I like keynote speaker Shane Mahoney’s comment made at this fall’s Bear Banquet at the Augusta Civic Center. He said that the next time you get in a discussion with a non-hunter, remind him of this: “We all come from a long line of successful hunters.” In other words, it was our forefathers’ skill as meat gatherers that kept the lineage moving forward.

Modern hunting has taken some surprising turns, however.

If you go back 25,000 years, our ancestors hunted with a bow and arrow. Along the evolutionary track, these hunters developed ever-improving weaponry for the hunt. After the longbow came crossbows, and then came generations of firearms that underwent their own remarkable technological evolution.

Today, in an amazing reversal of that evolution of the hunter’s tools of the trade, more and more modern hunters are going to great lengths to turn back the clock. They are smitten with the idea of hunting with increasingly primitive weapons. Whether going afield with a flintlock, a longbow, or a blackpowder pistol, the attraction is pretty straightforward. The more primitive the weapon, the more the hunter “raises the bar” when it comes to fair chase in his pursuit of wild game.

A longtime admirer of accomplished bow hunters, I decided a few years ago to “go primitive.” Blackpowder was a good step backward in time, but hunting with a bow would take me way back, connecting me somehow with those ancient hunters whose success, or lack of, determined their very survival. Alright, maybe it sounds corny or melodramatic, but this appetite for antiquity is what moves a lot of people these days whether its restoring an 18th-century home, or replicating a New Bedford whaling boat.

It struck me that taking a wary whitetail with a .270 Winchester and a 4x Leupold scope was one thing; hunting down a deer with a bow was quite another. Perhaps these words from Jesse Hardin explain the attraction:

“After all, a bow would bring him closer to the quarry in a deliberate act as intimate as making love and as intimate as blood. He would revel in the holy connective moment, that second when the four legged becomes conscious of the price it will pay for its inattention and the two legged assumes responsibility for its intentional demise.”

A few years ago my wife Diane and I purchased compound bows. We practiced and practiced and practiced. And we were both pleased and surprised by the incredible accuracy of compounds bows, especially from 20 yards or so. Last winter I bow hunted a deer-rich, bow-hunting only area in rural Maryland. From a groundstand camo tent, I saw a number of deer, but they were out of range. The last day, two respectable does grazed on the honeysuckle so close to my groundstand that I could detect the closest deer’s eyelashes. Reaching for the bow, which was on a bow holder beside me, I hamhandedly unnocked the arrow, which fell to the ground. The deer departed before I could get it together.

This October Diane, and I spent a week bow hunting the same area in Maryland. We saw lots of deer. In five days, neither of us released an arrow. But we had fun. This is pastoral countryside with endless stretches of rolling cornfields, hedgerows and hardwood bottomlands. It’s easy country to hunt. You can sit comfortably in a treestand for hours without being driven back to the ground by bone-chilling cold and harsh winds.

During our hunt week, Diane on two occasions watched some Carroll County whitetails putting on the feedbag at the edge of a rolling cornfield. The large does never came within bow range, but the moments of anticipation and promise kept her interest high and her adrenaline pumping.

As for me, the one encounter I had with deer near the treestand more than compensated for the slower moments earlier in the week. This particular afternoon there was a light mix of drizzle and mist. From my treestand, I watched Canada Geese working a corn field off to my right. Undetected by me at first, four deer entered the field amid the drizzle off to my left. Like apparitions, they suddenly were just there. But they were out of range at about 40 yards. Instead of doing what I should have done ( drawn my bow string), I began shopping for the best deer. Hmmm, I said, rubbing my chin and silently conversing with myself. The farthest one is the biggest. No, no, I think that they are all of a size. Guess I better just look for the best heart-lung shot and take it. Longer shot than I’d like. Oops, this is the one. It’s coming down the path within range. Better get the bow up and drawn. Slowly, slowly….

Yep, I got busted, as they say on the Outdoor Channel. The second I started to raise the bow, my intended froze in its tracks and looked up at me. I froze, too. There was a brief staredown. This young deer was smart for its age. There was something about my looks, or my smell that this critter found offensive. Another look, a warning snort, and it was bound from whence it came taking the other three deer back to safety.

As a novice bowhunter, this was my second botched encounter with a deer within range. For some reason my mistakes and lost opportunities didn’t eat away at me the way that these same mistakes did when made as a beginning rifle hunter. It may have something to do with the increased level of intimacy and proximity that is part and parcel of bow hunting. I wanted that deer, but I only wanted it if conditions were right for the cleanest kill that could be made.

The lesson I learned from my second encounter was clear: if you see deer, draw that bow. After all, that’s the whole purpose of a compound bow with its advantage of letoff. If the deer does not move within shooting range, so be it. You can always unpower the bow, and await another draw opportunity.

Diane and I came back from our Maryland bow hunt with a new enthusiasm for this kind of hunt. We’ll go back to Maryland, but we’ll also be in our Maine treestands early next fall. We have a long way to go as bow hunters. Bow hunting deer, we discovered, is not as easy as it looks. As Diane said to me as we drove home along the Delaware Water Gap and talked about our hunt, “This bow hunting is a challenge. It gives new meaning to the term fair chase.”

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].