LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Bruce: 3-2-1. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is Bruce Hutcheon, your host. And today we’re in Arkansas with a gentleman named Barry James. And Barry said he’s a redneck from Arkansas and I asked his permission to say that, but he said, “You go right ahead, son.” And he’s on the Ten Point Prostaff. He’s been hunting with a crossbow since 1974, so that’s over 40 years. Barry, welcome to the show.
Barry: Thank you, Bruce. It’s an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.
Bruce: Let’s just jump right into it. You’ve had a love affair with the crossbow for a long, long time. So let’s share the story with our listeners.
Barry: Yes, it started in 1974 in the state of Arkansas, my home state. They legalized crossbows for the archery season in 1973. My dad, which was an avid outdoorsman, bought his first crossbow that year. And then the following year, 1974, when I turned 14 years old, he bought my very first crossbow. And from that point until now, it’s been my weapon of choice.
I’ve shot compounds. I’ve killed a few deer with compound bow. But I always gravitated back to the crossbow because of my love affair with them. It allowed me to spend a lot of time out in the woods with my dad, and it was just a joy using them, and I found out real quick that it was something that I could never give up.
Bruce: There’s a lot of conversation in different states and here in Colorado. I have a little disability so I get to hunt with a crossbow. I’ve been given that right by the state. My doctor sent a letter. And there’s some people that look at me differently when I’m out there with my crossbow and they have their compounds or a stick and a string.
That’s what I call traditional archers. Where do you think that all comes from? Let’s talk about that because I think that’s important for our listeners to hear both sides of a story. So we’re going to tell the crossbow story today. Barry, what do you think?
Barry: Well, in my personal opinion, the reason why people don’t understand crossbows is because they’re uneducated about them. They automatically think the person who’s shooting the crossbow is shooting a gun-style bow. A crossbow is not a gun. It is a form or archery. Instead of vertical, it’s horizontal. And the crossbow has had a misconcept for years and years and years, of long distance shooting.
They think the person who automatically picks up a crossbow has automatically got a hundred yard weapon in their hands, which is obviously just grossly mistaken. And the reason why a lot of people do not like crossbow is simply because they haven’t been educated to the crossbow. I have used my crossbows for, like you said, for over 40 years. The furthest shot I have ever taken at a live animal was 42 yards. The animal was harvested cleanly and effectively.
But I keep all of my shots, here and now from where I hunt and how I hunt, I keep them 40 yards or under. You have many accomplished compound shooters that shoot much, much further than that with the technology that has come a long way with the compound bow. But the reason why, like I said, the main reason why is people just don’t like crossbow in their so-called archery season. It’s because they’re just uneducated about the crossbows.
Bruce: What are five things they really need to be educated about? And not just the hunters, but our Fish and Game Departments in various states.
Barry: The five things that I think would really bring up the crossbow is, here in Arkansas it gives an additive. You don’t have to have a disability to hunt with a crossbow. It gives the additive for the entire family from the guns…now you do have to be six years old in order to harvest a deer here in Arkansas, but you don’t have to be six years old to go out and go sit with a parent or with grandparent. But in order to actually hunt and catch you have to be age of six. And what that crossbow does, it allows the entire family, from the young to middle age to the old to the elderly to the senior citizens to get out there and enjoy the outdoors.
Also, too, in legalizing crossbows, we have seen several states…forgive me for my saying here, but jumped on board in legalizing crossbows for their archery season. And what that does, it is growing revenue both in licensing department and in retail. And it’s brung a great amount of income to both sides. It allows more hunters to be out in the woods. It allows more licenses to be sold to both young and old. It allows the retailers to have another avenue of bring income to their store. And it gives the opportunity, because many states now are experiencing an overpopulation of deer, and the reason of that is because our hunter numbers, our hunting member numbers are going down.
And we have to have an attitude to get more hunters out into the woods, which advocates also a stronger voice of strong advocate for the hunting world. We have a lot of antis out there who’d like to see hunting done away with completely. But allowing crossbow during archery season and lifting the limits on who can and who can’t use them will allow the revenue to flow in. It will be stronger numbers, which only can be more positive for the future generations.
Bruce: When you look at kids today and trying to get them into the outdoors, what are a couple things that you would recommend to our listeners, mom and dads or grandparents, to help those kids get into the outdoors? What’s your thought on that?
Barry: Getting the younger generation involved in the outdoors is a challenge in itself. They have so many things to take up their time: the video games, the things that they’re involved in. Technology has come a long way. The technology is awesome.
Barry: Okay. The technology of the crossbows has so advanced to where it’s easier for a child to become sufficient with that weapon in order to go out hunting and to cleanly harvest a deer or a turkey or a hog or whatever they choose to hunt. But my concept of getting the young people out in the outdoors is to show them how fun it is to actually shoot a crossbow. When you put a young child who has a concept of what’s going on in and around them, when they pull that trigger and that arrow hits the center of that target or hits the center of the circle that they’re aiming at, they become very excited. They become something that…crossbows don’t kick, there’s no loud noise like a gun.
It needs to be expressed safety to the max with a child, but that child has picked up a weapon now that allows them to go out with dad or grandpa out into the deer woods. It allows them to enjoy what they have enjoyed for years. And also, too, the concept of a whitetail deer hunter is to be very still and to be very quiet. I agree with that 100%. And so when the introduction of so many pop-up blinds now, you’ve got the Ameristep, you’ve got the…so many companies that are making quality blinds. And they’re huge blinds that allows the circumference of the inside to be large. And it allows them to sit in there with their parent, grandparent.
It allows them to get up and move. It allows them…I have grandchildren, and I allow them to bring their technology toys, the little things and stuff that they can play. And they’re not sitting there bored and not sitting there constantly being told to be quiet and sit still and everything. In these blinds, they can get up and move. They can play with their games. They can just have a good time.
And I think, from my perspective, is to make the outdoors fun for the younger generation. Don’t make it so hard that starting off with a youngster. Don’t make it so hard. Don’t make them sit still for hours on end as an adult can do. Make it fun for them. And then process…get them behind a crossbow several months before season to allow them to become accurate and become very proficient with a crossbow in order to cleanly harvest game.
Bruce: Let’s talk about whitetail hunting a little bit. Who gave you the best tip ever and what was that tip?
Barry: The best tip in whitetail hunting. There’s no way that in a given afternoon or in a given program that I can give you all the tips that handed down through me or to me, sorry, from my mentors. The greatest mentor in my life was my dad. And he started taking me whitetail hunting when I was a very, very young age so that I was not able to carry a weapon at that time. He instilled the love in me as a youngster.
And as far as a tip is concerned, many tips of being still, being quiet, making sure that keep your eyes peeled. Not trying to see the whole animal, but just seeing part of the animal. The deer are very elusive. And just seeing an antler tip or seeing the twitching of an ear or the twitching of a tail, to see the leg walking through the brush, or to see just some part of that deer. Then you could start focusing upon the whole deer as itself.
So I guess one of the greatest tips that I can possibly start off with was that don’t look for the whole deer. Just look for the parts that you can see, because the deer, you know as well as I do and any whitetail hunter listening to the show knows that deer are like ghosts. They can appear and disappear in just an instant.
Bruce: Yes they are. One second there’s nothing around you, and the next there’s a buck standing right 10 yards away and you said, “How the heck did he get there?”
Barry: Right.
Bruce: And we’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. You’re hearing something on your right and you turn to your left, slowly hopefully, and there he is, just standing stock still, because he knows something’s up. What about ah-ha moments? Give us a couple ah-ha moments that you couldn’t figure something out in the deer woods, and then all of a sudden you go, “Ah.” The light bulb goes on and there’s your answer.
Barry: Oh, one of my greatest ah-ha moments. During my era of learning how to whitetail hunt, we were trained that you had to climb trees. We were trained to the higher you got, the more your scent was carried away from the nose of the deer. And I agree with that. And I agree that stand hunting has changed the whitetail world considerably.
But one afternoon, I was watching a herd of deer, when I say a herd of deer there was probably 15 in that herd, about 100 yards from the stand that I was in. And as I was glancing into [inaudible 00:13:27], I was thinking, “How in the world do I get those deer over here or how do I get my stand over there without making all kind of noise and be stupid.” And I had read articles upon articles upon articles up to that time of actually stalking on the ground, keeping the wind in your face of course, and getting close to deer for the shot. And after I set there for several hours watching these deer far off, I began to realize that now or never. So I quietly climbed down out of my stand.
I was about 125, 130 yards from those deer. And I began to quietly stalk, watching my footsteps, make sure I didn’t break any branches or anything like that. And I actually got within 30 yards of these deer, which were in a wide open flat. After I got over there I probably figured out why they were over there, they were in white oaks. And when I got within 30 yards, I was able to harvest a very nice 7-point buck from the ground that afternoon.
It took me about, probably, 45 minutes to an hour to actually stalk to those deer, but I got in crossbow range, which was 30 yards from this buck. Never knew I was there. I was able to slip an arrow to the [inaudible 00:15:01] and harvest a very nice 7-point buck. And I realized at that point right there, that you don’t have to climb the trees 45 foot up in order to kill deer. You can stalk and you can hunt from the ground and be successful.
Bruce: Let’s take this little story apart because a lot of people, if you’re in Pope and Young, Ishi was Native American and a lot of Pope and Young traditions come from that heritage. Native Americans hunted on the ground. There was no tree stands. There wasn’t anything. And they hunted to eat. They hunted to harvest and feed the family, feed their tribe.
So let’s talk about how you did that. So 100 some yards, took about an hour. Talk about the wind. Talk about the terrain. Talk about how you actually moved. Talk about how you were dressed. Just tell us the story, the backstory of that.
Barry: Okay, let’s take right from there. I was hunting in the Ozarks of Arkansas, kind of rolling hills. In the woods so there was no open spots. And glassing these deer and seeing them, like I said, at that distance, began to realize that I could keep the trees that were in front of me between them and I, which would hide my movement. Now I had learned from my dad from years and years ago, as a young small boy, and I hope I bring this out to those who are listening, my dad taught me how to squirrel hunt before he taught me how to deer hunt. And sneaking up on squirrels, I was able to use the terrain in an around me to get to the trees where the squirrels were at.
And then, taking that concept from squirrel hunting, I used those concepts that were taught to me, and was able to keep the trees between me and those deer. Again, every so often, stopping and glassing, being in no hurry. Take five steps and stop. Keep a low profile. Keep yourself in between the bushes, the trees, whatever you’ve got to help break up your outline.
And that’s how I snuck up on these deer, is that I was able to use the trees in front of me and use the terrain, and keep the wind checked. The wind just happened to be perfect on that day. It allowed me to carefully and to quietly stalk within range of this 7-point buck. And I have killed several, several deer since that time, and some of them have been, what we call here in Arkansas, some mighty good wall-hangers. But that little 7-point buck was one of the greatest memories of my hunting career because I really realized that you didn’t have to do every single thing that everybody else does. You could be successful from laying on the ground.
You just had to learn. And if the deer would have smelled me, or if the deer would have flown, or the deer would have left the area, [inaudible 00:18:44] or whatever, I at least still tried. You don’t always have to be successful at trying, but you have to try. And that’s what I’d done that afternoon. And luckily, I was successful. But that little 7-point buck, of course I didn’t get it mounted but I still have the antlers at the house, and every time I look at those set of antlers, I remember that hunt.
It took me, like I said, well over an hour to stalk within the range of those deer. But to harvest that buck at that distance, and know that I put good hunting ethics in that concept or in that scenario, learned from my dad’s squirrel hunting, that is was [inaudible 00:19:32]. And I still get chills thinking about that time. I really do.
Bruce: How attentive were the deer to the white oaks, the mass crop? Were they…that whole herd just nose to the ground and they’re picking up acorns off the ground?
Barry: I can remember it as though it happened yesterday. They were just…they were in mare heaven. White oaks to the deer, is like you and I getting turned loose inside of a steakhouse. It was their…white oaks don’t last that long as far as the droppings are concerned [inaudible 00:20:13]. And they’d really found their heaven.
And even though we know how attentive deer are, they were attentitive but yet they had their minds on one thing and that was gorging as much white oak acorns as they could possibly. And even though they made sure of their surroundings, they were at this smorgasbord of their food and they were enjoying those acorns.
Bruce: Listeners, a couple key things came out of that. One, patience. Two, using skills learned as a young boy as a squirrel hunter.
Barry: Right.
Bruce: Because they’re all lessons learned that accumulate and accumulate until such a time as wait a minute, I can do this. Having the confidence and then putting all the pieces together and then closing the deal. That’s a trophy of a lifetime. Thank you for sharing that with us, Barry.
Barry: It was a joy and it was a great thrill for me. And like I said, the lesson that I learned there has intensed my ground assault. Up to now, I would say that 70% of my hunting now for whitetail deer is done from the ground. A few years ago, about five years ago, I graduated to the ghillie suit. Ghillie suit has completely changed my outlook and has changed my whole hunting world.
It turned it upside down. And it’d take too long for me tell you the advantages of wearing the ghillie suit, but anybody out there listening, if you haven’t tried it then you owe it to yourself and owe it to everyone that you know to try a ghillie suit. That is just astronomically will turn your world around.
Bruce: Well, we got a couple minutes. Give us a minute, minute and a half, two minutes of the advantages of a ghillie suit.
Barry: Ghillie suit allows you to break up the human form. It allows you to basically disappear. For years and years, our military has used a ghillie suit to get close to the enemy and to be undetected, either to scout or to eliminate [inaudible 00:22:42], whatever their purpose was for using a ghillie suit. That ghillie suit can be used in the concept of hunting because it completely breaks up the outward appearance of being human whatsoever, and that’s from head to toe. A ghillie suit can make you just look like a bush. And when I say look like a bush, I’ve had too many encounters.
I’ve had hunters come within 10 feet of me and not know that I was even in the wood wearing a ghillie suit. You don’t have to believe that, but that’s the God’s honest truth. It’s been so much fun using a ghillie suit. And you get downwind on the deer. You get on their trails. You get in the bedding area or get in their bedding pattern. Get a ghillie suit on, back off the trail about 15 to 20 yards and look out, because your eyes are going to be opened up to a whole new concept of hunting.
Bruce: Thank you for that. This is the time in the show where you can give a shout-out to pinpoint, broadhead manufacturers, whatever gear you use, people that have helped you along the way, Facebook pages, how to get in touch with you if people have questions about crossbows. So here you go, Barry. You’ve got an open mic.
Barry: Okay. Big shout-out to Pinpoint Crossbows Technology, the leader in crossbow technologies. They have come…they have taken the crossbow and brang it to where it is today. There were established in 1994 and they have taken the crossbow now to where it can accommodate all members of the family. They have one of the best cocking systems known to the crossbow industry.
It allows people with disabilities. It allows people who are senior system. It allows the young to cock a heavy poundage crossbow with little to no ease. They’re very, very driven to number one in customer satisfaction and customer service. If you haven’t shot a TenPoint or if you haven’t owned a TenPoint, now is the time to treat yourself to one of the best crossbows out there.
As far as all of the other equipment, it’s wide open. I personally use [inaudible 00:25:12] for broadheads. I’ve had very successful results from that broadhead. I’m a Mossy Oak fan. Love Mossy Oak.
I love the ghillie suit. Ghillie suit has changed my world. I think that it’s very important that you take all precautions to make sure that yourself is as clean as humanly possible. Take a bath before you go out into the woods. Make sure your clothes are washed in an unscented detergent. Many products out there to help [inaudible 00:25:47] that.
Go out there in the woods. When you’re out there in the woods, just learn. You make a mistake it’s okay, just learn from it. And don’t be so hard on yourself. There’ll be another day, another time. Go out there and enjoy yourself.
Take a crossbow, get your family involved, get your wife involved, get your grandmother involved, get Grandpa involved, get the kids involved. It’s an avenue. It’s a tool that the entire family can enjoy. And it’s a tool that’s [inaudible 00:26:18] harvest any North American whitetail in any state that it’s legal. And it can bring joy to something that you just have to realize what joy it can bring to a family of hunting that it can do.
So just set your crossbow and next time you see a crossbow hunter out there, just remember. If it’s legal, they have the exact same right to be out there as you do. Enjoy it. Have a great day.
Bruce: Barry James, thank you so much for sharing a lot of wisdom. I got a full page of notes. I hope the listeners out there have taken some notes or put stuff in their memory bank, because you shared a lot of wisdom, a lot of skill sets, and you shared the passion of the hunt and the joy of the hunt. And thank you so much, Barry, for being on the show and my all your hunts be good ones.
Barry: Thank you, sir. Thank you for allowing me to be on your show. It’s been a privilege and an honor.