Keep Grinding as the Late Bowhunting Season Opens Again

One of the peculiarities of writing for an “old-school” print publication is that our deadlines come long before the magazine reaches your mailbox or local newsstand. As I sit here typing this column, it’s the week before Halloween, and I’m spending a few hours in my home office between morning and evening pre-rut hunts.

Buck activity on my Moultrie trail cameras has picked up markedly in recent days, with the rut’s “seeking” phase seemingly now fully underway. In fact, at 8 o’clock this morning, I had the season’s first encounter with a “shooter,” getting to full draw on a tall, wide-racked buck as it stood broadside at 27 yards. Alas, just as I was settling my pin on the buck’s chest and preparing to increase the tension on my release aid, the buck caught my movement in the stand and bounded away.

In the heavily hunted Pennsylvania woods where I live, such opportunities are extremely precious, and in the moments that followed that encounter, it was hard not to be discouraged. I had been so close, and yet I was no closer to punching my tag than I would have been had I slept in. But after processing things for a few minutes, I told myself to get over it. It was hardly the end of the world, and the only thing to do was keep grinding until another opportunity presented itself. Next time, I assured myself, you’ll make it count!

February 2026 Winter Special

That sentiment — keep grinding — seems highly appropriate as we put the finishing touches on this February Winter Special issue. By the time this magazine reaches you, I hope both our buck tags are filled. But if they aren’t, feeling sorry for ourselves certainly won’t help. The only solution, our only hope, is to keep grinding right up to the late season’s bitter end, regardless of its myriad challenges. Sure, the local deer herd has now been hunted for months. The rut (at least the main one) is over. Good food sources are hard to find. The weather can be downright brutal. There are fewer bucks on the landscape, and those that remain are warier than a soldier on sentry duty. But as the old saying goes, you can’t kill ’em from the couch!

If you’re still “in the game” and could use a little more inspiration to spur you toward the finish line, I recommend checking out A Real Sharpshooter on page 42. This entertaining article tells the story of Aleah Wozniak, a 17-year-old Ohio teen who has taken an incredible 11 archery bucks in 11 seasons since starting her run at the tender age of 6. Incredibly, every single one of those bucks scored in excess of 140 inches, and as if that weren’t impressive enough, five of the 11 bucks were taken during the late season, long after most adult bowhunters had given up.

But as you’ll learn in the article, quitting isn’t in Aleah’s nature. “What I love so much about archery specifically is just the challenge that comes with it,” she said. “You have to put so much work and effort and time into practicing and commit to it.”

There you have it, folks, straight from the mouth of a young bowhunter who is wise beyond her years. Keep your chin up. Keep the faith. And keep grinding!

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