Bowhunter Used Dad’s Classic Recurve to Arrow Massive Buck

   If you spotted an old recurve bow with a twisted limb in your father’s closet, you might think he'd be lucky to sell it for $5 at a garage sale.

   But Charlie Klassa, 43, of Berlin wouldn’t sell his dad’s old recurve for a bar of gold. He’s a serious bowhunter and knows the bow he’s looking at: It’s a 1968 Staghorn Tempest Zebrawood Deluxe. His dad, Bob, age 78, bought it after surviving Vietnam. That alone made the bow special. Plus, to Charlie Klassa’s eye, he sees exotic wood, traditional engineering and curves as classic as Marilyn Monroe. That makes it more valuable to him than today’s top-end Mathews compound bow.

   Besides, Klassa started shooting recurves at age 9, and was competing in recurve-bow tournaments and winning 3-D tournaments by age 11. So, as he looked ahead to Wisconsin’s 2023 bowhunting season two years ago, he decided it was time to set his compound bow aside and grab the Staghorn.

   First, he sought advice from a recurve-bow manufacturer on how to straighten the bow’s twisted limb. After two weeks of heat and steam treatments, and forcibly bending the limb back into line, Klassa cured the Staghorn’s twist after five attempts. He then took it turkey hunting in spring 2023. He never reached his blind before arrowing a gobbler as it walked into a shooting lane at 14 yards.

    He practiced hard with the recurve all summer but didn’t have much luck seeing deer after archery season opened in mid-September. That changed when late October’s rut kicked in, and he began sitting dawn-to-dusk in his treestands. Klassa is a big-woods bowhunter, and focuses on mature bucks in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula.

Charlie Klassa of Berlin arrowed this 8-point buck in Wisconsin’s Northwoods in 2023 with his father’s 1968 Staghorn recurve bow.  — Charlie Klassa photos

  About 9 a.m. on a cold, crisp 26-degree morning, Klassa heard a deer walking about 100 yards away. It was a buck! He grabbed his rattling antlers and clashed them together. The buck started running, blitzing straight at his tree. Klassa had his bow up and arrow nocked when the buck stopped at 30 yards, seemingly puzzled to not see deer where it had heard clashing antlers.

   The buck, which Klassa estimated carried 10 points and 150 inches of antler, didn’t offer a good shot. It eventually snorted and bounded away. Klassa and the buck played chess the next hour. Each time Klassa crashed his rattling antlers together, the buck cautiously returned, stopping beyond bow range to watch for the combatants, and then bounding away.

   When the buck lost its patience and approached for the fifth time, it circled downwind to verify what it had heard. After cutting the distance to 40 yards without catching fresh scent, the buck finally walked into range. Klassa drew the Staghorn, calmly picked a spot on the buck’s chest and released his arrow.

   He missed at 14 yards, a blown shot he can never explain.

   “I flat-out missed,” Klassa said. “Why, I don’t know. I’ve never felt lower hunting. That was the pits. I quit, climbed down and didn’t hunt the rest of the day.”

Bob Klassa, 78, shows the mounted buck that his son, Charlie, arrowed during Wisconsin’s 2023 deer season.

   He couldn’t bring himself to return to that site, and instead started hunting another area where he knew of a heavy-antlered 8-point buck. He arose at 2 a.m. the next four days, drove to the area for a 2-mile hike to his treestand, and hunted dawn-to-dusk without seeing a deer.

   The weather matched his attitude: cold, cloudy and windy. “It felt brutal, and it tested my patience,” Klassa said. “Each minute I wondered why I was there. I thought I should be home, playing with my kids. I felt like a failure, and the deer didn’t make me feel any better.”

   When the alarm sounded at 2 a.m. the fifth day after his miss, Klassa hit the snooze button repeatedly before swinging his legs out of bed. He felt physically beaten after sitting still all day four times, and hiking in and out of the woods with a 55-pound pack, 2 miles each direction.

   The forest was dead calm when he parked the fifth morning. As he gathered his gear, a pack of coyotes howled in the distance. He recorded the howling to play later for his kids.

   He felt even more discouraged during what became a noisy, clumsy hike to his

treestand. “I figured I spooked every deer within two zip codes,” Klassa said. “I didn’t see or hear a deer all morning. The wind was dead calm, the sun came out and the temperatures were climbing after windy, cloudy miserable weather for four days.”

   As noon arrived, his attitude started changing, too. “I leaned against my tree, and it felt good sitting there,” he said. “I felt content for five minutes and then 10. I let myself forget about missing that deer. Right about then I heard noises that at first sounded like a squirrel in the leaves. And then there’s this buck marching right at my tree. It was that heavy 8-pointer, and he was already at 40 yards. I had to move now or he’d get past me without a shot.”

   Klassa grabbed his bow and spun into shooting position. The buck spotted the movement. It stopped and stared his way, but not directly at him. He froze and averted his gaze, afraid to breathe. But then the buck flicked its tail and resumed walking.

   “The leaves were dry and crunchy, and so loud that I heard his energy in every step,” Klassa said. “I drew the bow and held it at full draw, which I never do, but I didn’t like the shot angle. When it gave me the right angle, I picked a tuft of hair and let go at 6 yards.”

   Struck mortally, the buck ran headlong into the tree holding Klassa in his stand. He felt the impact in his treestand’s platform. It ran 19 yards before smashing into a smaller tree, backing off, and hitting it again before falling dead at its base.

   After packing out the buck in two long hauls, Klassa drove 20 minutes to the nearest gas station to find a strong cell-phone signal. He called his dad to celebrate his success.

   Klassa said the Staghorn now rests in retirement but hopes it’s temporary. “When the time is right, I hope my sons will take Grandpa’s bow into the woods again," he said. "There’s more stories yet to be written about it.”