Hunting Season Is Right Around The Corner!

So this coming Wednesday, October 1, debuts the opening of archery season in Oklahoma. Every night I go to sleep I remind myself of this fact, and every morning I wake up I am one day closer to that day. I bought my very own compound bow this summer and have been working on getting my draw weight up--it needs to be at least 40 lbs. before it will actually do any real damage.

For those of you completely unfamiliar with the incredible sport that is bow hunting, let me help you. Compound bows look like super cool death-weapons, and technically they are. I bought a Bear Apprentice 2, which is basically a bow for youth and small-frame women hunters. It is crazy small. And insanely light. I love it.

This was taken the night I got my bow, hence the haphazard photo, excess packaging, and messy bedclothes in the background. Brand spanking new and utterly gorgeous. It was love at first sight, really. Love that started the instant I saw the beautiful piece of work on the Cabela's website. Anyway. Enough about my baby.
Draw weight refers to how much poundage you're pulling back when you draw the bow. I actually thought that because I could lift forty pounds that pulling back forty would be no problem at all. I was sorely mistaken.

It has taken me since the beginning of May to get myself to where I am now. At 43 lbs. Compared to pretty much every body, this is a ridiculously low draw weight. Regardless of this fact, I am proud of myself for coming this far. I even have little tiny biceps that Ryne likes to make fun of.
There is also what is a called a bow sight, and pins within said bow sightt. The bow sight houses the pins, which mark certain distances. When aiming the bow, you look through the sight and line up the right pin depending on the distance of the target.

Those coloured lines? Those are the pins. The plastic circle around it is the bow sight. For me, I have tuned the bow for green to be ten yards, yellow is 15, and red is 20. Red is kind of iffy though, since I haven't really worked on it. Don't worry, there wasn't an arrow nocked when this photo was taken.

Very little excites me quite like hunting season does. When fall weather started to trickle in, I felt the excitement building inside me, and at first I didn't know what I was so excited about. The weather was nice? I wasn't sweating like crazy walking from the parking lot to the school? Ryne kindly informed me that my brain already associated this wonderful weather with being out in the treestand. He was very, very right. There isn't anything quite like being in a stand in the daytime.

There is so much more to hunting than getting to mess around with compound bows and guns, shooting deer and taking trophy photos. A lot of people seem to miss one of the greatest things about hunting, and that's getting to be out in nature in a way that lets you experience it in a completely new way. I'm not saying that finally having that buck you've been eyeing within shooting range isn't exciting; it's an incredible feeling. But when you are sitting in that stand, completely camouflaged, for hours, things start to forget that you're there. And that's when the magic starts.

The birds forget you're there, the bugs forget you're there, the squirrels forget you're there, all of nature seems to just absorb you into the background and you are completely invisible. Birds land in the stand right next to you, oblivious to your existence. Squirrels leap over your head, unafraid because they don't think anything is there. Birds sing, bugs make their creepy sounds, and suddenly you are experiencing the outside world exactly as it always is. This is how beautiful and musical it is when people aren't around. Normal people don't get to experience this. But hunters, we get to experience it ever year, for a few magical months.

It's truly amazing. I wish that everyone could see that hunting isn't about getting to kill things and waving around dangerous weapons (not that that's what it was ever about, but whatever). A lot of people seem to misunderstand hunting and what the end goal is. And that's fine; they're the ones missing out.

What ever comes around, everyone can safely say that I, Cassandra, am very ready for next week to roll around.

"Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me."

Genesis 27:3