Get To Know Me!

On nearly all my social media pages you can find me listed as "Al Jeffrey"...That IS my name, just not my full name. My name is Alan Anspach (An-Spa). Growing up, I dealt with 98% of people absolutely BUTCHERING the pronunciation of my last name, so I decided to make it a bit easier on the people who follow me. Since getting older, I've adopted the name "Al" (I guess it just comes with age) and since "Jeffrey" is much easier to pronounce I chose to go with that because...well...who hasn't met a cool Jeffrey?... I'm kidding, my middle name is Jeffrey.

Now that my true identity is revealed, let me tell you a bit about me and about how CRO came into existence...

Ever since I was a little lad, I have always been drawn to wildlife and the outdoors. Any chance I had, you would find me up a tree or running through the fields and thickets behind my grandparents' house or sitting on the dock with a line in the water at our family's getaway on Lake Erie. At home I was catching spiders, snakes, and building forts from any natural materials I could get my hands on. As I got older, forts turned into wilderness survival shelters. Fishing from docks became traveling around NE Ohio searching for a bigger BITE. Climbing trees turned into hanging tree stands. And running through fields turned into searching for sheds (antlers). I guess you can say nothing really changed for me. 

The only thing that has truly changed from then to now, is my love (obsession) for archery and bowhunting. Fishing was my THING from 4 years old all the way to my early 20's, but archery made an appearance to me when I was 10 years old. I thought it was cool at first, but it wasn't anything compared to fishing. My parents gifted me a 20lb long bow with a quiver full of feather fletched arrows. I played with it for a few years and thought it was very exciting, but I was the only kid in the neighborhood whose parents trusted their kid with one and didn't have anyone to share the excitement with. Then one day my grandfather came walking up from his basement with something in his hands. It was the coolest looking bow I had ever seen! It was a Phantom High Country compound bow. He had just gone through rotator cuff surgery the year before and said he wasn't able to draw it back anymore.

 I was a 5ft 2in 14-year-old, the bow had a solid 60-70lb draw weight and I had never once made an attempt at a compound bow. Astonishingly, I could manage to pull it back about 3 times before I was completely gassed, but that was enough to get me hooked. I shot that bow every visit to my grandparents' house. After a few short months I was drawing the bow like it was my 20lb stick bow and shooting groups at 20 yards the size of a softball. I had no knowledge on draw length, arrow composition, proper form... I was just winging it! 

Fast forward 7 years. I'm 21 years old. Living on my own. Working as a maintenance tech for the apartments I lived at. I was granted permission to hunt the acreage behind the apartments and me as a beginner hunter took full advantage of it! I was reading every deer hunting article I could find, just itching to learn the ropes of deer hunting. My grandfather hunted here and there throughout his life and so did my father but not enough that hunting with them was ever brought up or even considered an option. So, there I was, an infant in the vast world of hunting. I started off hunting from the ground and then worked up the courage to climb into a hang-on stand that someone else had left behind (yeah, I know...not smart, but I'm writing this, so it was obviously stable...enough). I hunted out of that for an entire season without shooting anything, but I learned SO MUCH! I was discouraged a bit after that first season. Wondering what I was doing wrong. I saw loads of deer that year and wondered why I could never capitalize. 

The following season as I was walking to the stand for the first sit of the year, it dawned on me. I was completely exposed. I stood about 50 yards from the tree and the stand stuck out like a sore thumb. Even as I walked in closer it just got worse. I wanted to hit myself for being so blind to the obvious, but I guess that's how we learn. The following day at work, I asked my boss if I could move the stand to a new location. To my surprise, he told me that I could do whatever I wanted with it because it was now mine. So that evening I did just that. I moved it to a tree that was 20 yards from the original set, but the platform was positioned directly below some thick branches and above a very thick briar patch. I blended in much better than before. I hunted out of it a handful of times after that, with no arrows released. Then finally in early November, right at the peak of the Ohio rut, I made it happen! 

I had gotten into the stand that evening with no intention of sitting for more than an hour because we were due for a nasty rain/snowstorm, and I did not have the proper hunting attire just yet that could bare that kind of weather. Luckily for me, I only needed 15 min. I was all set up, cold, comfortable when just as I had hung my bow up, I heard some commotion below me. There 15 yards below me was a decent sized 8-point grazing through the foliage. Shaking like crazy, I grabbed my bow, attached my release and drew back. 10 seconds felt like an hour. The 60lb bow that I had drew back hundreds of times at this point, felt like 600lbs. I was shaking so hard. He turned and walked completely broadsided to me and at 9 yards I let out the famous "Mehh!"... 

Everything happened in slow motion. He stopped. So did my heart. And in that moment, I let the arrow go. I heard the audible "pop" followed by violent crashing and thrashing as the buck ran across the stream that flowed next to my stand. He made it across to the opposite bank and just stopped. It looked as if he was stopping to catch his breath and looking back over at where he was just at, trying to figure out what had just happened. I took advantage of that moment, nocked another arrow, set my pin just slightly above his shoulder and let another one go. That second arrow hit him, and, in an instant, he fell face first into the dirt. Imagine the scene in Star War: Empire Strikes Back, when the snow speeders are wrapping the legs of the AT-ATs with their harpoon cables to topple the walkers. That is exactly what I saw when he fell (bonus fact: I'm a massive Star Wars nerd). 

That deer, for me, marked a new beginning. I wanted more! The adrenaline rush I had during the whole event was unlike anything I had ever experienced. At that moment I became a bow hunter. And since then, I've fully embraced archery. To this day I learn new things about the sport, I partake in events, shoot 3D, build arrows, tinker with my bows, and create content inspired by it. It brings me so much joy, excitement, and satisfaction that I wanted to share my experiences with others. That's what inspired me to start Crooked River Outdoors. I want to provide a place for those who love the outdoors and for those who are just discovering their love for it. I want to help educate the importance of bowhunting and its role in conservation. As well as show how cool it is to be able to eat food that you worked hard to harvest. With this "brand", I want to highlight the positives and massive benefits of hunting, foraging, cultivating, and SURVIVING in today's crazy societal climate. I invite you, and everyone that you know, to join me and my family in this never-ending adventure...

 Let's take the path less traveled!

-Al Jeffrey