August 09, 2013
By Ben OBrien
There's no doubt the cyclical world of bowhunting has seen a whole lot of change over the years. Fred Bear probably wouldn't have had much need for all the gadgets on the shelves nowadays, and his feathered fedora would've seemed weird alongside the studded jeans, black bows and tribal-style tattoos at the 2013 ATA show .
In the burgeoning years of our sport — the first bowhunting season was held in Wisconsin in 1934 — carbon and plastic were used for space shuttles and Tupperware, and the long bow was the only game in town. Then came the recurve, only to be steamrolled years later by Holless Wilber Allen's compound bow , which was approved for patent in 1969.
Most of the early innovations in bowhunting — aluminum arrows, plastic fletchings, stabilizers and the like — were met with excitement, but in an industry that prides itself on a traditionally minimalist approach, there's been a fair share of new introductions that have gotten the shaft...literally.
The rules of fair chase and ethics in bowhunting are frequently up for debate, but there's no doubt that these bowhunting innovations have caused the biggest stir.
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Sheds Tell The Story In 2009, this would have been a very difficult buck to pass on. These sheds were found by my hunting neighbor Jon Sarver on a nearby property. In 2010, pre-Freak was a serious trophy, and was wounded twice by unlucky hunters. By 2011, his rack evidenced signs of non-mortal encounters.
Wounded Warrior My neighbor John Hayes found six inches of carbon shaft completely healed over under the Freak's cape, and multiple other non-fatal wounds he overcame during his lifetime.
Aged to Perfection When killed in 2012 sporting his best rack to date, the unusual three-point burst on the tip of his left main beam mirrored almost identically the same feature found on his right main beam in 2010. I estimate him to be at least 6.5 years old, and that's assuming the 150+ rack he sported in '09 was grown as a three year old.
The Freak This early October trail cam picture revealed that the Freak developed a nontypical left beam in 2011, the result of two previous wounds.
A Fighter By early December 2011, he had busted off the irregular G-2 on his left beam; the Freak liked to fight.
A Perfect 10 Easily the most satisfying buck I've killed, this buck had everything I admire in a mature Midwest whitetail: mass, length, height and character.
The Stuff of Dreams A host of surreal events led to my chance encounter with this embattled 17-point buck, known far and wide in our local hunting circles. He fueled many bowhunters' dreams and proved a nightmare encounter for others.