For me? That's easy. I went on a traditional hog hunt in Detroit, Tx. There, I met a guy who made Robin Hood look like an amateur. I heard rumors that he had been captured as a child and raised by Indians. Once he escaped from the Indians he started kicking butt at the 3D shoots. From time to time he relapses back into his Indian ways and shoots charging hogs in the face. He goes by his tribal name of "Feather Flinger"
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I have posted this on a similar thread before. Short story a drunk in a bar let me shoot his bow for about three weeks and ask for it back. That is when I met Bob Sarrels and the rest is history. 2004 was a good year for Deb and I.Comment
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Hanging at the deer lease with Bowyer(Charlie) got me rekindled. I have an old Shakespeare recurve I use for bow fishing. Dad bought me a bear fiberglass recurve I wore out as a kid.Comment
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My dad belonged to an archery club in the small town of Post, Texas where I grew up in the 60's-70's. I first remember Dad talking about going to these archery shoots. I was too young to remember much more than that about it. When I was probably 9 or 10 years old, Dad bought me a solid fiberglass Bear bow (green if I remember correctly) and a handfull of $.25 arrows from the hardware store. He taught me (and my brother) to shoot then and I couldn't get enough. I killed more rabbits with that bow than I have with anything since. When the archery club moved their range to a new location about a half mile from our house, I began to go to the shoots with Dad. Eventually Dad bought me my first "real" bow, a Root Warrior, made by Shakespeare. It was a 35# pull bow. He also bought me 6 aluminum arrows and told me they were not for shooting rabbits, only targets. The first time a jack rabbit ran off with one of those arrows I suffered the consequences of his intollerance of my disobedience. I didn't let that hinder my progress, though; I just learned to shoot the "old" arrows at the rabbits. I shot almost daily at the archery range. Within a short time I could beat any of the other youth shooters except one (and I could beat him sometimes). He had one of those newfangled bows with wheels and cables on them, and had steel pin sights for different yardages. I tried taping toothpicks to my bow so I could have sights too, but eventually realized that I was way more accurate without them.
That archery club closed when I was 16 years old and so did that chapter of my archery "career". I didn't shoot much after that until I was married and had children of my own. When my son was a young teenager he became bored with hunting deer with a rifle and wanted more of a challenge. I went to a pawn shop and bought us both a compound bow. I hunted with that old Bear compound for one year then passed it on to him. I killed two small pigs with that bow that year. I "moved up" to another compound from another pawn shop. This one was a PSE Nova and had glowing pins for sights instead of steel pins like the Bear bow had. I shot my first deer that year (a 6 pt. buck) but made a poor shot on it. I recovered it after several hours of searching though. My uncle, who was the manager of our lease, felt that my bowhunting was not ethical (he was the best shot I've ever seen with a rifle) decided he didn't want me on the lease any more. I found another place closer to home and my son and I hunted it together. The first year on that lease, my son shot 4 deer with his compound with no sights and decided that was too easy; he needed more of a challenge. Mark Bowles, of KC's Archery, helped me find a couple used recurves for us to try. Mine was a Wing Thunderbird, 50#'s @ 28" and my son's was a Bear Grizzly, 45# @ 28". After missing two does within 10 yards of me, I finally hit one late one evening. I knew the shot was a bit too far back so we decided to wait until the next morning to look for her since it was going to be a cold night. The next morning I hunted the same stand and my son went to another stand several hundred yards away. Just after sunup, I heard the horn on the truck honking, which was our signal to the other that we needed help. I went to the truck and he said he had shot a deer with his recurve. He had an 8 pt. buck down and, after we got it back to the truck, we went and found my doe from the previous evening. He was a senior in high school by then and that was the last year we've been able to hunt together. I'm looking forward to more of those days when he gets out of the military.
I've hunted quite a bit with traditional archery since that time and have harvested a number of animals. I began suffering from target panic a few years ago and have limited my hunting with trad equipment because of that. I still love to hunt though and hope to beat it someday so I can continue this adventure.Comment
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Ha!Comment
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When I started there was no such thing as the modern compound wheel bow. But then that was when MobyDick was still just a little minnow. My Grandpa made me my first bow from a Bodark post. Arrows were hickory sapling with fire hardened corn cob heads and no fletching. These blunt tip arrows were deadly on cottontails, frogs, chickens and other slithering critters. Later I learned to put a nail out thru the 2" peice of corn cob so the arrows would stick in the side of the barn. I may have gotten in trouble for that. That was around 1956-57. I bought my first factory bow in 1968. A Red Wing Hunter with a 56lb draw weight. That was when I learned to never prop your bow up on the rear bumper of your truck and forget where you put it. That caused me to have to buy my second bow, a Damon Howatt Super Diablo. My first wheel bow was a Jennings and then came Bears, Pse, Pro Staff, Hoyts and finally a Mathews SB which I still have along with 7 other recurves and long bows.Comment
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I started shooting and hunting with compounds in 2000 to add more challenge to the hunt. I have an uncle that kept trying to get me to try trad but to be honest after watching him shoot at targets, I pretty much figured that you couldn't kill anything with a recurve. It wasn't until I went to a 3-d shoot with him (I was still shooting compounds) and was able to watch others shoot lights-out with Trad gear that I realized how accurate you could be. From that moment forward I was on the search for a recurve and found one to my liking a month later. I've been hooked ever since. I still have my compound but I haven't shot it since 2011. It's headed to the classifieds in the near future. As for archery, I have intrigued by it since I could remember. I remember making bows out of saplings at a very early age. I also shot compounds at a local range for a couple of years in middle school.Comment
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That's all there was then, excepting the occasional Californian who would show up with sights on his bow.
True story - we almost passed a local rule in the Austin Archery Club banning sightshooters (known as freestylers back then). Reason being, the lone guy (a Californian, naturally) who was shooting sights was holding everyone else up. There would be three targets backed up at a tournament, with him the only sightshooter in the first group.Comment
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I would like to get into traditional archery. Do yall recommend longbow or recurve for a rookie?Comment
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I think a recurve is easier to learn on. There is lots of good advice already posted on here on various threads including the stickies at the top.Originally posted by BigC View PostComment
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I was intorduced to traditional archery back in the early 80's. A friend of mine and his dad took us out for Whitetail in Arizona. I used a 45# recurve my dad had, with mix match alums and XX75 arrows and good ol satellite 3 blade broadheads!. I didnt fill my tag that year, but I dont have to explain to ya'll that it wasnt about the kill. I really loved the idea of spotting the game and having to stalk it and get in to bow range. I have shot compounds for several years and thought there was just too many moving parts. The physical weight of the bow on the hunt, the peep, sights, release, range finder, etc etc. IMHO Pure and simple is the way to go. Bear Montana bow, #55.Comment
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Originally posted by hoythunter28 View Post
Gonna be a lot different shooting that 64" Teton that shooting that 54" wildcatt with your gorilla arms lolComment
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How is that penny bow doing! Sticking plenty of piggies with itOriginally posted by Loreva13 View Post
JonComment
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