Sport: At Chattahoochee

There are 1,500,000 archery addicts in the U. S. Most of these toxophilites are content with target shooting or flight shooting (for distance). But some 15,000 are Cock Robin killers: they want to kill something with their bows & arrows.

Fifteen years ago, bow & arrow hunting was almost extinct in the U. S. Today every State except Arizona permits hunting with bow & arrow; twelve States have special preserves for bowmen, three States (Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin) have separate hunting seasons for archers.

Bow & arrow hunting is encouraged by U. S. conservation authorities, because kills are few & far between. A bowman must get within 75 yards of his prey before he lets fly, and even close shots often get sidetracked by a twig. In the 25 years he hunted with bow & arrow, Chicago’s late Arthur Young bagged almost every species of big game on the American continent, but the U. S. has few Arthur Youngs. Last year, during Michigan’s 15-day bow & arrow season, only four deer were shot.

Last week, while the open season for bowmen was on in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, Georgia sponsored the first organized bow & arrow deer hunt held in the U. S. since the Indians took to gunpowder.

Man behind last week’s hunt in the Chattahoochee National Forest was U.S.

Forest Ranger Walter Arthur Woody, a broad-faced, broad-shouldered, broad-beamed 225-pounder, known as “The Ranger” to every Georgia mountaineer.

Born in the Blue Ridge district, Woody has been with the U. S. Forest Service since 1915. Fifteen years ago, when the Georgia Legislature outlawed deer hunting in its northern counties, Woody took $100 of his savings, bought two bucks and two does, turned them loose in what is now the Chattahoochee preserve. The Government followed suit, added several hundred deer to Woody’s four. Last week Woody figured that the Chattahoochee held 500 arrow-worthy bucks.

The 20 expert archers who gathered for the five-day hunt through Chattahoochee’s forests and tangled rhododendron “hells” got lots of sage advice from Ranger Woody: >-“The way to get a deer is to find a gap and then sit down and wait. A gap is a low place between mountain peaks. It is a place both deer and humans seek to cross mountains. Deer are just as lazy as humans. > “If you fire your arrow at a deer and think you’ve hit him, sit down, fill your pipe. Smoke it all the way through. Then get up and look for your deer. If you hit him, that will give him time to lie down and bleed. Then he can’t run away.” > “You boys with your bows & arrows, you be careful. I don’t want any of those broadheads [arrows] to hit my broad bottom.” Despite these Woodycisms, last week’s bowmen bagged nary a buck. One got pretty close, had his bow bent when the deer turned broadside. It was a doe.