In this special interview with Santa Claus, it was discovered that with only a few shopping days left until Christmas, Rudolph, the vice president in charge of transportation for the massive Christmas Toy Corporation of the North Pole, had not shown up to work for days. Santa complained he was fed up.
“This happens every year during the rut in Louisiana,” related Saint Nick.
The lead deer of famous Santa’s sleigh team has been living the life of a “Playboy” while the rest of the team have been grounded by lack of leadership.
Consequently, Santa took the advice of his old buddy “Uncle John.” Removing his tradition Red and White suit and donning Realtree camo and packing his trusty Bear/Jennings Crossbow, Santa terminated Rudolph’s employment.
After the embarrassing incident in 2004 when Santa Landed in Uncle John’s Food plot, there was a corporate merger between the two famous entities.
Santa developed quite a taste for venison, while Uncle John introduced the modern Honda 4 wheeler instead of the sleigh. Santa sprinkled it with his magic fairy dust and the Honda flew just fine.
So don’t worry kids Santa will be on time this year regardless of corporate complications.
During the secret merger between Santa and Uncle John, some of that magic fairy dust was sprinkled on some of our Louisiana politicians as well, as this year the crossbow was legalized for all licensed bow hunters in the state.
Our Santa Look-a-Like is Alvin Cooley of the famous Alvin and Calvin Cooley hunting twins of Leesville.
Just for the record they both look like Santa. Calvin has racked up 35 vertical bow and arrow harvests, while Alvin marks this big 8-point as his 39th crossbow kill in the state of Louisiana.
How, so you say? Well Alvin injured his shoulder several years ago and got the special permit to bow hunt with the crossbow. This probably makes Alvin the most accomplished horizontal bow hunter in the state of Louisiana.
This 8-point will be one of two he has taken that will be considered for entry into the new state crossbow record books.
Now we don’t know everybody that has taken a deer legally with a crossbow, so records will be backdated to 1975 so all Louisiana horizontal bow hunters can catch up.
This is the first year the crossbow has been legalized in this state for everyone, therefore the way you get a crossbow harvest in the record book is to contact Horizontal Bow Hunter Magazine.
Dan Hendricks takes care of the record book and all arrow taken animals may be measured and recorded. Just for the record, Pope and Young doesn’t recognize the crossbow, funny American Crossbow Federation recognizes horizontal and vertical trophies the way it ought to be.
The fear the crossbow would ruin Louisiana bow hunting is far from the truth.
Although crossbows sold out all over the state, once new hunters that had listened to all the myths surrounding the crossbow got them home, they found out it takes just as much skill and patients to bag a buck with a crossbow as it does with a compound.
But Alvin Cooley showed us how. Alvin and I have both noticed that it seems we were the only ones even trying to get a deer with a crossbow; others please let me know at ujoutdoors@yahoo.com. It seems I was elected crossbow director for the state by the ACF.
Hunting after the archery, primitive gun and modern gun season, Alvin had the odds against him. He was hunting on Red Dirt National Wildlife Refuge, a place completely open to the public. Nevertheless, this master of the horizontal bow waited patiently.
On the day that the moon was fullest for the year at last twilight’s gleaming, this fine buck eased down the trail, right under Alvin’s stand. It came in from the right forcing a hard turn in the stand, to present the crossbow.
Alvin said he raised the weapon in two stages. As the buck lowered his head, he drew down and did a bleat call to stop the deer.
Another historical moment, as the mystical flight of the arrow was released from a horizontal bow. At 15 yards it was a complete pass through, using Muzzy 100 grain broad heads and Easton XX75 arrows.
The buck bounded away appearing to not know he was shot, as arrow struck deer often do. He only ran for about eight seconds and was down within 100 yards of the stand.
With Dan Hendricks and Leone Russo as my guides for learning the crossbow its certainly nice to have guys like Alvin and Calvin Cooley right here with me for hands on training with the crossbow and the compound.
Alvin and Calvin tells all the young hunters, that bow hunting is one of the greatest challenges and adventures of a lifetime. It’s your choice to go horizontal or vertical, we helped make it that way.
Pass it on.
Leesville, La. —
