I haven’t taken any deer yet but hope to this October

3 cameras have been up for almost a week,have 3 bucks so far this one is the best looking so far .

Took part in my local leagues 3D tourament. Had an excellent turn out with over 20 trad shooters. Fortunate enough to take 1st in mens trad out of 16 shooters.

I finally had an opportunity to hunt my friends property. Goal was to take a bear. I arrived around 3pm. Replenished the bait. Parked the truck and made my way back to the stand. I was barely settled into the tree when two black bears emerged from the bush line. Not ten minutes from my arrival. Both walked directly at my location. The bigger boar came around a tree and gave me a quartering away shot. I came to full draw, loosed an arrow. I was able to see it enter behind the shoulder. Unfortunately I also saw that it had hit the far shoulder blade. As the bear ran it snapped off the wooden shaft. I waited an hour before getting down to check the arrow. Good penetration and immediate blood so was under the impression I got the heart. I’ve had instances where it took many yards before blood made it through the fat and hide. Causing tracking to be difficult until it had soaked through. The property owner had seen the bears on his trail camera as he gets immediate notification of movement and messaged me to see if I was successful. I said I had a good shot. He mentioned he would there to help with the recovery. As we got to tracking he mentioned this should be a quick recovery based on the amount of blood and how it looked. I respect his opinion as he is a great hunter and guide. We tracked the bear for three hours finally losing the blood trail. I crawled around at the last spot we found blood but was not successful in acquiring the blood again. We expanded our grid, increasing the circling without success. The bear seemed to lead us further and further into thick brush and blow down. Reflecting on the shot, everything was perfect. Only thing I can think of is the bear vitals sit further back than a whitetail. I may have been too far forward and only got one lung. I’m going back tomorrow to continue the search.

This past weekend we celebrated my dad and mentors 84th bday. We shot with my oldest son and had a great time. My father’s been shooting a bow since he was very young and going on almost 77 years with a bow in his hand. Always a student first (a quality hammered into me all my life) he took out his Ken Beck era MAII black widow and shot it until his longbows called his name. He shot all 5 of his longbows after that. Toelkes, Howard Hill ASLs and others. If a family member kicked off your own hunting journey- share in the comments! Cheers and happy weekend to all!! - Grant