I’ve spoken for hundreds of game dinners and whitetail seminars over the past 20 years, and two of the most common questions I get asked are:
- What’s your favorite big game animal to hunt?
- What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever put an arrow through?
The first question is an easy answer for me. I’ve hunted big game everywhere, from Africa to Alaska and many places in between. But, hands down, my favorite big game animal is still Whitetails. It’s an incredible contest of not being seen, heard, or smelled. Fooling a whitetail’s ears, eyes, and nose is what will fill your tag or send you home with an empty truck bedThe fact is, you’re never going to defeat an older buck’s senses, so you have to outsmart him, and that’s the ultimate competition.
Bigger than an Elephant?
The second question might surprise you. You’re probably thinking the biggest thing I’ve ever shot will be a 2,000-pound Cape buffalo, a 1,200-pound brown bear, or a 900-pound bull elk. The biggest thing I’ve ever shot was taller than a giraffe, longer than a blue whale, and heavier than an elephant. Now you’re confused. The answer to that question would be…my neighbor’s house! I took it with a 125-grain Grim Reaper expandable broadhead back in 2006.
OOOPS!
A groundhog had been digging massive holes through my yard, and I could never catch him. One late afternoon, I saw the varmint carving out a new hole only 15 yards from my sliding glass door. Painstakingly, I slid the door open with my foot while laying on my side. Still hidden, I stood up, came to full draw in my living room, slowly moved into the opening, and launched an uphill shot that blew right through the groundhog. The problem was that I had so much kinetic energy it proceeded to travel another 80 yards and fully lodged into the siding of my neighbor’s beautiful A-frame house. I was so focused on ensuring I’d arrowed the critter that I never paid attention to the remainder of the arrow’s flight path. After shooting the groundhog, I searched everywhere for the arrow, but to no avail. The following day, I heard a knock on my door. It was my neighbor, and he had an irritated scowl on his face. In his hands were two things: a piece of siding with my arrow and a Grim Reaper Hades broadhead stuck inside. That explained the look on his face, and to say he raised a little Hades with me would be an understatement. Grim Reaper has a quote for their broadheads, it’s “Watch em Drop!” Well, I have a bone to pick. The house didn’t drop, but my jaw did when the homeowner then handed me a repair bill for $325.00. These broadheads are nasty penetrators!
My History with Broadheads
Like many older bowhunters, my first broadhead was a Bear Razorhead. Fred Bear created this broadhead in 1956, and it has been the staple for decades.
Many bowhunters still like to argue about fixed vs. expandable broadheads, but I believe there is a place for both. It’s a personal choice, and I will leave it to you. However, I will talk about the brand I’ve been shooting for most of my professional bow hunting career- Grim Reaper.
Something I like about their fixed broadheads is that they are also sharpened on the back of the blade. On the rare occasion you don’t get a pass-through, the blades are still slicing inside the deer as the deer runs, and if the arrow catches a tree, it will cut another channel as it’s being pulled back out. The blades are surgically sharp, which slices through tissue more easily and causes less trauma to the animal.
I became a huge believer in Grim Reaper Broadheads back in 2006 after taking a 700-pound Burchell’s zebra while on safari in South Africa. I didn’t take it with a 125-grain broadhead. I shot it with an 85-grain expandable, and you’d have sworn the blood trail was spray-painted with a Wagner Power Painter. The massive animal ran about 75 yards and piled up. The heavier broadheads I’d ordered didn’t arrive on time for the trip, and the only broadheads I had in my case were a half dozen 85-grain 3-blade razor tip mechanicals. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone headed to Africa, but it was a testament to good shot placement and to the unbelievable penetration of these heads.
I love that Grim Reaper uses a spring instead of an O ring or clip. There is nothing you have to replace if lost or slide into place. You can just snap the blades forward when you’re done without resetting anything. Their Pro Series tip, when shot into layered cardboard, penetrated 47 layers deep, which is crazy penetration. The tip embedded itself into the concrete when shot into a cement block. This new Pro Series Tip on these things is devastating.
Fast forward about 12 years.
I was bowhunting in southern Indiana in late October. At about 6:00 that evening, I could hear a buck working the rub behind and below me, but the foliage was so thick I couldn’t see the buck shredding the tree bark. Since my back was to the woods, I slowly pulled my grunt call out of my front breast pocket, slowly slid it up to my lips, and gently blew one low-pitched call. This buck was ready for a fight. On the count of one, that buck blasted up the hill, jumped the fence, and stood directly below me about two feet from the rungs on my ladder, but a low-hanging branch blocked any shot. My heart about jumped out of my chest by what happened next, sending chills down my spine. He let out a snort wheeze so close and loud I swear he left snot on my ladder. As he tilted his head upwards, his warm breath shot out of each nostril, creating steam that rose like the afterburner smoke blowing out of the back of an F15 on takeoff. It was crazy intense! Because he was so close and I didn’t have a good shooting lane, I had to wait for him to move away from the tree until he stepped into one of my shooting lanes. As he moved forward, I extended my bow arm, drew back on my Bear LS6, settled in for the shot, and placed my sight pin slightly behind his front leg a little low of center. At this point, it’s all automatic. I breathed out slowly, squeezed the release, and watched the arrow and broadhead blow through that 230-pound buck like a wet cardboard box. The deer jumped forward five yards, stood still for a moment, staggered to the left like a child who’d just spun a bunch of circles, tipped over, let out one big breath, and it was game over. That 100-grain, 3-blade, RazorCut SS Grim Reaper Whitetail Special put the smack on that deer right now!
I sat motionless for about ten minutes, replaying what had just happened. I didn’t want to rush the moment and climb down the ladder. I wanted to take one more look at the setting sun as it illuminated the fall colors all around me, give thanks, and take it all in. All my efforts had been successful. The deer hadn’t moved 15 feet from where he stood, and as Grim Reaper says, I got to “watch em drop.”