Dawn Wand
My name is Dawn Wand. Jim and I have been married six years, and have three children, Hayley, Tanner and Madison. I grew up in a small town in Missouri, and moved to Illinois in 2000. That is when I met the man of my dreams!
Jim introduced me to bowhunting as soon as we met, and I have had a passion for it ever since! It wasn't long after I had started shooting a bow that we were introduced to a few friends from Hunters Specialties. And the next thing I know, I was on my first bowhunt with Phillip Vanderpool from Hunters Specialties. I was so nervous and excited, and so was Jim. I harvested a nice young 8-pointer which is on Primetime 7 and also a nice 10-pointer which is featured on Primetime 8.
This year I have harvested a nice buck with my Thompson Center Encore for Primetime 11! I will enclose a picture of this, and I also filmed Jim harvesting a nice deer with his muzzeloader last year it was on Primetime 10. And this year I have filmed him harvesting a really nice buck with his bow for Primetime 11! Hunting has become a lifestyle for our family, we dedicate all of our time preparing for every season of hunting, and still manage to keep things going at home! Our son Tanner has started hunting for the first time this year! He has harvested a nice doe during the doe only gun season! And it was even on my birthday! I couldn't have asked for anything more!!! Jim will also have some good memories with Tanner from that hunt! Me and Tanner will go hunting together for the spring Turkey season this year! It is so awesome being able to spend family time hunting! I love hunting especially bowhunting! The challenge of it is addicting. There are times throughout the season that it gets difficult, either you can't get on a good buck, or your shooting isn't as good as it should be, and things just don't work out like you want them to! That is what gives me the drive to keep hunting and to keep going! My husband has told me how it impresses him to see the drive I have when it comes to hunting, he never has to push me to keep going! And it isn't always easy trying to hunt all season, and still try to keep up with the kids and school, homework, laundry, cleaning, and my job!!!! I will tell you my kids are wonderful and understanding, that this is our life and we work hard for everything we do and have! And when we do get a good video we all will celebrate! My daughter Madison, always waits til we get home every night from our hunts, and will ask," Mom, did you get one?" Always with such excitement!!
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All I can say is, our life is good, and our kids will soon be just as much into hunting, as we are!
Bowhunting October 1-19 2006
Well this year has started out like this: The first night Jim and I went out I was in the hunters stand and he was my camera man. We were in Pike county, and in the fence line tree stand. We had some ground hogs come out and they were tearing up the turnips we planted in the summer. Then a young button buck, and should I say he was going to be a big buck someday, his buttons stood somewhat tall, I have never seen this before. But then all of a sudden it was probably about 6:00 P.M. and this nice 10-pointer came running down the path to the pond, and he was definitely thirsty, and he was also a shooter! He made his way around the far end of the food plot, 46.5 yards to be exact! Too far for me to shoot! As he worked his way around the food plot he stayed just out of my bow range! And he was working his way around to my right. Just as I started to range the corner to my right, he darted across and all I could see was him in my range finder!!!! And then he was jumping the fence behind us. So much for a harvest the first night of archery season.
October 2, 2nd night:
Well just around 6:30 my nice 10 pointer came out but this time he came from the right side of the food plot. Still 46.5 yards away from me! Couldn't believe it! He worked his way down to the water hole. And as he was working his way toward me it was getting dark fast! Just then I heard a loud noise in the uncut corn field behind me, I slowly turned around, not to spook the 10-pointer, and holy cow!!! it was a giant deer making his way through the corn, and all I saw was a really tall rack and a lot of tines!!! I knew the 10-pointer was about 35-yards now, but once I saw this cornfield buck, I went into some kind of automatic mode, and I turned to my left knowing this deers next move was to jump the fence only 25-yards in front of me, so I told Jim, "He is gonna jump the fence and I am gonna shoot him!" The next thing I know, he jumped the fence and was working his way toward the 10-pointer. I drew my bow, and bleeted to stop him at 25-yards! he kept walking! So I bleeting again at 30-yards! he kept walking, so I bleeted again, and then the 10-pointer spotted me and took off with a snort, and the giant buck stopped. I guessed at 35-yards away. Put my pin on him and let her fly! Then Jim was like, what are you doing? And it hit me what just happened! I ruined the hunt with the 10-pointer, and I shot at a giant and missed, so I completely messed up this night! So Jim was like, it was too dark for me to get anything on film, and hopefully you missed that deer. Well we got out of our stands, and went to find my arrow, sure that I missed him, we walked to the location that the giant was standing and there stuck my arrow in the ground at a nice angle. And my first thought was,"why is my arrow facing this angle," then Jim looked at my arrow and said," you hit him!" Great! I hit this poor deer and we don't know where I hit him, and the arrow didn't look good! It had a little bit of meat on it and a tad bit of blood.
So the next day, I told Jim I'm done, you get behind the bow and I will get behind the camera! So he did and wouldn't you know it he shot a nice 140" buck the next night, so we decided to look for mine when we look for his. Well we had to come back in the morning, cause we couldn't find a good blood trail for Jims deer. When we did we found some old blood that had to be from my deer. But never did find him. But it took me, Jim, and Jeremy. from 10:00 A..M. to 1 P.M. before we found his deer, we looked the whole 40 over, until me and Jim came to the old sheds, and hog units, that I smelled a deer, a buck! I followed the smell and low and behold, it led me right into one of the old sheds, and his deer had gone into this shed an died!!! We couldn't believe our eyes!! We knew nobody would believe us if we told them this deer was found inside the shed so we pulled him out and started with his recovery!
October 10th - 13th:
We decided to change things up a bit, and went to a new spot, by the pond just off of 24th St. The beans are still in and we decided to hunt this area first thing Tuesday morining. Just after daylight, nothing was happening, not a deer. It was about 8:30 or 9:00, I happened to look over to my left toward the bean field, and holy cow, there he stood looking right our way!!!!! A nice 170 - 180 class deer! I said to Jim."Don't move, there is a shooter in the beans looking right at us, so as he slowly turned to see him, he turned the camera on, and to his amazement, this was a booner! We watched this deer as he made this his bedding spot for the day. And around tenish, Jim decided we needed to stalk this deer and get as close as we could. I told him I didn't feel confident in doing that and I wanted to set up closer to him in the next draw. So Jim had me stay in the tree while he went back to the truck (stealth like) to get everything he needed to put in two stands in the next draw.
Finally after about two hours Jim got our stands hung and the deer being only about 50-yards away, never knew he was there! (Good Job Honey!) So as the day went on, neither one of us had any food and hardly any water, I was feeling pretty weak.
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