Free Book Excerpts

Join Mike on over 20 action-packed bowhunts for whitetail, mule deer, bear, moose, pronghorn, alligator and a wide range of African plains game. It will take your breath away.

Excerpt

FOREWARD

GOOD WRITING is easier to recognize than it is to create. Beyond the discipline and talent necessary to transform random ideas into specific words, there must be an innate desire to share. Successful writers say, “Listen up. Tag along while I tell you about something that matters to me. Hang around and maybe you’ll understand just why it should matter to you, too.”

Good writers evoke dreams. But on the more practical side they also inform and instruct. Subtly or overtly. And in the end they offer much for their readers to reflect on.

Quality writing comes gift wrapped in a variety of packaging. Fat books and lean magazines. Organizational newsletters and club periodicals. Even in personal journals not really intended for readership beyond the author and his family. However it is ultimately presented, this is a permanent gift of meaningful personal experiences that may enthrall millions or a mere covey of curious grandchildren. It says, “This is what I did. This is who I am.”

So I was especially pleased when my friend Mike Lamade mentioned his plans to publish a collection of his bowhunting stories. In the firrst place, while Mike is no professional writer, he’s a very good writer whose huntin’ articles have appeared in Bowhunter magazine since both of us had much darker facial hair and a lot less middle-age spread. And, speaking candidly, I’ve long admired Mike’s lengthy involvement and visionary leadership in bowhunting at the local, state, and national levels. The United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania, the Pope & Young Club, and Bowhunter are only three organizations that have benefited from Mike’s enthusiastic commitment.

If my time-dimmed memory serves me correctly, more than two full decades have passed since Mike sent me his firrst bowhunting adventure for possible publication. A how-to elk calling story, it required little of my professional editing skills to prep the piece for printing. More importantly, it “flowed,” which is editor-speak for “readable.”

Starting with that first Mike Lamade elk tale, various features included exciting hunts for black bear, whitetail deer, gobblers, moose, mule deer, and African game. Additionally, over the years there was a smattering of practical how-to scouting and shooting advice, plus solid personal examples of how readers benefit from the stick-to-it-ive-ness that all good bowhunters must possess.

Perhaps it’s partly Mike’s background as a professional educator. Perhaps it’s his God-given storytelling ability. Or maybe a combination of both. Whatever it is, Mike has a knack for enriching his readers’ experience.

I, for one, know that Mike Lamade writes things I want to read. That’s why I’m happy that he’s finally put together this book containing some of his “good stuff.” Check out the following pages and you’ll soon enjoy the pleasure of Mike’s company as much as I do.

M.R. James Bowhunter Magazine Founder/Editor Emeritus

PREFACE

The Adventure Begins

It’s hard for me to recall a time when a bow and arrow weren’t part of my life. As a kid of 6 growing up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, I remember when my aunt gave me a bow. She had brought it back from a cross-country trip to Yellowstone Park, which in those days was a major journey. The year was 1941. That bow became one of my most prized possessions, as I was sure it had belonged to Crazy Horse or Cochise.

Later, my family moved to Kingston, Pennsylvania, and various bows passed through my hands as I entered my teenage years. Some we made ourselves, authentic sticks and strings. We shot at paper targets, stumps, and an occasional bullfrog or ground-hog. I remember seeing Howard Hill movies at Saturday matinees, and sometimes the adventures of Fred Bear appeared as a short on the big screen. There was no bowhunting season in Pennsylvania in those days. The first season wasn’t until 1951.

After high school, I spent four years at Syracuse University as a music major, graduating in 1956. Jim Brown, the great All-American fullback, was a year behind me. He once told me he was sorry he couldn’t see the band perform at halftime!

The bow and arrow gathered dust for the next decade or so, as graduate school, a career in education, marriage and starting a family left little room for other pursuits.

However, while I was serving as a New Jersey high school band director in 1964, friend and fellow teacher Andy Shelton invited me to a meeting of the Eastern Bowmen. They were a newly formed bowhunting group from the south Jersey area. Dedicated and avid bowmen, they had access to prime hunting land in northeastern Pennsylvania and every Friday afternoon in October began with us pointing our vehicles north for the 200-mile trip to Wayne County in hopes of getting a shot at a whitetail.

We used many a sick day to get an early start on those weekend hunts. However, we once made the big mistake of putting our “hero” picture in the local paper after a successful weekend and were called into the office of the Superintendent to explain our “sickness”. A few venison steaks helped diminish his wrath.

By the mid-eighties, the kids were grown, the house was paid for, and I had the chance to experience my first hunt out West. It was an elk hunt in Colorado and I killed a 6×6 bull on my first try. I was hooked. After that I hunted in either the West or a Canadian province every year. By the end of the ’90s, I had managed to hunt most of the western states and all of the Canadian provinces with my bow.

On a whim after killing that elk in 1985, I wrote the story, “Turkey Tactics for Bugling Bulls” and sent it in to Bowhunter magazine, a publication I devoured when each issue hit my mailbox.

I couldn’t believe it when I received a letter from editor M.R. James saying he would like to buy my story. Thus began a 20- year friendship with M. R. and Bowhunter that continues today. I began reading the works of Ruark, Hemingway, and Capstick, and was captivated with their writing style and storytelling technique.

In 1991 I attended the Pope & Young Convention in Seattle with my good friend Jody Maddock, who at the time was President of the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania. The grand prize of the convention was a hunt with Angus Brown Safaris in South Africa. A woman in a cocktail dress visited the tables with “last chance to buy a ticket to hunt Africa.” Jody bought another book of tickets. I said, “No, I bought enough.” Jody won the hunt. We were seated at separate tables, and I yelled, “I’m sleeping with that guy!” Five hundred heads turned in my direction as I corrected the statement to: “I mean he’s my roommate.” Two years later I joined Jody on my first trip to Africa.

Thus began an eight-year relationship with Angus Brown. It was perfect. The African hunting season is in June, July and August, just great for a U.S. school teacher with the summer off. I represented Angus at seminars and shows in the States in exchange for some hunting time in South Africa. This relationship resulted in the stories in this collection: “Kudu Moon”, “The Gemsbok Tree”, and “Something of Value”, and about 20 mounts on my trophy room wall.

Because of Maddock, I got involved with the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania. I became a member, a county representative, moved up to vice-president, and became president after Jody’s tenure expired. Upon retiring from teaching, I was hired as Executive Director of the UBP, a position I held for eight years before retiring from the UBP in 2005. I now spend winters on the golf course in Florida, occasionally bowhunting for wild pigs or alligators to keep the aging bow eye sharp (see ‘Gator Aid’ story in this book).

Looking back on it all, I remember telling M. R. James at the first Professional Bowhunters Society gathering in Ohio in 1986 that my goal was to someday become a regular masthead contributor to Bowhunter magazine. In 2000 my dream came true. It’s one of my most cherished achievements. Perhaps equal in value is the letter I just received informing me I had been accepted as a senior member of the Pope & Young Club, the certificate signed by M. R. James, current President of Pope & Young.

This collection of bowhunting adventures is a culmination of my stories that have appeared in Bowhunter since 1985, a span of over 20 years. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did living them and writing them. Good Bowhuntin’!

Mike Lamade

June, 2006

I looked at my watch. It was only 9:30. We had found my bull, quartered him, packed him out and had him in the locker plant in only two hours. The next stop was the general store in Mesa to tell Bill Law the good news. Some more pictures at the ranch were in order and then we were off to Grand Junction and Artcraft Taxidermy, owned and operated by Joe Biggins. Looking at some of the work in his shop, I felt confident he would do a good job with the mount. He did a rough measurement of the rack and felt it had a good chance to make the Pope & Young Record Book.

It was over. Almost three weeks had gone by from the time I left home on Labor Day. It was time to head back. I had over 200 pounds of prime elk meat frozen and packed in dry ice as I pulled my truck out of Mesa on Sunday, Sept. 23.

The 2,000 miles back home were a breeze, and I relived the entire adventure over and over as the Interstate miles clicked by. I had proven that Pennsylvania turkey tactics really do work for bugling in big Colorado bulls. I knew that the next May, when a big gobbler would salute the dawn behind my house, my thoughts would return to a Colorado mountain where a dream came true.

This was my first attempt at outdoor writing. I submitted the story to M. R. James, Editor of Bowhunter magazine, shortly after my Colorado elk hunt in 1984. It was published in the August/September issue of Bowhunter in 1985. It was my first hunt out west, and my first published story.

FIFTY/FIFTY

From “Birthday Blues” to Smiling Success

I should have been excited. It was the night before the opening of the 1984 Pennsylvania late bow season(an event that usually gets my adrenaline pumping. But I wasn’t excited)I felt depressed.

The fire in the wood stove crackled and spit as I sat alone and listened to a howling northwest wind roar through the big beech outside my home.

Post-holiday blues, I thought to myself, for Christmas had just passed. Everyone feels a natural letdown, I told myself, but I wasn’t very convincing. I knew there was another factor involved. The next day was my birthday, my 50th.

Fifty! A half-century, damn! Like they say, “time sure fliies when you’re havin’ fun, and raising kids, pursuing careers, paying mortgages. “It’s just another birthday,” I said aloud. “Snap out of it.”

Deciding perhaps that the TV would help, I found myself in the middle of “The A-Team.” Great, this should do the trick. During a commercial break, the surgeon general announced, “if you’re over 50, here are the danger signs you should watch for.” I turned off the TV. The A-Team always comes out on top anyway.

I turned my thoughts to the next day’s late season opener and my unused tag. We’re only allowed one deer, either sex and my tag was still good as I’d been holding out for a nice buck during the regular season in October. I’d taken a 6×6 elk in September in Colorado and wanted a respectable whitetail to hang next to him. I hadn’t yet seen one.

I had my eye on a winter wheat field near my place since it had been planted the previous fall. A succulent green cover crop is a perfect magnet to draw winter whitetails and I had seen deer in the fields for the past week, just at dusk. Tomorrow we’ll see who’s gittin’ old, I said to myself. I felt better already, just planning the hunt.

It was too early to go to bed. I decided to try the TV again. Good! A Bert Reynolds movie. Too bad it’s not “Deliverance.” That would really get me psyched for a bowhunt.

Commercial break: “If you’re over 50, write to the AARP to get your free brochure on the high cost of health care.” Unbelievable! It must be a conspiracy of some sort, I said to myself. I turned off the TV and went to bed.

The next morning(my 18,000th to be exact)a two-inch snowfall covered the ground. It was perfect for locating runs leading to the green fields. After a leisurely breakfast I headed for the target area to put up my portable stand. Within minutes I discovered a heavy run in the fresh snow. It entered a back corner of the field. Following it into the woods, I found that it led to a hemlock thicket about a quarter mile away, a natural bedding area. Don’t get too close!

I hung my stand in a maple 15 yards above the run. If the wind stayed the same, the deer would have to pass me before getting my scent. I’d have to rely on being completely motionless, because I had no cover in the bare tree. I headed home, confident that I’d have action later in the afternoon.

After lunch I took a shower to eliminate as much human scent as possible. I considered using some type of cover scent to mask any remaining giveaway odors, but decided not to. There were no pine trees nearly, the apples and acorns were gone, and the rut was over. Although many hunters swear by them, I hadn’t had much luck using cover or attractor scent, however, I’m always experimenting.

I remember a few years ago when a spike buck got a nose full of skunk scent I had put out near my stand. That deer could have won first prize as the best “buckin’ bronc” at the Cheyenne rodeo. He jumped stiff-legged, straight up in the air, then ran in a circle snorting loud enough to alert every creature within a half mile. He carried on like that for about three minutes before going back up the mountain.

I got dressed for the hunt, starting with Damart underwear, something I’m never without during cold weather. Wool pants and shirt topped off with a set of Trebark camouflage completed the outfit. I felt that this drab camo pattern would best blend in with the drab tree trunks of the winter woods.

At 3 p.m. I headed back to my spot. I’d have close to two hours, which would be plenty for this time of year. Surprisingly, it began to warm up and must have been close to 40 degrees, very unusual for this part of the state in late December.

I climbed into my stand and began to enjoy the solitude of the forest; I guess that’s one of the main reasons I bowhunt. It began to rain a light drizzle. The warm air hitting the cold snow soon produced a layer of fog that drifted mysteriously through the naked trees. It reminded me of one of Ned Smith’s beautiful wildlife prints. The only thing missing was the deer.

At 4:15 this impressionistic scenario was completed. Out of the fog they came, single file, directly on the run I had chosen. Six, eight, twelve, I counted to myself. No antlers. A big doe was in the lead, most likely the matriarch of the small herd. I knew once she passed me that she had a good chance of catching my scent and it would all be over. She kept coming down the run, only 30 yards away now, followed by the others at five-yard intervals.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder, checking on her followers. I took the opportunity to shift my position slightly and extend my 60-pound Laser magnum in the direction where I knew the shot would take place.

She began moving again down the trail. Closer and closer she came, she walked by me slowly at 15 yards. I drew, lining up the top peep and post of my Altier Bowhunting Rifle Sight on a spot tight behind the shoulder. I released, sending the Snuffer broadhead attached to a 2216 swedged Camo Hunter shaft on its way. She went down in full view within 60 yards from a well-placed shot through both lungs.

As I lowered my bow to the ground I couldn’t help but smile. Although there were no antlers, she was a special trophy to me. After 25 years of bowhunting in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, she was the 50th whitetail I’d taken with a bow. And I’d done it on my 50th birthday!

As I carefully field dressed her, I realized my depression was gone. Maybe getting older wasn’t so bad after all. You’ll just have to judge for yourself when you get there.

This story appeared in the January 1986 issue of Bowhunter magazine. Only one deer of either sex was allowed to be taken at the time, even though Pennsylvania was experiencing its highest deer population of the century.

Copyright 2008 Mike Lamade. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.