Mike Strandlund, editor of Bowhunting World and Grand View Media's Editorial Director, Will Be Missed By All Bowhunters.

I learned recently that I'd lost my friend Mike Strandlund, the victim of an accident while vacationing in the Philippines. But the loss wasn't mine alone. All bowhunters have lost a friend. Mike was a bowhunting ambassador for us all and a damn fine one, a trait that earned him a spot in the Bowhunter's Hall of Fame. Mike was a  talented communicator; often eloquent, invariably honest and, most importantly, a man without bluster, braggadocio or ego -- something increasingly rare in an outdoor industry of cheast-beaters, braggarts and blowhards.

Why always the good ones?

Together Mike and I shared our first African safari, a writer junket that felt to me as if I'd won a lottery. I'd dreamed of Africa as long as I'd hunted, filling my imagination to overflowing on the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ruark, J.A. Hunter, Howard Hill and Fred Bear. Yet my memories of that dream fulfilled include not so much the handful of animals I killed with bow and arrow, but sitting around crackling fires at day's end sipping cold Castle Lagers, chatting with Mike.

Mike and I experienced parallel outbreaks of nasty target panic that week, a situation resulting in some embarrassing misses on some very nice animals and associated teeth gnashing. The pressure was on, both because of "hunt-of-a-lifetime" notions and the "make-it-bleed-you-pay" policies of all South African hunting operations. There were a couple evenings when I might not have been too pleasant around the campfire had it not been for Mike's sage counsel and his ability to help me see the bigger picture. That's the kind of guy Mike was. I'd get back to Africa many times after, but that first trip, shared with Mike, remains my most cherished.

I also recall a week of incredible fly-fishing on New Mexico's San Juan River. Mike and I had talked of fishing those renowned waters together at some length and we hit it just right, managing to show up for a rare flying-ant fall, something akin to arriving in Alaska or Quebec and hitting the caribou migration just right. We slept and ate minimally, fished long days, caught 35 to 40 trout apiece per day averaging 18 inches, all on dry flies. There was plenty of water and trout to go around, but we fished graciously, taking turns on sighted fish, talking of the important things in life and bowhunting, laughing a lot, enjoying life to its fullest. Mike figures prominently in my memories of a river I guided on and fished relentlessly for decades.

Mike purchased some of my first magazine articles way back when. Eventually I'd align myself with a competing publication, but our friendship endured. We often ribbed one another about the superiority of our respective publications, but it was all in good fun. And though we haven't worked together in ages, I can't imagine an ATA Show without Mike present and the occasional telephone catch-up calls.

Mike will be sorely missed. Bowhunting has lost one of the good ones.

My Deer Are Smarter Than Yours.

Have you ever heard even one bowhunter brag about how lucky they are to bowhunt the dumbest whitetails in North America? The answer is no. You'll never, ever hear this sentence uttered out loud by anyone who bowhunts whitetails. Everyone's deer are the smartest. Worthy of MacArthur Foundation Genius Grants. But they're wrong. My deer are smartest... 

My whitetails are subjected not only to intense rifle-hunting pressure two months of the year, but year-round mountain lion attacks and, more recently, threats from wolves, which as everyone knows are responsible for every single failing of the Idaho Fish and Game Department's questionable game-management schemes. Getting bows drawn on these jumpy bucks requires the quietest wool garments and impeccable shot-timing. You learn to shoot while seated. It would be a joke to even attempt standing to shoot. These deer jump out of their skins if you so much as think too loudly.

My Kansas buddy, on the other hand, thinks his deer are real smart - despite a lack of predators and 14,000 acres of prime habitat receiving very light hunting pressure (a handful of relatives and friends annually) and zero rifle hunting. I bowhunt with him periodically and find his deer downright stupid, actually. I stand to shoot if I wish, play with my video camera atop its creaky tree-pod while deer walk directly beneath me. They pause, have a look around, twitch their tails and continue about their business. But my buddy insists his whitetail can smell things even my neurotic Idaho bucks cannot. The reason I didn't see a shooter buck near my Kansas stand last fall, he says, is because I blew my nose 200 yards away while we were walking in to hang a stand just before a rain shower.

My Iowa buddy really cracks me up. He, of course, thinks his deer are prodigies. He kills a 160-plus inch buck every friggin' year, without fail, but somehow needs me to understand how difficult his bowhunting is, how many long days he spends on stand. The only time in my life I managed to tag a bigger buck than him - not incidentally, bowhunting other property near his Iowa home - I arrowed a 163-inch buck my first day hunting, so I really don't buy it.

This "my-bucks-are-smarter-than-yours" mentality is akin to my fly-fishing partners claiming a particular pea-brained, cold-blooded trophy trout living beneath the county-road bridge or near a certain submerged stump possesses cognitive powers simply because they can't manage to catch it. I mean, do you really want to contemplate being outwitted by a barely-sentient fish?

One thing's for certain: Anyone who has ever killed a trophy-sized buck (no matter where it came from) is an expert in all things whitetail. They killed that buck not because he was a dumb animal unable to summon abstract thought, but because they're darn savvy hunters. That's why I know I'm a heck of an outdoorsman - because my deer are the smartest of all. . .