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From Karen Cranford:

For this month’s article, a dear friend of ours, Randy Mabe, has generously written an article entitled “North Carolina Master Bowhunter”. 

I hope you enjoy Randy’s article and will return frequently to read our other guest hosted columns.

                     North Carolina Master Bowhunter

By Randy Mabe

North Carolina is a beautiful state with a unique combination of rugged and remote mountains to the west, slow rolling croplands in the Piedmont and flat coastal lands meeting the ocean on the east. From west to east, a road trip by automobile will take approximately 10 hours to drive and cover 500 miles. It is a beautiful trip, but you will never really appreciate the nature of our state until you leave the concrete and asphalt behind.

In the spring of 2000 I decided to take this trip across our state, but rather than viewing it through the windshield of an automobile, I wanted to experience it in a very personal way. I wanted to touch, smell and see our  state in a way no one had ever experienced. Before my trip was complete, I would dig my hiking boots deep into the rocky soil of the Great Smoky Mountains, watch the sun come up at dawn across the northern Piedmont and crawl on hands and knees through dense undergrowth and black water swamps along our coastal plains.

My inspiration for the trip began with the love to hunt with a bow and arrow. A member of the North Carolina Bowhunter Association for many years, I often read about the exciting adventures experienced by those who embraced the awesome challenge of hunting with a primitive weapon.

It was also through the NCBA where I learned that no individual hunter had ever harvested all four big game animals in North Carolina. I knew it was a huge endeavor, but I decided to dedicate my love for bowhunting to achieving this goal.  It was a journey that would take four years to complete and leave me rich with experiences and memories that would last forever.

Turkey hunting became a passion for me in the spring of 1988. Standing alone watching the sun come up as turkeys gobble on the roost is enough to make me rise from bed each morning at 4:30 a.m. Dogwood trees are blooming, the pastures are turning from brown to green and somewhere the rising sun shines on a strutting gobbler.

 It required several years to develop the skills needed to become a competent turkey hunter and take a tom or two each season with the shotgun. But in the spring of 2001 I left the shotgun behind, determined to harvest our only big game bird with a bow and arrow.

It was often difficult to remain focused on my goal as mature gobblers came into shotgun range but not close enough for a confident bowshot. I was halfway into the season before I drew my bow and released an arrow harvesting a mature Eastern gobbler. But when it happened, it was well worth all the effort. The gobbler sported a 10 1/16-inch beard and 1 inch spurs. Although I have taken more gobblers with the bow since then, it is my most memorable turkey hunt to date.

 Archery season for whitetail deer in the Piedmont area begins around the second week in September just as the heat and high humidity begins to wane and skies turn Carolina blue. Farmers are harvesting crops and the aroma of tobacco curing in the barns can often be smelled while sitting in a treestand.  The leaves on poplar trees are turning yellow and squirrels begin cutting hickory nuts and building nests. For me, it’s a time of excitement mixed with melancholy feelings about the summer ending, knowing the arrival of bow season also means the end of another year.

In 2001, September 8 was the opening day of bow season in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. My Loc-On treestand and EZY Climb treesteps had been in place several weeks prior, leaving the area undisturbed for my opening day hunt. The beautiful buck still carried strips of velvet on his antlers as it walked into my shooting lane. My biggest trophy buck fell to one well placed arrow, but the success came from months of preparation. Preseason scouting, cutting shooting lanes months before, planting food plots and using safe and proven equipment led to me taking a N.C. monster that gross scored 147 inches and netted 135 7/8 P&Y. I was halfway on my journey to NC’s first Grand Slam and Master Bowhunter Award.

Two types of wild hogs live in North Carolina. One is the feral hog, a descendant of domestic hogs that now live in the wild, the other is the wild Russian boar found only in a few counties bordering Tennessee. It is the latter, which must be successfully hunted to acquire the N.C. Grand Slam. It is no easy task to harvest this aggressive animal that attacks with razor sharp tusks and lives in the rugged and remote mountains of western North Carolina. The wild Russian boar is a tough animal with thick, broad shoulders covered with stiff long hair. His tail grows longer than a domestic hog, hanging limp against the back of narrow hips, built for speed and endurance.

I decided my best chance to harvest this animal was in the rugged mountains of Cherokee County, hunting with an experienced houndsman. The sharply rising mountainsides of the Great Smoky Mountains are covered in cold sharp rocks and loose soil. A climb to the top behind courageous and determined hounds is a lung burning experience that ends when the hounds bring a coal black boar to bay amidst the laurel and thick rhododendron.

On December 18th, 2002 I drew my Mathews bow and released an arrow harvesting a grand N.C. wild Russian boar. The distance of the shot was 15 feet and it was a hair- raising experience to say the least. After the 60-day drying period, the skull measured 20 3/16 inches. It is currently the only wild Russian boar recorded in N.C taken with the bow and arrow.

The fourth of the big four game animals in our state is the beautiful black bear. Found in several of the western mountainous counties and along the coast, this is another animal that feeds and moves mostly at night. For this reason, it is most commonly hunted with hounds. Bears cannot be hunted over bait in N.C. and if you ask the men and women who own bear dogs why they hunt, you’ll find the answer is in their love for training and hunting the hounds. It usually takes a minimum of three years to develop a seasoned hound that has the skill and nerve to face a dangerous black bear weighing several hundred pounds.

In the winter of 2003 I hunted for bear with a group of houndsmen in Hyde County. The landscape in this part of the state is unimaginable to the vast majority of N.C. residents. Canals run waist deep with tea-stained water overflowing into shallow dark swamps.  Land around the swamps is covered by almost impenetrable vegetation consisting of head-high shrubs, vines and thick briars. Bears actually converse the jungle type landscapes by running through tunnels that are developed after years of bear travel. For the hunter it is a day of water filled boots, crawling on hands and knees, enduring cuts and bruises on arms and legs and anticipation of coming face to face with a large bruin.

On November 9th, 2003, I harvested my first black bear in N.C. with a bow and arrow. This completed the first Grand Slam recorded in N.C. and was an awesome experience. However, the bear fell short of trophy
status by a mere 7/16th of an inch (skull measurement). The Master Bowhunter Award requires harvesting a bear with skull measurement of at least 16 inches. I would have to wait until 2004 to hunt for a larger bear.

After months of research, I became a member of a bear club that hunts only trophy size bears in Onslow County. It isn’t easy however, to convince houndsmen that hunting large black bear with a bow and arrow is a sane proposition. These guys use slug shooting shotguns or large caliber rifles to harvest mature bears and aren’t accustomed to the effectiveness of broadhead tipped arrows. I was given strict guidelines to follow and would be backed by another hunter carrying a firearm- if I had the chance to go in on a mature bear.

Dense coastal undergrowth makes seeing a bear extremely difficult and drawing a bow almost impossible.  Shots are taken at distances measured in feet and the hunter must wait until the hounds are clear before squeezing the trigger or releasing an arrow. It is an intense and sometimes dangerous situation being in such close quarters with a bear that may have never before seen a human. For the houndsman, safety of his prized hounds is paramount and he will do all that is possible to prevent their harm. A wounded bear can quickly destroy a pack of hounds with his razor sharp claws and powerful jaws.

On November 16, 2004, I released an arrow that found its mark on a 300 pound black bear deep in the swamps of Onslow County. Before I could draw my Mathews bow a second time, the Rocket broad head had done its job and the bear expired in less than 5 seconds. The bear hunter backing me with a firearm was in awe at the quick killing ability of a bow and arrow. I was saying a prayer of thanks to God, knowing this was the bear I had so long waited for.

It took six men two hours to bring the large bear to the nearest road. All were soaking wet to the waist, covered with mud and smiling ear to ear. It was easy to see that even the hounds were happy. But no one was happier than I, knowing that I had just completed a bowhunter’s dream that spanned four years and the entire length of my beautiful home state.

The beauty of our state is grand and so many people will never experience it the way I have been blessed to do over the past four years. It has been a wonderful opportunity to meet a lot of sportsmen and many kind and friendly North Carolinians from the mountains to the coast.

This has also been a great opportunity to learn a lot about one’s self. Setting long term goals at high standards, with no guarantee of the outcome is risky. Sometimes we don’t do it for the fear of failure, or not wanting to hear others say, “I told you so.” But, I believe this hunting experience has helped me become a better bowhunter and a better person.

I feel strongly that everyone should set at least one big goal in life, one that seems almost impossible. Then go out and conquer that goal no matter how long or how difficult. It would make us all a stronger person with more confidence and greater appreciation of what life has to offer.

I used a Mathews SQ2 bow, Beman 400 ICS hunter arrows and Rocket broadheads to take all the trophy animals in my quest for the Master Bowhunter Award.

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