GO TO TOM'S LIST OF PRIOR ARTICLES: dating back to Sept 1996

July 7

Great news!  This Friday, Saturday and Sunday (July 11, 12 & 13) I am going to the guest of the PABA  Grand National's Bowfishing Competition at the Truman Reservoir, at Bucksaw Marina, Clinton, MO.  I will get to go bow fishing for the first time and I will also be visting with Norm Johnson, the Director of the Pro Am Bowfishing Association, and his wife. I will give a full coverage of the event in my next update. If anyone is going to be there and would like to meet me, email me at thomasfrench@bowhunting.net!  Check back later.
 
August 25, 1997

Sorry  it took so long for me to do this update.  Ever since I had to take time off from work to go to the Grand National Bowfishing tournament sponsored by the Pro Am Bowfishing Association (PABA) I have been working like crazy.  I have worked over 40 hours  last week, and worked the grave yard shift (10pm to 6am) for three nights which can really take it out of you.  But now that I am writing this, get ready to hear about the  Grand National PABA Tournament.

The Grand National PABA Tournament took place in the little town of Clinton, Missouri at Bucksaw Point Marine, which is on the Truman Reservoir.  When I arrived on Friday afternoon (July 11) I made my way to the cabin of Norm Johnson, director of the PABA.  When I went inside, Norm was gone but his wife Teresa was there setting up the tournament (which is a lot more work than I ever imagined).

I later found Norm in the Resort lobby talking on the phone to Byron Ferguson, famous traditional bowhunter and T.V. star, trying to get him from Kansas City to Clinton. Once that was done, Norm  showed me around and gave me his camera to take some pictures.  We started hanging banners of the various sponsors and getting the weigh in table set up for the next day.  When we finally got most of it set up we all retired to different areas in the resort.  I decided  I wanted to go for a swim in the resort pool, which I may say was a very nice pool.  After a couple hour's swim I  went to my room, actually it wasn't my room, it was Tim McKee's room that had an empty bed since his partner had to back out of the tournament at the last minute. Tim is the the Texas Delegate for the PABA and put as much hard work and effort into the tournament as anyone.

Saturday came early, 4:30 a.m.,  which is a little too early for me unless its turkey season.  At 7 a.m. all the boats started leaving the dock in the order their registrations were received.  Once all the boats had gone, the remaining people, Norm, Tim, Norm's wife, Teresa and several other people all went down to the Marina restaurant to eat breakfast.  Once done with
breakfast Byron Ferguson, Tim McKee, a camera man and I all took out on Norm's pontoon, which we were to bowfish from.  We cruised the lake for a couple of hours finding absolutely no fish whatsoever.  I was a little bummed that I didn't get the chance to arrow any fish but I did get the pleasure of going out on the boat with Byron Ferguson.

When we got back I took another dip in the pool and then headed over to the weigh-in where I was suprised at the caliber of fish I was seeing.  There were fish that were over 20 pounds and almost 30, which I think is a pretty big fish.  As I watched the 40 some odd boats weigh-in, I was impressed with three different boats.  Not the boats themselves, which we will talk about later, but the people in the boats.

 First I was impressed with a boat that had young people in them.  When I say young,  I am talking 11 and 12 years old.  Although the two young boys were accompanied by thier fathers, I still admire them for getting involved in such a great thing at such a young age.

Another person I noticed was a man by the name of Ron Skirvin.  I had seen him before the tournament, his truck and boat stand out to say the least. You can tell that this guy loves to bowfish, BOWFISH OR DIE is stenciled all over his boat and black Dodge Ram, his license plate also says "BOWFISH" on it.

But other than that, I noticed that he had no partner. Ron Skirvin was missing the other half of his team yet he competed just as well as the two man boats and even better in some cases.  Once the weigh in was done I started thinking about trying to get some pictures for my column, so I decided that afternoon I would try to find someone who would let me ride along in their boat with them to take pictures during the tournament the next day.  As I looked around, I saw boat after boat that wouldn't have enough room for another guy, until I spotted a big boat and it happened to  be Ron Skirvin's boat.  I made my way through the crowd over to Mr. Skirvin and introduced myself as a writer from the internet with bowhunting.net and told him about the story I was doing. He just looked me over  when I asked him if I could ride along with him and get some pictures tomorrow.

I noticed the expression on his face and it didn't look good.  He said that he was really trying to concentrate and he would like to go by himelf.  I, being a competitive person could completely understand that so we worked out another deal.  The deal was this: I didn't need to be back to work until Wednesday and he didn't have to be back for a couple days so we planned to
go out the day after the tournament.  That will be my next article and you will hear all about my first fish kill, it was exciting.

I want to metion the differences in the boats that were entered. There were big boats, little boats, boats with decks and boats without decks; there were boats that had big high platforms and others you just stood on the bow of the boat.  Some of the boats also had lights for night fishing, which I heard is real fun and would like to try someday. But it seems as if everyone had their own idea as what the perfect bowfishing boat should be, heck there was even an air boat there!

The last point I would like to make is a 'Thank you' to all the people who helped in this event and especially those  who donated their products. There are 363 days that go into planning this tremendous two day tournament.  Everyone who participated should appreciate how much work it is to put on a tournament of this size. I really enjoyed my self, as did
everyone I spoke to. I am looking forward to joining in again next year.

Sept 9, 1997
 
The PABA Grand Nationals Continued
Quite possibly the highlight of the whole tournament was the banquet that we had.  We had the most incredible banquet for the bowfishermen and everyone else involved in the tournament.   They served roast beef, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, a salad and just about every other side order you could imagine.  The meal, however delicious was not the highlight of the evening.

After everyone was done eating PABA Director Norm Johnson introduced all the sponsors of the tournament and had them each say a little.  Before the dinner we all wrote our name on the back of our ticket for a drawing and now, we got to the drawing.  We had so many donated prizes that it was unbelievable. Norm gave away everything from fishing arrows to Gerber Gator knives and everything in between including some Retriever Reels which were good quality and was one of the most popular choices among the bowfishermen.  The banquet lasted until after eleven o’clock and by the time it was over everyone was ready to go to bed, especially the bowfishermen since they had to get up early the next morning to be ready for the next day.

The next days weigh-in was much like the first days weigh-in; except that today they would give away the boat that was donated from Kann marine who was a proud sponsor of the Grand National PABA Tournament.  The action was fast and furious with big fish constantly getting pulled out of each team's boat as everyone tried to grab the lead in the big fish pot and especially the overall tournament.  By the time the last boat was weighed in the scores were so close that no one who competed could add up the two day totals and predict a winner with any accuracy.  The only person that did know was Ms. Shelly Lund who had tallied the official scores.

As the name of the winning teams were announced there was a lot of anticipation as each team except the winning teams realized that they had come up a few pounds short.  The First Place Pro Division winners were Robin Parks & Brett Huster with 221.2 pounds. The First Place Amature Division was Tony Starks & Charlie Smith with 186.1 pounds.

Everyone there had as good a time as I did and we are all looking forward to the next years Grand National PABA Tournament.

The morning started much the same as any July morning here in Missouri, warm and humid, a day which the weather man promised would be scorching.  I met Mr. Skirvin at his dynamic boat, the "Bowfish or Die" boat.   We discussed the days plans and after thanking Norm Johnson and his wife Theresa, we hopped in the black Dodge Ram and headed off to the Lake of the Ozarks to try and find some big carp.

It took us several missed turns to finally hit the right road to the boat ramp where we paid our fee and launched our boat.  We headed out into the back water and noticed only a few "mud clouds" or "mud slicks" which is where a carp is digging in the bottom to find food.  We, or rather I shot at a few fish and  I missed all of them.

I must compliment Ron, after a couple hours of me calling him Mr. Skirvin he said that we both knew each other now and to just call him Ron, so I did.  Also I appreciated Ron letting me take most of the first shots and helping me try to get my first fish.  After an hour of nothing in the boat we decided to hit the main lake and duck into a few selected coves.  After the first couple coves we were beginning to feel that some of the "hot spots" were not exactly as hot as they were cut out to be.  We found one cove that was very small in size and very clear, unlike the rest of the lake which was very muddy, I assumed that the cove was either spring fed or very sheltered from waves.

Back in the back of the cove we finally found  medium sized buffalo in water that was about 4 feet deep.  I got ready, I held and shot over him.  He came toward the boat in a mad dash to escape but it was too no avail, Ron was too quick and too good of a shot.  After that little episode we looked around for another half an hour and finally decided that we had no chance here so we decided to go somewhere else.  We pulled Ron’s  boat out of the water and asked the locals if there was anywhere we could find some big gar.  They said that they had seen some whoppers below Lake of the Ozarks Bagnall Dam so we decided to go and give it  try.

We made the 30 minute trek to the dam and decided that it was time to eat our lunches and look for gar.  We sat down at one of the picnic tables and ate while we watched; what we saw was very promising.  A lot of tail slapping and a lot of gar coming up to the top to suck air.  We launched the boat and motored to a spot that looked good to us and when we pulled into the spot. It not looked good, there were literally thousands of gar.  You couldn’t look in the water without seeing  gar.  When we looked a little closer, we saw some of the biggest gar that I have ever seen.  We started seeing gar that would push 30 pounds or more.

I was shooting a smaller Seneca bow on about 30 pounds that was on loan from Norm Johnson, Ron then decided that it was time to change bows.  Although I really wanted to shoot my bow, he wouldn’t let me because one, my bow was all set up with sights and with my stabilizer and the like and Ron also said that it was too new to bowfish with.  When you have a bowfishing rig, it gets beat up pretty good getting thrown around in  boat.  Ron pulled another bow just like his from the dry storage on the boat.  He handed it to me and I looked at it, it was a Matthews Solo Cam.  I was  a little apprehensive about it at first since I was used  to my Alpine Ridge Runner, but after a while, it shot pretty dang good considering it was well broke in, you might say.  Anyway, back to the story.  We got up on the shooting platform in a hurry, especially me, I knew this is where my first bow kill would come from.  I started off not being all that selective and just shot at what was in range.  After missing 3 or 4, I finally had about a three pounder float right up next to the boat.  I took careful aim and released.

I could tell that I had hit him the instant that he disappeared because when he left so did about 20 yards of line.  I cranked the reel down and started pulling him in.  When I got him up to the side of the boat Ron put on a pair of gloves and pulled him in.  We unhooked him, Ron congratulated me and we got back after them.

After missing several of the big boys and killing some smaller ones, I decided to be a little more selective and just go after the biggest ones. Ten minutes later, Ron nailed a 15 pounder and started fighting him.  He instructed me in to shoot the fish again when we got him up to the side of the boat so as to not lose him.  He hoisted him up to the top and I let an arrow fly that found it’s mark perfectly.  That brought new life to the big fish and it took off  toward the deep channel.  Both of us reeled for what seemed like forever  and we finally managed to get him up and over the side of the boat.  We recovered out fish arrows, gave the high fives and continued.

About 20 minutes later I arrowed my first real big one.  One about the same size as Ron’s .  We went through the same routine with mine that we did with his but managed to get it into the boat with a little more ease than the first.

The day wore on, just like the sun.  About two in the afternoon I started realizing the glare off the water was about to blind me and mentioned it to Ron, he said to get in the dry box because he had another pair of H20 polarized sun glasses.  I dug them out and put them on.

Life on the water is a whole lot easier with a good pair of polarized glasses and they made all the difference in the world.  I  liked them so much, I am now the proud owner of a pair of Hydro Optics glasses which I use for fishing, driving, shooting sporting clays, and everything in-between.  If you have been looking for a good pair of glasses and can’t find some, e-mail me and I’ll see if I can help you find a place to get some Hydro Optics.

As day wore on the sun got blazing hot.  At about five in the afternoon we decided that we had been at it long enough and that we should call it day.  I said one more fish and just as I said that a pretty nice 10 pounder came up and I drew on him but he was too quick and descended into the depths of the Mighty Osage River.  With the bow still drawn, I looked to my right and an enormous gar came up quickly, I wheeled and made a quick shot which surprised me by finding it’s mark.

The fish fought a  good battle but to no avail, we landed him and guessed that he would go a good 17 pounds, the biggest fish of the day.  We sat down and Ron fired up his Honda outboard and I noticed something that I hadn’t not noticed earlier, Ron and I could carry on a good conversation going down river at full blast.  Now, our family boat is equipped with a  Mercury motor and when we talk we have to yell and we still can barely hear each other;l but with the Honda, we could actually carry on a conversation at normal tones and still hear each other perfectly.  I mentioned that to Ron and he said he was really pleased with it.  He said that he’d had a Yamaha (which is what my dad and I wanted) for a while but he said, "when I got the Honda, everything was better, I got more speed,  more thrust, with the same horse power and less noise, you do the math."

We took a few pictures, said our goodbyes with promises to fish again sometime, and headed our separate ways.  I would now like to extend my personal thanks to Mr. Ron Skirvin and all his bowfishing sponsors, Hydro Optics, Honda, and Matthews.  Thank you for an experience of a lifetime!

My Deer Season, so far. . .

Since the season started here in Missouri I haven’t had much time to write, actually I haven’t even had much time to bowhunt.  I have only been out maybe 10 times and haven’t seen any deer while in my stand, although I have seen some walking to and from my stand, but we’ll get to that later. I would just like to let everyone know that I have officially gotten my dad to start bowhunting, well he’s not bowhunting yet, we’re still just practicing, but he might be ready for a little action later this season or early next season. I saw an ad in the paper for a PSE bow with all the trimmings for a small price.  My dad had been looking for a starter bow but didn’t want to spend a bundle on a whole setup.  So, we decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get in for a small price. I went over and looked at the bow and decided that it was just what my dad needed. It is an older, but not too old, PSE Magna Flite. I can’t really vow that it shoots good because I haven’t really shot it much, but my dad thinks it shoots good and he is actually shooting better than I was a year ago; he hasn’t even lost an arrow yet!  We just got six new arrows made up for him so we can get busy with practicing this weekend. If anyone has any advice about this bow or just a comment about it, e-mail me and I’ll pass it along to him.

In case you are wonder what Bowhunter magazine has to say about Bowhunting.net’s web site, you can read about it the December/January issue.  Not my personal page, but Bowhunting.net in general.  If you want to look at the article, it is on page 83 and the column heading is "Free Web Visit."  Although I have only been getting the bowhunter magazine for about 10 months, I think it is the best bowhunting magazine published.  My dad had also started reading all my Bowhunter magazines in hopes of gaining a little knowledge that he didn’t have before, and I think we both have.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to shoot at a deer yet, but now I have hope after the last time I was out.  I was walking around the edge of a field trying to get to one of my stands when right under another stand, I hear a deer bounding away.  I stopped in my tracks and hit the ground in hopes that I hadn’t spooked him too bad and that he would stop. Right then a nice little 8 point  galloped out in front of me at about 50 yards going out through the middle of the field.  I wish he would have been a little closer, because I think that I could have whistled him to a stop quick enough to give me a shot.  After that episode, I walked the last 100 yards to my other stand, climbed up in it and rested against the tree.  Let me tell you, I sometimes hear a lot of things walking around in the woods but never like I did that evening.  I heard things walking, jumping and running, although none of them were deer.  I saw rabbits, squirrels and a batch of raccoons.

At sundown, I climbed down off the tree stand and started heading to my car.  When I walked out of the woods where I had spooked the buck, I saw four more deer in the field eating all around my car.  I dropped to the ground and knocked an arrow, hoping that I could stalk within bow range of the deer before the end of shooting time.  I was only about 75 yards away, and 35 yards is about my maximum kill shot.  I just then remembered that I had brought my grunt call and thought maybe I could lure one of them over to me with it.  I slowly put the grunt call up to my mouth and gave it a quick shot of air that produced a grunt which broke the evening silence.

The deer did nothing but mill around and eat a little more.  I repeated the gesture and this time I got a little reaction, one of the deer’s heads shot up like a rocket and looked straight over in my direction.  I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or scared but as all these thoughts were flowing through my mind the deer put it’s head down and started eating again.

Realizing that the grunt wasn’t going to work for me this time, I started my stalk.  I would creep so far and one of the deer would put it’s head up and look at me then go back to feeding again. Then I’d stalk a little further and the process would repeat itself with a different deer looking up each time. When I got withing 35 yards of the deer I slowly raised my bow and got ready to draw, then I realized that I didn’t have enough light to make an accurate shot, so I put my bow back down and waited.  I waited about 30 minutes and the deer still didn’t move. I decided that I had to do something to get them away from my car but I didn’t want to scare them too much. I devised a plan to whistle to see if I could upset them enough to get them to go back into the trees. I started whistling, softly then louder and then as loudly as possible getting no reaction except and annoyed stare in my direction. I sat there for another 15 minutes and decided that if I didn’t do something soon, my parents would get worried and come looking for me, I was after all, hunting by myself. I stood up abruptly and waved my arms in the air.

The deer still did nothing except look at me like I was a lunatic.  Since the waving of the arms wasn’t enough, I started yelling, "hey deer, hey deer, get out of here" little did I know at that time the phrase was a rhythm which could have been the reason the deer didn’t bolt.  I’m not sure if the deer were amused or what but it took them a  couple of minutes before they got bored of seeing this moron jumping around yelling at them before they made their way into the woods. As you can see, it was a pretty exciting evening and I hope to see one of those unspookable deer while I am sitting in my stand this weekend.

That about wraps this column up and I’ll try to get another article up about my dad and I pretty soon.  Until then, happy hunting and shoot straight.  E-mail me with any questions, comments, tips or tricks.

If anyone has any good bowhunting advice or stories, I would like to hear them. Thanks, and I'll let you know how I do. E-mail me at thomasfrench@bowhunting.net.