Enjoying the story!    

the 8pt always with Sly, he didn't mind the cameras at all.

notice his abnormal brow tines... i think we will see them again!

It was the 8th of October and our New York archery season was 7 glorious days away and I was shooting my longbow at camp every time I could get there which was plenty.  
camp was ready and I was having a hard time waiting.

I was taking some more challenging shots at camp on the morning of October 8th... using trees and brush imitating hunting situations and blind set ups on the ground. I came back slowly to anchor and ... BAM! POW! My longbow delaminated! really?! I called Dan on his lunch break at work and asked him if he wanted to meet me at the archery shop after work? I all ready had camp packed up. Being a better brother he didn't even laugh

Hes a beauty, they both are.I really like that elkish brow tine. Didnt our season open 10/01 last year?

my PSE with the arrow where it ended up after the limb broke at full draw.

The same day my PSE broke I left the archery shop with a new longbow... but one I didn't expect. We were shooting a number of them that evening and Roy pointed to a 56" Cascade R/D longbow 50# @28. I didn't like the looks of it, to short! He said "go shoot it though" so we did and i never let it go again lol I was amazed how smooth it was and no hand shock like the PSE i was shooting. For somewhere around $500 I made it out of the shop with a longbow I couldn't stop looking at, a really cool EFA 4 arrow quiver, and a set of camo slip on limb skins.

The new Cascade did a good job picking up where the PSE had left off but the season was around the corner...

 

15 October 2011 bow opened none to soon and for me it was back and forth compound and longbow depending on wind direction, spot and setup. I wanted to shoot my first traditional deer on the ground, it just seemed fitting to me. I had an uncle Bud that for a lot of years was the hardest hunter I knew. He hunted a lot on the ground, in the middle of the day, sneaking here and there on the prowl. In later years he would show up at camp unannounced at noon to find all of us sitting around playing poker and laughing. He would give us a look and say " You can't kill your buck from camp!" We wouldn't miss the opportunity to inform him we didn't need all day long to kill our buck like him! "Ya right" he smiled, "where is he then?" He has since passed from cancer but his ethics and appreciation for hunting the hard way made a lasting impression beyond his actual years in the field. When he was sick in the hospital I spent a good amount of time with him because I worked there as a registered nurse. He said he had a book for me and one day during a visit he handed it to me. I opened the hard cover book and fanned the pages looking quickly between them. What struck me the most was the page after page of underlining and highlighting arrows to here and there. To him the book was not light reading but a heartfelt study a passionate guide very relevant to how he spent his days afield. I held his original hardcover copy of Howard Hills " Hunting The Hard Way" I didn't read it all then but appreciated it then for what it meant to him. I have read it more than twice so far today!

thanks for reading and the comments guys, sorry for the photo mistakes, learning as I go. Thanks Jim

Great story so far. I can't wait for the rest.  I would resize those photos!

This is kinda fun!  Good job...  Love the moral support you gave your brother... Perfect!

 

I don't know those two photos confused me. thats why the double post, they say 110x110 so why so big?

My first real chance at a traditional harvest came 19 October 2011 in this set up...
to the left 45 deg

to the right 45deg