The Arkansas Bowhunter

Yesterday, I lost one of my good friends of 37 years.

Mike Frasca and I were brought together nearly four decades ago by a shared passion for archery. Back in the early 1990s, when I was Promotions Manager overseeing the shooting program at Ben Pearson Archery, Mike was a force to be delt with on the IBO circuit.  In his prime, he was unbeatable, stacking up multiple World IBO Championships.

He was a gritty, stout guy who could easily draw a bow well over 100 pounds, once setting a  bow speed record of 539 fps during his days with Oregon Bow Company.

To look at him, you’d swear you were staring straight at Quint from Jaws. He didn’t give a damn about fashion, trends, or flash. While other guys chased the newest, high-dollar camo patterns, Mike showed up in an old quilted flannel with worn-out sleeves, missing buttons, and bloodstains from the last elk or deer he’d field-dressed. If gear worked and didn't break, he used it. If it was just for show, he didn't have time for it.

Over the years, we shared countless miles on true, do-it-yourself hunts. We chased elk in Colorado and Idaho, hunted whitetails in Ohio, and pursued turkeys and feral hogs in the Arkansas timber. You find out real quick what a man is made of when you leave the truck behind and head into the backcountry. The unglamorous reality of a DIY hunt separates folks in a hurry. When the temperatures plummet, the snow drives sideways, and a hunt turns into pure survival, the fair-weather hunters start looking for an easy way out. Mike never quit. He had a stubborn, dogged persistence that thrived when conditions got miserable, whether sticking to a blood trail three hours after dark or heaving a pack frame loaded with 90 pounds of quartered elk.

I’ll never forget our first "pack in" Colorado elk hunt. A team of us had spent the entire day grinding switchbacks uphill with heavy packs, pushing deep into a roadless wilderness to leave the crowds far behind. We finally gained our plateau right as dark was setting in. Exhausted, everyone started scrambling to pitch their high-dollar, ultralight backcountry tents before the freeze hit. I looked over, and Mike wasn't pitching anything. He knelling over a Sterno stove, calmly stirring a pouch of Chili Mac Mountain House for supper.  His sleeping bag was rolled out flat on top of an 8x8 blue plastic tarp—probably picked up at Walmart—laid right on the bare dirt.

I walked over and asked, “Mike, you need a hand getting your tent up?”

He didn't even look up from his dinner. “Don't use one,” he said. “I just crawl in the bag, fold the other half of the blue tarp over top of me, and it keeps the frost off.” That was Mike in a nutshell. No fuss, no pretension, just absolute, rugged simplicity.

Yet behind that gruff exterior was a brilliant, magnetic man who drew people in effortlessly. Mike had an incredible mind. He took that same fierce work ethic from the mountains and poured it into the earth, building one of Ohio’s most successful, award-winning wineries and vineyards entirely from the ground up.

Men like Mike Frasca don't come around often, and the world is a lesser place without him. He was as tough as the mountains he climbed, fiercely loyal, deeply intelligent, and one of the finest hunting partners and friends a man could ever hope to walk a ridge with.

Rest easy, my friend. We’ll keep the wind in our faces and carry your memory on every trail ahead.

"Am I gonna die? 

Yeah, you're gonna die, it's a matter of time.

That ain't the question. 

The question is: are they gonna have good stories to tell about you when you're gone?"