Miranda - Adventure Bowhunter

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Tom Mirandas Archery Super Slam was the first recorded on commercial video, so this e-publication wouldnt be complete without that aspect. In chapters 1 through 32, youll find links to exclusive videos from all 29 of Toms breath-taking hunts, plus a bit of insight into our favorite Super Slammer.

MITCH KEZAR

Tom Miranda, adventure bowhunter

This book is dedicated to the outdoorsmen who dream of adventure and one day wake up to find their dreams have come true.

Perspective for a feat beyond the realm cannot exist without first understanding that feat in terms of feats you already hold in perspective.

For example, Everest was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, but the rest of us in the world at the time did not have perspective on that feat beyond the realm. How could we? Until those mountaineers stepped the last step to the top of Everest, no human had ever stood on a peak higher than 29,000 feet. No human had ever seen what Hillary and Norgay saw, and no human had ever experienced what they experienced. So we had to wait for other attempts on Everest, other successes and other failures decades worth to put that feat into perspective.

Since 1953, Everest has been climbed successfully by more than 3,000 people. Thankfully, we do not have to wait a half-century to put Tom Mirandas feat beyond the realm into perspective.

There are more than 15 million hunters in the United States today and many times more than that throughout the world. As I write this, fewer than 200 hunters have taken the Super Slam of North American big game. Fewer than 25 of them did so using archery equipment. And only one of those hunters captured every hunt on camera; every arrow flying through the frozen solitude of the Canadian Arctic, rarified air of the Rockies or oppressive heat of the Sonoran desert. Only one Tom Miranda.

Such a feat doesnt happen because someone decides to change careers and believes such a goal is a worthy challenge. Impossible. It doesnt happen because someone was born wealthy, earned wealth or had financial wealth thrust upon him and thereby believed he could buy his way to the top. Never. Such a feat can only be accomplished if the hunter was born a hunter, lived his life as a hunter and dedicated that life, to within an inch of his soul, to accomplish that goal.

COURTESY OF JIM SHOCKEY

Tom was a trapper, the real deal, long before he became a hunting celebrity. He was a pioneer in bringing hunting to television. He was, is and always will be a man who walks and has walked the walk, sacrificed comfort to do what he has done. He not only made every journey into wild lands to pursue every big-game species in North America a testament to a hunters drive and dedication he made multiple journeys for many of the species. For it was not, for him, the chance to end an adventure and hunt successfully with a shot from one ridge to the next. He chose to up the ante, to push the limits of possibility, to hunt with only a bow and arrow.

Based on the tiny number of archers who have taken the Super Slam, Toms accomplishment is world-class, but unlike those other few archers, he could not draw and release even if the animal he was after was close enough, for he, from the beginning, set out to capture each hunt, each arrow impact, on camera. For Tom, the degree of difficulty was far greater. He was tied to the camera and cameraman, in sickness or in health, and it was the cameraman who determined whether an arrow could be sent on its way or not. Until death do us part.

Ive shivered in the Arctic, climbed the mountains and broiled in the deserts myself; taken the Super Slam using a muzzleloader and filmed as many hunts as I could for television, and I can tell anyone reading this that Toms feat beyond the realm crosses over the line from impressive to inspirational.

Tom is the first hunter to climb our Everest, solo and without oxygen. That is perspective.

Jim Shockey, May 2012

For as long as I can remember, my passion has been chasing big whitetails. Growing up in west-central Georgia, bass fishing, and deer and turkey hunting are a way of life. Of course, many people understand the thrill of hunting, fishing and just being outdoors. Somehow, through good fortune, a lot of mistakes and hard work, my passion for the outdoors led me to the development of Realtree camouflage. Today, I am lucky to be able to work with so many people in the outdoor industry who are avid hunters. Tom Miranda is one of those people who truly stands out in my mind, as a respected industry professional and passionate outdoorsman.

Tom and I can each point to our success in the outdoors industry and thank our passion for big deer for helping us get where we are today. We were so motivated by the outdoors that we molded our hobbies into careers and businesses.

I met Tom in 1988. Realtree was a very young company, and Tom a fur trapper with a dream. Tom was making trapping and hunting videos at the time and approached us with the idea of wearing Realtree camouflage in his productions. In those days, we backed very few projects, as advertising dollars were very limited. However, my gut instinct told me this guy was the real deal. As it turned out, Tom and I have enjoyed a relationship of nearly 25 years. In fact, Realtrees longest historical partners are Tom and Jackie Bushman of Buckmasters.

COURTESY OF BILL JORDAN

Tom is a unique television personality. He not only hosts his own TV series, but writes, produces and edits it, along with three others. Tom spent 20 seasons on ESPN, a feat that few, if any, other hunting producers can claim, no doubt because of the high quality of his productions. Tom is a very accomplished bowhunter. His completion of the archery Super Slam of North American big game is proof of that. He has hunted the globe in pursuit of adventure, limiting himself to only archery equipment. Elephants, hippos, cape buffalo, African plains game if there are animals to bowhunt, Tom is likely scheduling a TV episode to do it.

Bowhunting with a TV camera over your shoulder is a new ball game. It takes a different mindset and a level of professionalism to perform on wild animal hunt after hunt. Getting the Grand Slam of wild sheep with a bow on camera is a tremendous feat. To capture all 29 bowhunts for North Americas big game is simply amazing.