Hunting with the Bow & Arrow

by Saxton T. Pope

"We got all this and many comic antics of young bears climbing trees and playing about by using a telephoto lens. After the camera man was satisfied I proposed that we 'pull off' a 'stunt' with the bow.

"By good fortune we saw four bears coming down the mountain side to fish. They were making their way slowly through an open valley. The camera was stationed at a commanding point and I ran up a dry wash thickly grown with willow and alder to head off the bears. I was able to get within a hundred yards by use of the willow cover, then the brush became too thin to hide me, so I walked boldly out into the open to meet the bears. I practically invited them to charge since they were reputed to be so easily insulted. At first they paid little attention to me, then the two in advance sat up on their haunches in astonishment and curiosity. I approached to a distance of fifty yards, then the largest brownie began champing his jaws and growling; then he 'pinned back his ears' preparing to come at me. Just as he was about to lunge forward I shot him in the chest. The arrow went deep and stuck out a foot beyond his shoulder. He dropped on all fours and before he could make up his mind what hit him, I shot him again in the flank. This turned him and feeling himself badly wounded he wheeled about and ran. While this was going on an old female also stood in a menacing attitude, but as the wounded bear galloped past her, she came to the ground and ran diagonally from us. All of them followed suit, and as they swept out of the field of vision the wounded bear weakened and fell less than a hundred yards from the camera.

"True to his standards the camera man continued to grind out the film to the very last, so the whole picture is complete. You will see it some day for yourself and it will answer all doubts about the invulnerable status of the Kadiac bears."

Young himself was not particularly elated over this conquest. He knew long ago that the Kadiac bear was no more formidable than the grizzlies we had slain and he only undertook this adventure for show purposes. Moreover though he used his heavy osage orange bow and usual broad-heads, he declares that he believes he can kill the largest bear in Alaska with a fifty pound weapon and proportionately adjusted arrows. Both Young and I are convinced of the necessity of very sharp broad-heads, and trust more to a keen blade and a quick flight than to power.

During his Alaskan travels Art preferred his Osage bows to the yew. They stood being dragged over rocks and falling down mountain sides better than the softer yew wood. His three bows were under five feet six inches in length, short for convenience and each pulled over eighty-five pounds. The country in which he worked was so rocky that it was most disastrous on arrows, and every shot that missed meant a shattered shaft.

Possibly his roughest trip was one taken to picture mountain goats. Here a funny incident occurred. Jack and Art were stalking a herd of these wary creatures with the camera when suddenly around a point of rock the whole band of goats appeared. Art was ahead and had only just time enough to duck down on his hands and knees and hide his face close to the ground. He stayed so still that the entire flock passed close by him almost touching his body, while the camera man did his work from a concealed ledge higher up. Though Young counts it little to his credit, he shot one of these male goats, which was poised on so precipitous a point that it fell over and over down the mountain side and was lost as a trophy and as camp meat. Humiliating as such an episode may be, it serves, however, to add a coup to the archer's count. And there we let the matter rest.

But what is of greater interest is his outwitting a Rocky Mountain Big Horn. This animal is considered the greatest game trophy in America. It is an extremely alert sheep, all eyes and wisdom. If you expose yourself but a second, though you be a mile away from the ram, probably you will be seen. And though the sheep may not move while you look at him, he is gone when you have completed your toilsome climb and peer over the last ledge of rock preparatory to shooting. Ned Frost used to say that when he hunted Big Horns he paid no attention to hearing or smell, but he was so careful about sight, that when he raised his head cautiously over a ridge to observe the sheep, he always lifted a stone and peered underneath it, or picked up a bunch of grass and gazed through it.

Most hunters are content to stalk this game within three or four hundred yards, then aim at it with telescopic sights. It is the last word in good hunting.

Stewart Edward White, the author and big game hunter, has said that the following experience is one of the finest demonstrations of stalking and understanding of animal psychology he knows.