Road To Recovery

It’s one of those things I believed would never happen to me, despite the obvious odds to the contrary. When a branch broke while climbing out of a morning treestand, resulting in a 30-foot fall onto hard-frozen ground, coming to with a stabbing pain radiating from my elbow through to my shoulder, my 2015 bowhunting season came to a screeching halt. 

You could say it was simply my turn, or a moment of carelessness had cost me dearly, but $17K out of pocket and four months of rehabilitation later, I was on the slow road to recovery. 

There was a spring of hunting with crossbows—three turkeys and a black bear—and the anticipation of a looming archery season compounded by the anxiety of shooting only 53 pounds of draw weight instead of my accustomed 70-plus pounds and the wide latitude of options that it affords.  

I started my Idaho fall with much trepidation, anxiety borne of new equipment limitations, and the feeling of having missed a step or two physically during recovery. Along the way, I
would learn much about myself and the capabilities of modern archery equipment.

During a May post-op check-up with my surgeon, I announced I wanted to shoot a bow again.

“Absolutely not,” said Doc. “Be patient. Be a good boy. Do your therapy and give your shoulder time to heal,” he insisted. 

After a February 28 surgery, during which a major tear to my rotator cuff, two detached tendons and four substantial muscle tears were repaired and my arm “unfrozen,” six grueling weeks in a torso-strapped arm sling and weekly physical therapy, I was beginning to feel human again. But all involved urged patience. I promised to keep things conservative. Thirty pounds to start. The surgeon relented, saying he couldn’t see the harm in it.       

Then, due to the kind of health-insurance snafus that have become all too common in the age of Obamacare, I was suddenly on my own. No more doctor checkups, no more professional therapy. 

A Diamond Archery Edge SB and its wide draw-weight latitude became part of my self-administered therapy regimen. In the beginning, shooting even 30 pounds hurt—not pulling the bow or even removing arrows from foam targets, but simply stretching to assume the standard archery-shooting-form position. The bowstring came back easily enough, but I could feel the pull in my shoulder after tucking into anchor and back-tensioning the release. After 25 or 30 shots my shoulder throbbed. But it felt good to shoot again—real good. 

I shot every other day all summer, a day to build up, a day to heel. But 30 pounds left much to be desired, shafts lobbing into the target and sticking into layered foam with something less than authority. I was anxious to add more weight, felt I could easily handle it but forced myself, as doctors and physical therapists had advised, to remain patient. So I added a single turn to each limb bolt every two weeks, no more, no sooner. By June I was up to 41 pounds and felt I could tackle big game. Still, when confronted by an opportunity to bowhunt spring bear late in the month, I grabbed a crossbow. 

I had transitioned through a couple weight bumps by mid-August, hitting 53 pounds. I ordered arrows spined for such draw weight; .400 deflection instead of the .340s and .300s I already owned. Arrow flight became cleaner and speed improved. Shafts were sinking home with authority. My confidence began to return.     

By mid-July, I’d hung a bevy of trail cams, picking up a scattering of bucks around secreted water and more obvious food sources. By mid-August, I’d have a couple bucks named and targeted against northern Idaho’s August 30 archery opener. My early season ambitions always involve velvet whitetail antlers. 

During that summer, I redoubled efforts, scouting new areas and developing new stand sites, my physical insecurities steeling my resolve. 

By August 25, I had two bucks in my sights, “Browbeater,” a clean 5×5 with an extra 12-inch beam/brow growing from his left base, and “Split-Beam,” a non-typical with 145ish (if doubled) right antler and double-beamed, twin-forked left. 

There were other bucks warranting further investigation, a couple gaggers, but these two had proven most reliable in terms of regular daytime appearances. Both were appearing beneath an isolated and ancient feral apple tree I’d babied back to health (pruning, fertilizing, mulching) through three years of effort. It’s my favorite stand—and not only because I’ve killed a notable buck there before. It’s also a place that’s far from assured, proving tricky to get into undetected, and requiring a specific wind that’s fairly unusual during early season. 

But 2016 was an unusual year, including early rains and the cooling temperatures that accompany welcomed moisture. In the course of a normal September I generally receive but a few shots at that spot; betraying winds more often keeping me away.

Painful experience had taught me not to step foot in that area unless the wind is absolutely perfect—straight out of the east or southeast—rare bearings during early seasons, more common during November, when cold winds blow straight out of Montana.

By September 4, the weather had allowed three morning sits, but the targeted bucks (always traveling with respective cohorts) had not appeared. 

The Labor Day holiday changed everything. Two years earlier a ladder stand had appeared near that apple tree, situated perfectly wrong for any conceivable Inland Northwest wind.
It belonged to a friend of the landowner’s Forest Gumpish grandson; driving home yet again that slowly gathered hunting intel is best kept to yourself. I’d given the ladder-man little thought, as he seldom appeared until the November rut. But it soon became apparent everything I casually related to my farmer friend was being funneled through his grandson and directly into the ears of ladder-man. Word of big bucks had likely encouraged an early appearance. 

Meitin evaluates a buck photographed on one of the 30 trail cameras he relies on to track deer movement in his hunting area.

I eventually met ladder-man while checking trail cameras one afternoon and implored caution. I offered my own stand (asking only that he sit during proper winds) and telephone number so we wouldn’t show up on the same day. I offered alternatives, also my stands. I thought this better than occupying his naively positioned perch under any conditions. The longer we talked, the more defiant he grew, no doubt believing it was all a diversion scheme so I could secure Browbeater for myself.   

Put in the simplest and most polite terms possible, this contentious spit-dribbler remained through the Labor Day weekend, sitting on his ladder on winds not suited to even my precisely positioned stand. A week later, the trail camera that had been picking up a dozen bucks daily was failing to capture even a single doe. 

I’d been hunting this spot long enough to have blown it out myself on several occasions, bumping deer during dark morning entrances, sitting it on questionable winds. Like I said, it’s a sensitive spot. Bump a buck there just once and they seem to pass the word along and the place is summarily abandoned. 

This past hair-pulling frustration had inspired some deep pondering and careful investigation into backup options in the immediate vicinity. That year, those bucks were stuck into their routine a tad more solidly, feeding by night on a pea field three quarters of a mile to the west, only stopping by that apple tree for desert or hors d’oeuvres, according to the hour, though mornings had provided the only usable winds. A stand maybe 400 yards to the south of the apple tree site became my best-guess alternative for a viable morning hunt.

It was approaching 9 a.m. and I was beginning to write off the morning—maybe my entire season—as another wash, though a couple passing does and smaller bucks convinced me my backup stand was sound enough. I began to contemplate work when movement through a clump of trees snapped me out of my reverie. Three sets of antlers! And then the bigger shock, Split-Brow, his antlers disappointingly wet red and free of velvet.

These bucks appeared nervous, circling to carefully scent-check their route—a precaution no doubt inspired by ladder-man and his stupidly positioned stand. I’d also captured a mountain lion on that apple-tree camera on occasion. 

Split-Brow and his two cohorts—nice bucks in their own right—moved toward the edge of my scent stream, which in my mind I could see as a definite demarcation. I was cursing silently when they seemed to settle, backing away, circling deflecting brush, hopping the fence and crossing into my shooting lane. 

I hit full draw, feeling my stiff, until-now inactive shoulder stretching with a twinge of pain. The buck paused, shot his head over his shoulder and turned slightly toward me. I had just settled into the shot but now the angle was all wrong. I was forced to hold the Hoyt Defiant 34 at bay, my shoulder slowly tightening. The buck looked forward again, took a step, improving the angle slightly. The arrow was away nearly subconsciously. 

That arrow disappeared high and behind his shoulder, angling down and rearward and suddenly I feared I’d not waited long enough. The buck had still been angled to me slightly, though I was relieved to see the arrow swallowed by deer hide.

Shooting only 53 pounds had made me question the chisel-tip broadhead, but they flew true and obviously those reservations had just proved unwarranted. 

I bided my time. In that half-hour, two more small bucks appeared, and then coming across the CRP separating the wooded edge I guarded and the distant pea field where these deer spent their nights, four more bucks appeared. Browbeater was among them. 

Suddenly I harbored dilutions of filling both my Idaho tags—resident general and non-resident leftover—in a single morning, but then banished the thought, reminding myself buck No.1 was not yet accounted for. My two selves argued between mentally preparing for a bad hit and a long day of tedious recovery and assuring myself the buck was lying dead just beyond where he’d melted into brush.

I needn’t have worried on either account. Browbeater and friends circled well out of range and past my position and soon were producing blasting snorts. I was pretty sure I knew why. I waited 30 more minutes for those bucks to clear and walked straight to my downed buck. 

The author had named this 4½-year-old buck “Split-Beam” because of his odd right antler. The buck had rubbed off his velvet only hours before, his antlers still wet with blood.

Grabbing an antler for a better look, my hand came away blood-stained. My dream of a velvet buck would have to wait another season, but I was beyond thrilled to have brought a previously targeted buck in hand, and reenter the world of “real” bowhunting once more. 

Note: The author was completely satisfied with the performance of his Diamond Archery Edge SB, New Archery Products Thunderhead Razor broadhead and Bloodsport Evidence arrows. 

This article originally appeared in the 2019 November/December issue of Sporting Classics magazine.