I've come home immensely satisfied. I've been shooting my 50# recurve for around 6 months and was finally confident enough in my accuracy to to hunting. I managed to stalk a lot of goats and learn a lot about picking the best terrain and situation to give a reasonable chance to get within bow range.
After a lot of persistence and a few frustrations I finally managed to put a meat goat on the grass but not without some regret. After doing everything right that I could, when it came time to take my first live-target shot I completely failed to aim for a spot... instead, in my adrenalin charged nervousness, I saw a goat and I aimed at a goat. Predictably, a second arrow was needed to end the life of my first goat quickly after the first but I had my first goat.
My second was much better and one that finally made me feel I could consider myself a bow hunter. On the last morning of our trip, I gave the cod fishing a miss and went looking for goats instead. I eventually found a mob and stalked in on a nanny and her 2 kids. At 20m another goat that I hadn't noticed gave a warning snort but for the moment, I still had my targets in front of me.
The black goat kid gave me a perfect quartering slightly away broadside and this time I REALLY focused hard on a single spot just behind his shoulder. I was concentrating so hard that I don't really remember shooting... just the flash of orange fletching disappearing right into that spot. The goat ran about 20m before dropping... a clean heart & lungs shot.
Cheers, Tony
