How did you get started in traditional?

[Featherflinger]

I always like hearing stories about how people got started in traditional archery. I've heard some of your stories but I always like hearing new ones.
I had been bow hunting with compounds since 1994 but around 2007 I rigged up one of my old bows and started bowfishing. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to shoot fish without any sights so a buddy and I started talking about getting recurves. We finally bought a couple in 2009 just to play with when we were screwing around out at his property. I bought a Bear Grizzly and he bought a Martin Hunter. I remember him making the comment "That would be cool if we got good enough to hunt with these and not even use our compounds anymore!" We got some cheap arrows from Walmart and Cabelas and started flinging away! We would make up all kinds of stupid games like we were little kids. Anything from seeing who could shoot the most bulls eyes out of 10 shots to sitting on top of a stepladder at 45 yards away to see who could hit the kill zone on the deer first. Did I mention we lost a LOT of arrows? Well after a while we started getting to where we could actually hit what we were aiming at and it started getting more and more interesting. I started reading quite a bit on this site and Tradgang and my groups kept getting a little better. I got to where I was confident enough to be able to hunt with it in 2010 and we went out and the first animal I ever shot at with it was a small doe and I killed it! After that it took a couple more years before I was able to kill my second animal with it which was another doe. Then I killed a hog or 2 with it and was thinking "Man this is pretty cool!" I started feeling better and better about being able to kill stuff with my recurve. Then in 2012 I went to my first shoot. Holy crap that was so much more fun than shooting targets in my yard. That's when the addiction really kicked in and I've been hooked ever since!

[Buff]

When I was 9 or 10 my mother bought me a 45# wing recurve and 6 arrows at a yard sell.
I would go out behind the houise and chase swamp rabbits. They were not very nervous and after I shot and missed, they would only run off a short distance. I would look until I found my arrow, then go find the rabbit again. I would sometimes spend 3 or 4 hours messing with the same rabbit until I would either get him or he would pick up and run plumb off.

I loved every thing about hunting with my bow and never have lost my love for it.

Now I'm a old man and have had the chance to shoot at most everything you can think of but I'm still excited about squirrel season opening up next week. The kid is still in there and I can't wait to watch that arrow streak across and smack a squirrel in the head.

[jerp]

I posted this in December of 2012:


My first exposure to archery was as a 12 year old Boy Scout at summer camp in the late 1960’s. We received some basic instruction and then spent maybe an hour flinging arrows at a big round field target. It wasn’t much, but just enough for me to catch the archery bug.

When I got home I saved my paper route money and bought a 30lb Shakespeare target bow made of green fiberglass. My dad stuffed a burlap sack with pine straw for me to use as a target and I shot in the backyard for hours on end.

One crisp and cool Saturday morning I put the bow on my back like I’d seen Robin Hood do, mounted my trusty Stingray and pedaled a few miles to a wooded 3 acre lot I knew I could sneak into. Now I was really hunting! I was slipping through the woods stalking deer and bear that existed only in my imagination, when I saw a cottontail hop out of a brush pile about 15 yards away. I drew and released, then watched as the arrow made its gentle arc and skewered that young bunny, killing it stone dead. I was a bow hunter!

Thrilled and proud, I carried that rabbit home in my bike’s newspaper basket, daydreaming of all the great bow hunts yet to come. Unfortunately, I did not know any adults that bow hunted, so without a mentor my interest in archery fizzled. That first kill was to be my last with traditional archery gear for more than four decades.

Fast forward to 2010. At that point I had been hunting with a compound bow for over 10 years and had enjoyed every minute of it, taking numerous deer, pigs and a few turkeys. Over that time I would occasionally feel the itch to try a longbow or recurve but year after year, that itch remained unscratched. My brother-in-law tried to convert me on numerous occasions. When I visited his home he would preach the trad gospel and let me shoot his bows in the backyard. I was intrigued but I could not quite make the leap because it seemed like such a big commitment. For one thing I’d hear traditional archers say you need to practice pretty much every day year round! Every day? Year round? Besides, I really loved shooting my wheel bow and could not imagine giving it up.


This is where the traditional forum on Texasbowhunter.com came in. I started by just lurking and reading questions from others who had recently made the switch to traditional or were considering doing so. I started asking a few of my own questions (or my version of the same old questions) and all were patiently answered. In December of that year I followed the advice I’d been given and bought a 40lb recurve to begin working on form . I practically memorized the Beginners Guide “Stickys” at the top of the forum and read everything I could get my hands on concerning traditional archery. I went to Waco and got four hours of instruction from Mike “Javi” Cooper which was of tremendous benefit. I found myself hunting vicariously through the trad veterans on the website. I watched and re-watched all episodes of “The Buff and Chunky Show”. I read dozens of hunting reports from guys like Bisch and Sam Stephens, who seem to post a new LDP every other day.

I shot in a few 3d tournaments which while humbling, was a great learning experience. The kind and helpful people on TBH.com were with me every step of the way, advising me on arrow and broadhead selection and walking me through the frustrating vagaries of arrow tuning.


After practicing with my starter bow almost daily for 9 months I made the pilgrimage to Manchaca to visit bowyer Bob Sarrels and his son Zach. I was soon outfitted with a beautiful 50lb longbow, and after a couple more months of practice I felt ready to hunt. I was committed - all in. As a sign of my commitment I changed my avatar to read “This space reserved for my first trad kill” (little did I know how long it would take!)

Throughout the 2011 season I probably had a dozen deer standing broadside at compound range, but outside my self-imposed maximum of 12 yards. My first shot was at a pig, and if that pig had been a bit bigger, say 5 feet tall at the shoulder, the arrow would have been square in the kill zone! I blew a few more shot opportunities while clumsily learning to maneuver a bow that was almost twice as long as what I was used to. Strangely, none of these miscues frustrated me much because the journey was so much fun.

Then finally one mid-October morning I got it done. I was hunting a friend’s property in Shackleford County when a group of pigs came rumbling in to the feeder. One was a sow with an unusual color scheme, almost like a calico cat. I waited until she got broadside at 15 yards and took my shot. Success!

Of course I know that there is nothing remotely unusual about taking a pig with a bow, it’s done thousands of times every year. However that was the most thrilled I‘d been over a bow kill in a long time. I felt like – well, I felt like a 13 year old boy riding home with a dead rabbit in his basket!

[Featherflinger]

Good story John! I sure am glad I didn't impose any maximum limits on myself. You're a lot more disciplined than me. I also shot a bow as a kid and shot a rabbit with a practice arrow. It ran under our shed and rotted for weeks. I lost interested at some point as well until I was grown up.

[AJMag]

When I was a kid I had a small, cheap bow like you find at academy. One day my dad brought home a recurve that someone just gave him, iirc. I liked shooting it as a kid, but ended up learning the lesson about not leaving one strung up in a car (dad warned me but I didn't listen or forgot, or whatever). Always wanted another one but didn't want to pay the prices that I would see in stores, since I didn't know anything about bowyers being out there. Few years ago I was in GA over Christmas, looking for things to read on the tablet during the ride home. I had just been to Bass Pro out there and started looking for books on archery. Found a $5 book on building a board bow so I bought it and analyzed it on the way home. The day after I bought a piece of nice red oak and built a bow. Built a couple more then started building arrows. Next I built my first osage selfbow and then got realized I still didn't know much about shooting it. Spent more and more time shooting, and less building, and eventually broke down and bought a longbow..... then a recurve, and a whole bunch of different kinds of arrows. And now stuck on it. Haven't killed anything with it yet, but in just a few years of shooting, I've come a long way. I really didn't even own a compound until after I had made some bows but wasn't confident enough to hunt with them. Now the compound doesn't see any action, even though I haven't killed anything significant with it either. Not too much of a story, but I am proud to have started with trad first, instead of training wheels.

[Featherflinger]

Andy you are the 2nd or 3rd person that I've heard of recently that started making bows before shooting them.

[SamHarper]

It all started way back in the 70's. I don't know if it was the Dukes of Hazard or Robin Hood, but at some point, my brother and I went outside, found some sticks, put some strings on them, and started flinging other sticks.

When I was 7 and my brother was 8, my dad gave my brother a fiberglass Bear recurve. I found a piece of scrap fiberglass in the storage shed, put a string on it, and made that my bow.

A few years later, my dad gave me a fiberglass Bear recurve, which I shot until I outgrew it in highschool.

When I was around 20, my dad died and left me his short Indian Osage bow, which was too short to bring to full draw and had a LOT of set. I never really shot it much. He also gave me a book on American Indian Archery, which had some information on making bows.

Then when I was around 31 years old, I went to Scarborough Faire, shot a bow there, came home, and tried to find an English longbow on the internet, but I was in college and couldn't afford one. So I thought maybe I'd make one, and I re-read that book. I was looking at those red oak boards at Home Depot wondering if I could make a bow out of it. I did a lot of reading on the internet on making bows, and when I finally stumbled on George Tsoukalas' web page and saw that he made them out of red oak, I bought a red oak board and made my first bow.

After shooting it the first time, I wanted to make another one. I joined the Leatherwall discussion forum and started mingling with other bow makers, and ran into Paul Kloster and Sam Loper who got me into making bamboo backed bows.

Sam Loper and I visited Roy Hall in Henderson Texas, and after seeing how he glues up fiberglass bows, I started making laminated bows--first all wood, then eventually fiberglass as well.

Around 2005 or 2006, I started a web page to show other people how to make bows. The first thing I put up was a red oak board bow build along, including all the detailed information I wished I could've found when I started making bows.

I went to my first 3D shoot just two or three years ago here in Austin. I was about 37 or 38. By this time, I wasn't making bows very much anymore, but after mingling with the archery community, it rekindled my interest, and I started making bows again. I met Bob Sarrels, and that inspired me even more.

[Phillip Fields]

I didn't start in Traditional Archery, there was just archery. In the late 50's my parents gave me a fiberglass bow with a half dozen wood arrows. There were 3 broadheads and 3 field points. I've still got that bow. I stalked rabbits and squirrels with that bow and killed a few rabbits. There were no deer in the area so I couldn't hunt big game.

I pretty much gave up on archery during my teen years. In '71 I was Asst Mgr at a Roses Dept store and one day we got in a couple of Bear Bows in. One of them was a 50lb Kodiak Magnum that I fell in love with (I still have it). I hunted small game with it as there were still no deer in the area I lived. Sometime in the early '80s there began to be a huntable population of deer in the area I was in and I bought a compound. I killed a few deer with the compound, but by the mid '90s I wasn't using a bow much, just taking the bow out for deer season. About Feb or Mar of '95 I decided to get seriously back into archery. I started hanging around a local archery shop to see what was available as the only compound I had was 10 years old. One night when I stopped by they were having a traditional league. It immediately struck me that this was what I was looking for. I haven't shot a compound since that night

[TxAg]

I just got bored with compounds.

I struggle with target panic sometimes with trad bows (never a hint of a problem with a compound) but when I'm on I do fairly well. Then it just becomes an addiction of shooting, tinkering, and experimenting.

[Featherflinger]

I just got bored with compounds.

I struggle with target panic sometimes with trad bows (never a hint of a problem with a compound) but when I'm on I do fairly well. Then it just becomes an addiction of shooting, tinkering, and experimenting.

You have target panic?

[SwampRabbit]

Late June of 2011 at Orion District Cub Scout Day Camp. It's not only kids who can get hooked at those events... I remember I told the range instructor after she asked if I would like to shoot and handed me the recurve that "this could get real expensive." All my hunting buddies and hunters that I knew growing up used compound bows... so that is what I eventually purchased for bowhunting. Now I am looking to get my first recurve bow. Primarily because I remember the fun of just shooting.

[TxAg]

You have target panic?

Jeff, I've been shooting better lately...switched to 3 under and it gave me something to concentrate on. Fingers crossed, haha.

Trad is sooo much more fun than wheels, though.

[4dog]

friend of mine started building bows....then i started building them..im up to 10 bows....hello ..my name is erik...and im a bowaholic!!

[SamHarper]

friend of mine started building bows....then i started building them..im up to 10 bows....hello ..my name is erik...and im a bowaholic!!

I feel your pain.

[trad"Doc"53]

I think I was 4 years old (1957) running towards the house from the dairy barn. I spied my brothers old lemon wood bow in the burn barrel so I was derailed and trying to get the bow out. Once that was accomplished I noted that it had started cracking on the edge of the upper limb. Not a problem! I found and used a whole roll of brand new electrical tape and had it patched up in no time. It was easily twice as long as I was tall and after it catching across the yard gate and leveling me out on the ground, I tied a lite rope to the end of it and drug it behind me. I had cut some willow limbs for arrows and had to sit down and put my feet on either side of the grip to shoot it. Man those were the good ole days!