Bow Hunting Small Game

Quail, slingshot, bow...

Most of my hunting has been focused on whitetail bow hunting for many years now.  I'll admit up front that I have only limited experience bow hunting small game.  Actually I very seldom do pure small game hunting. I more often take advantage of opportunities while deer hunting.

When I took up bow hunting in 1989 I'd always been a gun hunter.  I had no idea the bow would be my new love.  Like anyone taking up a new activity I had a lot to learn.  Part of that education was on hunting small game with a bow.

I always like to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities when hunting so I quickly added some arrows with small game points to my gear.  I soon had steel and rubber blunts, judo heads, turkey heads, flu-flu arrows... 

One day while deer hunting as I slipped over the top of a ridge there was a cottontail about twenty-five yards away.  I slipped a blunt out of my quiver and shot right over his back. (If God made animals taller maybe I'd miss much less often.) Then I spent ten minutes stumbling around, exposed, trying to find my arrow. 

On another day while creeping down a tree row I walk up to a possum perched on a low limb staring at me at eye level.  At only ten yards I bounce a rubber blunt off the hard headed thing just above the eyes.  He hardly flinched and I was more stunned thinking he'd fall off the limb. The possum simply climbed down and ran away.

After those and a few other experiences I decided judo heads would work better for small game. Judos tend to stop or tumble when they hit something, they are not as easily lost, and they are probably a little more lethal on small game. Even with the judo heads I found that I was often walking around exposing myself and my scent to a large area when trying to retrieve arrows.

The "last straw" was when I ran a squirrel up a tall tree.  He stopped at the very top.  I had three judo tipped arrows in my quiver.  Being "some dumb, but not plumb dumb" I moved around to have an open field behind him so I could easily find my arrows.

Shooting near vertical, I missed with arrow one and two, then refocused telling myself, "I can hit this squirrel."  Arrow three knocked him straight up about six inches out of the tree and then grabbing for anything all the way to the ground. He never got a grip, but to my surprise he hit the ground running.

No squirrel and I spent the next half hour hunting and eventually finding my three arrows in an open field.  Even brightly fletched arrows in an open field can be difficult to find. At $10+ per arrow I don't walk away without a thorough search.

The extra arrows were a bit of a pain to carry anyway so I decided to give up on small game with a bow.  I bow hunted without any small game heads for a while, but the missed opportunities bugged me.

I nailed an armadillo one day with a broad head just behind the shoulder. Darn thing was invincible. He ran off with my $15 arrow sticking through him. I'll bet he has trouble going between trees.

I was thinking about carrying a handgun, maybe an air pistol, but that didn't seem appropriate or always legal for a bowhunter. I eventually came to realize the slingshot could be the best answer for me.  The slingshot is more appropriate, simple, cheap, quiet, and easy to carry.

As I've said many times before my slingshot shoots very much like my recurved bow and is good practice.  For me both the slingshot and the bow have proven to be more fun than effective.  I find both a challenge and I don't often take home small game. But it works for me and I don't need to hunt for small game arrows anymore.