At 83, Paul is still going strong, still making, shooting, and hunting with his longbows in the Ruby Mountains.
Nevada Deer Hunt
By
PAUL K. MOORE
A hunting party with bow and arrow, including M. Hill, one of the world's best field archers, his wife, also an excellent field archer, H. H. Dill, Refuge manager of the Ruby Lake Wildlife Refuge, Ernie Wardwell, Elko county game warden and myself, was staged high in the Ruby mountains of Nevada.
These mountains are very rough and have large rimrocked ridges that are flat on top and covered with mahogany and pinion pine. The trees fade to a few scattered pines on the high peaks. Below these rimrocks the hills roll downward to the valley. It is excellent deer country and there are plenty of deer.
We came up the draw under the rimrock where the boy's wounded a big four point buck with rifles. We were trailing this deer and he led us around the rimrock on the high side, where he could cross on top of it and then around the peak to a pass on top and down the other side of the mountain. We were all tracking the deer when Mr. Hill yells, "There goes a buck." We all looked and could see him running through the mahogonies straight out on the rimrock. The boys with the rifles started shooting at him and Hill yelled at me to get him with the how, so I got off my horse and ran down a steep incline to the flatter surface. The boys stopped shooting and I could not see any deer. I walked on down to the point and crossed a little crevice and still no deer. By that time Mr. Hill had arrived with his bow and we both looked to no avail. Finally I went back across the crevice and there underneath a rock about twenty feet down was the buck standing on a ledge, his buttocks toward me. I drew the bow and let drive the arrow hitting him in the ham on the right side, going through his stomach and angling out the other side. When the arrow struck him he jumped straight off that cliff and fell about flfty feet into some rocks and brush below. He fell or his head and shoulders, so did not bruise the meat. This was my first experience of this kind. Others say that a deer will come nght at you rather than jump on a cliff.
On another day Mr. Hill shot a doe with a 72lb Bamboo bow with his own Howard Hill hunting point and arrow and hit her in the front shoulder cutting through it a rib on both sides and out the other side to hit a fawn in the ham--the rrow going in about four inches. He said at the time if he had been shooting one of his heavy bows it would have gone through there both. The doe ran about fifty yards and fell dead.
The bow I shot the buck with was one of Mr. Hill's bamboo bows. I have never shot a bow that was more powerful or felt better in the hand than one of his. Very seldom two such pecudiar things happen in the same hunt.
