Jim was back near the canyon he had hunted the day before, and although he saw only one bird this morning, a hen, he did hear gobblers early and often.

Greg Abbas & Rick Worley

Back at the club house however, Fred Abbas was there with his story on a nice young Tom with about a five inch beard.

After our noon meal of deep-fried spring wild turkey, Rick announced that he had found the buffalo I was to hunt this afternoon.  We had glassed the herd on our first day, and picked out a couple of young Bulls for our hunt.  We weren't after the biggest bull, just a young bull coming into breading age.

With a bit of a nervous twitch, I said I was ready.  I would be hunting this bull, with  a recurve.  The trick was going to be to get the bull isolated or on the edge of the herd for me to get a shot.  Because my bow was only a 55 pound bow, I was determined to get within 20 yards to be sure I got the best possible penetration.  Getting there was the going to be the tough part, and I was a little apprehensive.

Greg and Fred Abbas, of A-Way Outdoors, would be filming the hunt for one of their television shows.  Their theme was "Weapons of the Past", and yesterday, had seen them filming Randy Johnson of Ultimate Firearms, take down a massive 1800 pound bull with muzzle loader.  Today we were hoping to add a buffalo kill with recurve.

Buffalo are unpredictable.  While they are for the most part a herd animal, they all have a mind of their own.  You may find the herd very tightly formed or spread out over many hundreds of acres.  Our hope was to find them fairly spread out, so as to isolation one of the young bulls we had targeted.

Bob, Rick & Fred Abbas Scouting the Bulls

I will not cover the full extent of the hunt in this article, look for a full version of that hunt to be out in about a week.  But it took us the rest of the day, and three separate stalks to get in position where we were confident of the shot.  At 19 yards, I drew my Samick, Spirit II bow, with its Coyote Tipped, 115 grain broadhead and buried it in the chest of an 800 pound American Bison.  The cut-on-impact broadhead, more than did its job.  The bull ran no more than 40 yards and dropped, never to get up.

Wow! What a rush.  I have been hunting for better than 30 years.  I have killed my share of game, but never have I had the rush that this hunt gave me.  While I didn't take one of the biggest bulls on the Ranch, it was certainly the biggest animal I had ever arrowed.

Larry Pitcox, Buffalo Mountain Ranch manager, took over from there.  The bull was dressed and sent to a packing house for preparation for our trip home.  The Head was also prepared for a full head mount and sent off to a taxidermist, Brian Hall of Halls Hall of Fame, in Bront, Texas.

The wind never did quit blowing today.  Jim got back on stand late in the evening, but the wind was so strong where he was hunting, he never saw nor even heard a bird.  Two others on the ranch, including a young lady, April, from east Texas,  did find some secluded little canyons and managed to bring in a tom each.  Of the eight hunters on the ranch, four had taken turkeys and it was only Saturday.

April Tells her story

It took me all evening to come down from Buffalo hunt high, but by dark I was beginning to look forward to hunting turkeys again in the morning.