Outside Life reported final December that Ray Swingle achieved a deer searching milestone that few individuals will reside to prime. At age 100, Swingle shot a Pennsylvania buck on the Union Dale space household farm together with his outdated Winchester Mannequin 70 Featherweight rifle in .30-06. This yr, Swingle killed one other PA buck, however this time with a crossbow the day after his a hundred and first birthday.
“I didn’t suppose Ray might prime final yr’s deer searching achievement — however he has,” Ray’s grandson-in-law Mike Mancuso tells Outside Life. “He was searching alone the afternoon of Oct. 9 when he used his TenPoint Crossbow to take an 8-point buck at 30 yards. The buck had a 17-inch unfold, weighed about 175 kilos, and we predict it was a three-year outdated buck.”
The whitetail dropped in its tracks, because the arrow went by way of the buck’s neck and ribs, clipping the deer’s backbone and anchoring it.
“Ray referred to as me instantly, and I received to his wood-frame taking pictures hut [that he had handmade] quickly thereafter. Then we loaded it up, took it again to the farmhouse and cleaned it.”
Mancuso says Ray tried laborious to shoot a buck on his 101st birthday, which was on Oct. 8. However he by no means received a crack at an older buck that day. So, he opted to hunt once more the following day to hopefully punch a tag.
“He handed smaller bucks as a result of he knew there have been higher ones on the farm,” Mancuso says. “Getting a superb buck the day after your 101st birthday is an unbelievable achievement. And he did it with a crossbow — whereas searching alone.”
The buck Swingle arrowed was taken solely about 50 yards from the place he shot an 8-pointer final yr when he was 100 years outdated.
Ray was born on the Susquehanna County dairy farm in 1923, and Mancuso says he nonetheless works on the farm doing a big selection of initiatives. Mancuso believes that the hard-working farm life-style retains Ray match, self-sufficient, and able to hunt.
Mancuso says Ray bowhunted deer for 30 years, dwelling by way of the evolution of recurve and compound bows. Swingle started utilizing a crossbow when his shoulders might now not deal with the push-pull of drawing a typical bow.
Whereas most of Swingle’s deer have been taken in his house state of Pennsylvania, as a youthful man he had additionally traveled broadly for searching journeys.
“He’s taken moose in Newfoundland, caribou in Quebec, elk and mule deer in Colorado, mountain goats in British Columbia, Dall sheep within the Yukon,” says Mancuso. “He shot his first deer at age 15 with a .22 rifle again in 1938, [when it was lawful to hunt deer in Pennsylvania with a .22].”
Picture courtesy of Ray Swingle
Ray usually hunts with Mancuso or his grandchildren. However since he hunts virtually each day in the course of the Pennsylvania season, he usually hunts alone, too.
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“He’s labored laborious passing on out of doors traditions and takes his nice grandson fishing on farm ponds.”
“There’s little doubt that Ray shall be again subsequent fall to strive for one more buck round his 102nd birthday — God keen.”