It's been a fairly epic year here in ol south dakota. I have taken a few goats with a compound bow and several with a a rifle but this year I sold all my compound related gear and dived into traditional archery. From mothers day through hunting season I shot my bow every single day, getting into the nuances of building and tuning arrows, getting broadheads so sharp they'll cut you just looking at them, and building confidence out to 40 yards. I also built a bunch of antelope decoys out of old archery targets and skull caps from a couple smaller bucks I had killed in years passed. Long story short, 2 days into our rut hunt, I slipped an arrow over the back of one of my decoys and through the heart of a beautiful buck that was trying to steal my foam does. I cannot ever remember being more jacked up after a kill like I was that day. My motor skills were gone, I couldn't get the zipper on my ground blind to open so I flipped the entire thing off the ground and sent it blowing across the prairie. You'll notice my blue chair and decoys in the background but a noticeable lack of a ground blind. The only rifle tag I drew this year was a west river any deer tag and my dad also had drawn the same unit. We camped out on a friend of ours place for a week and we both managed to put down our biggest deer to date. Mine green scored at 172" and the old man's was in the mid 180"s. The cherry on top was a late November trip out west in which I punched another archery tag with the recurve with a beautiful heavy horned whitetail buck. I still have two archery tags left and the weather is getting warmer here in Eastern SD so fingers crossed that I'll get some more time in the tree stand but if not, I can't complain. It's been a fantastic year and I already can't wait for next year.
