How to become a traditional archer.

[Pat B]

I've eaten soft-shell turtles and it is excellent eating but I've never shot one with a bow.

[Pine]

Seeing this thread has gone towards turtles, I thought I should share this with you.
Back in the mid 70s in Michigan we had no season on snapping turtles nor a size limit .
This one night a friend of mine and I were on a small river , he was paddling the canoe and I would stand in the front with lanterns mounted and shoot snapping turtles with my K-Mag . Now the season for spear fishing in Michigan was over about two weeks earlier so I was strictly turtle hunting .
We had a fairly good night with five turtles that were from twelve to fifteen inches across the back shell . As we were coming back to my truck about 2:00AM , we noticed another truck parked there as well . When we climbed out of the canoe and started walking to the truck with a gunny sack full of turtles a very bright flashlight came on and was right in my eyes . A mans voice said keep coming on up to the road and bring that sack with you . It was a Conservation Officer  . So we did . He asked me what was in the sack and I told him snapping turtles . He told me to empty the sack here in the road at his feet . I asked him if he was sure and he insisted . So all five of the turtles that were very upset to begin with began to posture , hiss and snap at his feet . He jumped back and was talking about a Chinese guy called Ho Lee somebody .
I then asked him if he would hold the sack for me and help get the turtles back in the sack . He told me that he would be glad to hold the flashlight for me .
He had never even heard of getting turtles that way and I explained how I shot them threw the neck so they are easier to handle and you don't get the arrow stuck in the shell .
Sure do miss those days . It was about fifteen years later that they started the turtle season , size limit , bag limit and you couldn't use a bow and arrow or spring device .

[acedoc]

This is a good process for getting to be a Traditional Archer .

After you get a decent bow and some arrows , get a decent target and backstop .
Now get a slingshot , ( don't have to be a very good one ) and a bag of marbles .
Now you are all set .
So here is the process ; take your bow and stand close to the target and shoot 5 arrows . Then take the slingshot and shoot a marble in the air at about a 45° angle and watch the marble as it fly's through the air and notice how it curves down . That will get your brain trained to understand trajectory .
Now pull the arrows and shoot 5 more arrows from about a foot further back and shoot another marble like you did before .
Keep repeating this process until all the marbles in the bag are gone .
Now when you have lost all your marbles you will be a Traditional Archer .

I guess all shooting sports involve losing your marbles.

[pavan]

Trust me on this one, way way back when wrist rockets came out, I proved that you can not kill a snapping turtle by bouncing marbles off of its back.  When I lived on the south east shore of Storm Lake I was invited to out to the Little Sioux and go turtle grabbing.  It sounded way  way mucky for me.  They came back with a pick up load of pissed off turtles.  One of the turtle grabbers hand to go get his hand stitched up, old submerged pickup in the river bank, and another had to go to the emergency room to get a large rusty treble hook taken out of or off of his crotch.  I have no idea how one can get a treble hook in his scrotum, but it ended the turtle grabbing for the day.
Oh yes, my wife made a big batch of her special potato salad which got us invited to the turtle feed, it was excellent.

[Woodpuppy]

That’s a good story Graps, if I were you I’da been hoping one of those snappers would get ahold of ol’ Conservation Ocifer there.

[Porkchop1]

Graps, I hope you don't mind but I stole this to share with some of my friends.

[Pine]

Graps, I hope you don't mind but I stole this to share with some of my friends.

Don't mind at all. That's what this is all about.