QUIET PLACE
Credited with pioneering some of the most effective tactics for taking trophy whitetails in the Bowzone, SITKA Ambassador Jim Hole takes silence pretty seriously. "The Quiet Place" takes you into the world of big whitetail deer and complete silence.
The best places to bowhunt for deer are the areas where people with firearms don't tread. In these locations the bucks grow old even as they boldly pursue does through open woodlots and fields.
The archery world-record typical whitetail was tagged in 2001 by Wayne Zaft in Alberta's Wildlife Management Unit 248. Unit 248 covers 4,190 square kilometers (about 1,618 square miles) around Edmonton. You may only pursue whitetail with a bow in this area.
Jim Hole Jr.
Hole's approach to bowhunting is like a Wall Street takeover specialist's: He's conservative as a rule, and ruthlessly aggressive at the moment it's time to capitalize. The guy even totes a briefcase into the field. In it he keeps maps and a cross-referenced list of all of his pin sites, as well as a chart that tells him the required wind direction to hunt a specific pin and up-to-date notation as to the last time a human went to that site.
There is the intense side of the sport, the Yang, the hard. This is what is focused on here. The intensity needed to be competent in a manner necessary to get close to the big deer and the development of the techniques and tools needed to to so. What is missing is the balance, the soft side, the Yin, the peace and serenity with being one with nature and the outdoors. To truly blend into the environment of the Whitetail Deer and to belong there. The most important message in what we are doing, or trying to do, is to get vey close to the really big White Tails. It is not a necessity that we harvest them, but rather that we strive to have the opportunity to do so with precision. We experience the same satisfaction whether we chose to or not. As we have evolved in the sport, it has become more and more likely that we will choose to let an opportunity go by, with the confidence and satisfaction in knowing another opportunity can be found. As hunters, archers and outdoorsmen, we are interested in the close game, the short shots, being right on top of the White Tail deer. This is the game, and the close game is a balance of intensity and tranquility.
A FILM BY COLD COLLABORATIVE
Featuring Jim Hole Jr. Produced by Cold Collaborative Directed by Shannon Vandivier
Cinematography by Bowen Parrish, Zac Ramras, and Shannon Vandivier
Edited by Blake Campbell