My Life With Archery So Far

By Caleb Michael Odom

When I was six years old I received my first bow for Christmas. It was a weak little thing with a 10 lb pull but that’s where it all started. It wasn’t necessarily safe but running around shooting my brother and getting shot back at but at that time it was the best thing ever. I’d shoot at the targets and feel so accomplished when the arrow would stick into the target and not just bounce back but hey I was hooked. A few years later I wanted to shoot more so my dad bought me a Darton Rookie T compound bow 22-23 inch draw 40-50 lbs. Unfortunately I couldn’t pull it back to my shooting got put on hold for about a year. My dad then bought me a Mathews Genesis. I shot it for a couple months then decided one day to pull out the Darton and give it a shot at pulling it back and I did. The Genesis got put on the back burner and I got serious. I started pounding the target with the Darton. I’ll never forget when I split the nock off that Easton 2413 aluminum arrow. It may have only been 10 yards but I was proud. Once I lost those arrows my dad gave me some of his broken Beman ICS Hunters 400 spine that had enough good on them we could cut to fit me seeing I only had a 22 inch draw.

That started my hunting, I shot at squirrels and dove and stuff but never anything big so I will never forget the day my dad came home from hunting and seeing how he shot a deer that morning told me that his buddy would take me that after noon if I wanted to. I jumped at the chance. I had never really been deer hunting before so I was pumped up more than ever. I got to the tree and while climbing up in the climber I knocked an arrow out of my 4 arrow quiver leaving me with 3. It turns out I ended up sitting in the same stand my dad shot his deer out of that morning and at about 6:30 I look to my left and see a spike walking toward me. He stopped at 30 yards and I shot right over him. He took a few steps I ranged him again at 30 and shot behind him. This must be the stupidest deer ever because I just shot 2 times at him and he decided to walk toward me. He stopped I ranged him at 22 yards and shot my last arrow and it hit him right where the lungs should have been. Unfortunately due to the timing of the trip my dad just gave me his grim reapers to shoot doubting I’d really have to use them and the bow just didn’t have enough power to open it up and get far enough into the deer to kill it. We looked and looked and found no blood and concluded it just broke the skin and didn’t go far enough in to really hurt it. That was a very rough hunt for me but also very eye opening. I used to think that deer were weak and anything could kill them but when I saw that deer run off and we never found it, it proved to me that no matter what you confidence level is there is always that time that’ll make you doubt it.
That was the end for that bow. I didn’t hunt with it anymore because that year for Christmas I got a diamond razor edge. Started out at 48lbs and I started turning up the poundage about every week without permission until I got to about 57. I got that bow in 2009 and in March of 2010 I shot my first animal with a bow which was a hog at guess how far? 22 yards. Total pass-through with a 100 grain muzzy 4 blade.
I had shot 2 deer with a gun prior to shooting the hog with a bow and 1 deer with a gun after but I never had shot another deer with a bow until Thursday August 11th 2011. I was sitting in a stand at the end of my road that I had set up prior to season since I had been seeing and feeding deer there. Well at about 7:15 in the morning I look to my right and see a little doe come out and get on the trail that literally went three foot from the bottom of my ladder stand. She stopped at 13 yards and I let the muzzy eat. That diamond put the smack down on her. She only ran 20 yards and pilled up along side of a four-wheeler trail which made for easy pick up. I called my dad who was at a meeting and told him the news. He told me to wait 30 minutes then have my brother come pick me and her up on the four-wheeler so I did just that. We drove home with her on the front and kept soaking her with water to keep her cool until my dad got there. The look on my dads face when he pulled up is something that’ll stay in my mind forever. I put in the time, money, and sweat to get a deer and there is no greater feeling than that first one with a bow.

I hunted a ton in 2012 with no success at all bow or gun and I sold the diamond in December and bought the bow I have now which is a Hoyt Alphaburner. I’ve hunted this season so far with it and haven’t had any luck yet so my time is coming! You just have to thank the good lord for every chance in the woods you get because you never know if one day you’ll wake up and not ever be able to go again.

By Caleb Odom