Saturday morning, Sept. 15, (and plenty of mornings after that) I'll be in one of my favorite deer stands hunting big bucks with a bow and a couple of arrows and I'm pretty excited about that.
   I've talked about trying the Minnesota archery deer hunt for years now but never got around to it. One thing or another has always come between me and hunting deer in the most basic of forms.
   But this fall I'm going to go for it. In July, I bought a bow worthy of the challenge and I've spent every spare minute since in my backyard training my mind and body for what I'm guessing will be an extreme challenge should a big buck make an appearance.
    And, surprisingly, the learning curve hasn't been as steep as I thought it might be. The challenge is going to be putting all I've learned together when and if the time comes.
   One thing I've got going for me is I've always been good with a bow and arrow. I don't know why or how, it's just one of those things I seem to have a natural talent for.
    I'm not great - not Robin Hood by any means - but I can hold my own and I think it's because I've always been good at aiming and since I was a young I've had a uncanny knack for hitting things with projectiles from a distance.
    Things like windows with bb's or footballs, or baseball bats for that matter, or my sister's head with a rock tossed from a hundred yards away.
    The first time I ever shot a bow was at a summer camp when I was a wee lad. One of the activities we did was archery and I remember shooting a longbow at a large target pinned to a bail of hay and nailing enough bulls-eyes to garner the attention of the otherwise bored teen-age counselors overseeing the affair.
    I was pretty good at capture-the-flag too, but this is a deer hunting column so that's a story for another blog.
    Anyway, what I remember in particular about that experience is I just seemed to have a natural talent for aiming and adjusting my aim to get the arrow to go where I wanted it to.
    The next time I picked up a bow was in junior college when I took an archery class. I don't remember much from that other than I got a "B" in the class.
    Several years later I started shooting with archery club members in Hibbing, spending a couple of nights a week in the basement of a furniture store on 1st Avenue shooting, learning and scoring. I never joined the club and eventually I just stopped going when other life decisions took priority.
    Then a couple of years ago my kids joined the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP), shooting for the Mountain Iron-Buhl High School, and my interest in picking up a bow started to gain momentum.
    Which brings us to today.
    While I'm excited to take part in the 2012 Minnesota archery deer hunting season, which runs from Sept. 15 through Dec. 31, I'm also a little nervous. There are a lot of moving parts to this style of hunting and I don't think you can ever be too confident about your skill level because it's about more than just being a good shot.
    Sure, I'm putting together some decent groups on the target in my yard. At 15-yards, I'm deadly. I even split an arrow with another arrow one night. At 20-yards the group gets a little wider but the arrows still land in the kill zone consistently.



  At 30 yards, the group isn't where I'd like it to be but again, four out of five arrows are landing where they need to to take down a deer.
    It's just the thought of that one bad arrow that's got me worried but I know it's just a matter of training my mind and body to work as one without having to think about it. My draw, anchor and aim need to be automatic because when and if that big buck comes walking out I know from years of experience rifle hunting that a whole bunch of other variables will suddenly and swiftly enter into the equation.
    There isn't a lot of time to sort it all out when a deer is coming your way and you're dealing with an accelerated heart beat, rapid breathing, an adrenaline rush, shaking hands, muscle tightness, sweat, bugs, sun movement and holding that draw until the very last moment.
    Hopefully, all the practicing I've done will pay off during the season and sometime before the end of the year I'll have a great story for you all.
    See you in the woods... Saturday, for the 2012 Minnesota Archery deer hunt!