Swan Dive

Hitting a flying tundra swan isn’t easy, even for the experts. But practice makes perfect.

Most late-night television addicts have seen “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” a 1938 epic that features Errol Flynn using a long bow to split a competitor’s arrow at an impossible distance.Think that was difficult? Pshaw.

Try hitting a tundra swan with a bolt while sitting in a 3-foot-deep ditch in Hyde County. Even ol’ Errol — not to mention Robin — might have found that a tough challenge.

After taking a dozen-and-a-half shots last year with a borrowed recurve bow, I had three sore fingers, a deflated ego, great respect for anyone who can bring down one of these birds with a stick and string — and the knowledge Hollywood is full of swan dip when it comes to archery (the best bowman in U.S. history, legendary Howard Hill, did the arrow flinging for Flynn in the ’38 movie).

Here’s the problem, according to Tonnie Davis, a 67-year-old outdoorsman who lives at Hyco Lake but is one of the best bow shots in North Carolina at any kind of game, on the ground or flying in the air:

“People don’t get a lot of practice shooting arrows at swans,” he said.

Is there a secret to it? You better believe there is. But unless you’re into Zen, it’s probably going to take a little while to grasp the technique.

It’s not a matter of not having modern equipment. Davis shoots the same Hoyt recurve bow he used to arrow his first white-tailed deer 35 years ago. He buys the cheapest aluminum arrows he can find. Obviously, having the newest bow or the fastest carbon bolts has little to do with bagging one of these big birds.

Davis said he’d killed a swan each year for 15 years or so (approximately each year North Carolina has had a tundra-swan season).

And he talked about the feat as if it were nothing special, perhaps because he’s been so successful.

“It’s all instinctive shooting,” he said.

Instinctive shooting is a fairly simple concept —for those who can do it. Yet becoming a good instinctive bowman is an entirely different matter.

Listening to Davis talk about instinctive archery skills is a little like what the old Washington Senators must have experienced when Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of the modern baseball era, tried to explain to the woeful D.C. diamond nine how to make a piece of hickory connect solidly with a baseball. Teddy Ballgame was a great hitter, but the Senators, even with him as manager and batting guru, escaped last place in the AL East just once.

“If you shoot instinctively, you shoot at what you see,” Davis said.

Wha…????

“You’re not conscious of aiming,” Davis said. “You move and throw up (the bow) and shoot.”

OK.

“You don’t pull (the bow) and hold (the arrow) with a recurve like you would with a compound,” he said.

Gulp.

Now I’m having a little fun with Davis because — even if he did sound like blind Master Po instructing “Grasshopper” — he was pretty much explaining instinctive bow shooting.

But practice is the only thing that’ll let a bow hunter who is going to shoot arrows instinctively make any improvement and have a 50-50 chance to hit a flying swan floating against the wind toward a spread of 100 snow goose decoys and hidden hunters.

I once heard an expert explain “instinctive” shooting and even through his words really didn’t help me shoot any better, I finally grasped the concept.

“Imagine you have a crumpled up piece of paper in your hand, and you’re going to toss it into a waste basket,” he said. “You look at the top of the trash can and toss the paper into it, right?

“Doesn’t matter if you throw it underhanded or overhanded — you don’t ‘aim’ at the waste basket, and you don’t compute how hard or easy to throw the balled-up paper. You just look at the waste can and toss the paper. Your brain does all the work without you thinking. Most of the time you’ll at least hit the basket, even if you don’t get the paper in it; you’ll come really close.

“That’s just hand-eye coordination. Your brain computes automatically the weight of the paper, the distance to the trash can, and how much effort your arm should make to make the piece of paper fly and land in the basket.

“That’s all there is to it.”

There’s just one little problem for a semi-novice archer — finding the time to practice to get really good at instinctive shooting.

I’ve watched instinctive-shooting experts do amazing things with recurves and long bows. Stacey Groscup, a former Duke University chaplain and Archery Hall of Fame member, once demonstrated instinctive shooting at a N.C. Bowhunters Association Convention by hitting aspirins tossed in the air. He’d earlier nailed foam targets thrown across a stage while lying on his back and created bow-string tension by pushing the riser away from him with his feet (“Look, Ma! No hands,” he said, laughing.).

Groscup, balding and using bi-focals, and was at least 70, if he was a day.

There’s no doubt instinctive shooting is the way to go when hunting tundra swans with a bow and arrows. But there’s one problem — having the time to practice after purchasing a recurve or long bow.

Lord knows how many hours — even years — it takes to gain the ability to hit anything flying through the air.

In my case, I don’t think I could have hit a Volkswagen at the preferred 20-yard range with Davis’ 46-pounds-pull recurve.

Long ago I slipped into the compound-bow camp because (a) they throw arrows at incredibly fast speeds (some push arrows 300 feet per second, the length of a football field); (b) new arrows fly almost as flat as a bullet for the first 30 yards; (c) if he uses a range-finder, a compound-bow hunter can hit a coffee cup out to 40 yards from 30 feet up in a tree stand; and (d) the “let-off,” the strength required to hold a modern compound bow at full draw, is routinely 80 percent. That means a compound bow set up for 70-pounds draw weight can be held at full draw as though it were only 14 pounds pull. A recurve or compound bow, on the other hand, requires more strength the farther back one pulls an arrow.

However, compound bows are about as useful hunting tundra swans as throwing rocks at them — for a simple mechanical reason. A hunter has to “lead” a flying swan, just as he would a dove or quail when wing shooting with a shotgun.

Compound bows, unfortunately, are best used with sight pins, which means stable targets (a deer or bear, for instance, even a wild turkey).

So where’s a bowhunter supposed to place his sight pin and at what yardage when the target’s a swan moving at any one of 360 degrees and at an unknown speed?

Guessing is a kind description of what guys with compound bows do when trying to figure out where to aim at a flying swan. The military term is “WAG,” and I won’t go into that explanation, but you probably can figure it out.

“I know some guys who are good with a compound bow,” Davis said. “But the recurve works best for me. Other guys are really good with long bows.”

Davis’ hunting buddy, Joe Don Sawyer of Scranton (between Lake Mattamuskeet and the Pungo River), got roped into bow hunting for tundra swans a few years ago by his Person County friend.

“Joe Don took to it like, well, a swan to water,” Davis said. “He’s really good. But then he’s really good at just about everything related to the outdoors. He’s a natural.”

Sawyer also is a certified captain — he operates a 95-foot-long shrimp trawler from May to November — when he’s not hunting or guiding for Watson’s Lodge (252-926-9157 or 252-945-4723).

Davis loaned Sawyer a bow and it didn’t take him long to bring down his first tundra swan.

“Then he killed his next three or four with a bow,” Davis said.

Sawyer now owns a recurve bow he bought from a friend who developed a shoulder ailment that ended his bow hunting days.

Sawyer has another edge that allows him to get good shots at swans — he doesn’t have to use an artificial swan call, which would require his hands, obviously not a good thing when using a bow. Sawyer calls the birds within range by mimicking their eerie calls with his own voice.

Anyone sitting beside Sawyer in a grain field in Hyde County during a cold winter’s day would swear a swan had just landed beside him. Sawyer’s calling is that close to the real thing.

“It’s just something that quite a few guys who grew up down there can do,” Davis said. “Most of the winners at the World Swan-Calling contest at Little Washington each year are locals who call with their own voices.”

Sawyer holds the N.C. Bowhunters Association’s current state record for the largest tundra swan.

Besides Sawyer, Davis counts “Booger” Harris, a Pantego guide, as one of N.C.’s best swan imitators.

“Pink Atkins from the Kernersville area and Jay and Becky Campbell from Greensboro (he’s a fireman; she’s a nurse) are probably the best tundra swan bow hunters I know,” Davis said. “And, of course, there’s Joe Don.”

As for weapons, just about any decent recurve or long bow with a 40- to 50-pound draw weight will work, Davis said.

“I use aluminum arrows with 100-grain Thunderhead broadheads,” he said.

Davis suggested anyone who wants to hunt tundra swans with archery equipment bring plenty of arrows. He keeps a couple dozen in a cardboard tube he takes afield.

“You might get 30 or 40 shots in a morning’s hunt,” he said. “That’s what I like about swan hunting with a bow; the real enjoyment of getting multiple shots.”

The best chance to bag a tundra swan with a bow is to wait until a bird flies as close as possible.

“Some people like swans coming in straight (to the decoys),” he said. “A lot of guys like the left-to-right shot; that’s the kind I like.

“You just have to figure out what shot you like best. The problem a lot of people have is they won’t wait long enough for a swan to get close.

Swans are such big birds (wingspans of 6 feet, bodies that weigh from 20 to 30 pounds) that it’s deceiving how far away they are when they’re flying toward the decoys.

“They’ll get within 5 or 10 yards, if you’ll stay still,” Davis said.

The closer a bird gets to the hunter also cuts down on the “lead” one has to decide upon before releasing an arrow. Obviously a bigger target that’s closer means a greater chance of a hit.

Davis said some bow hunters shoot from “layout” blinds, lying on their backs.

“If you’re in green weeds, you can sit on a green bucket and be dressed in camouflage, and they’ll fly in,” he said. “But I’ve seen guys dressed in the white jumpsuits sitting in the decoys out in the middle of a field. Swans will come in there, too, and you can get good shots.”

Davis said he prefers to release arrows at a 45-degree angle from the horizon.

“You don’t want to shoot straight up or even close to straight up,” he said. “The wind could catch an arrow and blow it back toward you, and that’s dangerous.”

Davis also said it’s important to make sure arrows are straight and not bent, which can cause misses.

Bow hunting for swans is becoming popular, Davis said.

“We try not to mix gun hunters with bow hunters,” he said. “We’ve had in the teens (numbers) of bow hunters at one hunt.”

To hunt N.C. tundra swans, individuals must apply for a permit ($15) at a wildlife cooperator agent’s store. Only 5000 swan permits are issued by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission each year.

If a hunter’s swan application is chosen, it’s best to fill out a questionnaire that accompanies the permit — once the hunt is finished. The WRC wants accurate harvest figures regarding tundra swans. Filling out the permit also increases a hunter’s chance of getting a future permit.

Hunters shouldn’t get discouraged if they don’t bag a swan the first time they try hunting the birds with a bow and arrows.

“Sometimes people shoot 20 or 30 times without so much as getting a feather,” said Davis, who guides more gun hunters for swans than bow hunters.

If a first-time hunter is really determined to tag a tundra swan, it’s probably a good idea to bring along a 12-gauge scattergun and some No. 2 shotshells in addition to a recurve and rack of arrows.

Never assume bagging a swan with a bow is going to be easy, regardless of what you’ve seen on television. Even ol’ Errol Flynn needed backup to hit the mark when he played Robin Hood. And that guy
wasn’t trying to hit a flying swan.