure to inspire hunters and non-hunters alike. Act today and get this special. Hear the audiobook before we release it to the public. The offer ends on Friday. Be sure to hit the link in comments and get your copy today. If you haven't already, check out Compton Traditional Bull Hunters, the national traditional bull hunting organization, offering great membership benefits and ensuring the traditions of bull hunting with the stick and string is alive and well not only now, but for generations to come. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate all the positive feedback we've been getting from folks all over the world. This confirms for us the intent we have on our platform message based on the three pillars of the code of traditional archery: weapon proficiency with the stickbow, ethics to guide us on our collective journey, and conservation with stewardship in hand in order to protect the wildlife, woods, fields, and waterways we hunt as our themes are resonating. Please do take the time to leave a rating and comment if you like what you hear. Thanks for listening in. We encourage you to immerse yourself in the art of the stickbow. Shoot straight and walk with us.