Old timers roll call

[Huntschool]

It seems interesting to me that many of us who have posted started with or got a green or red fiberglass bow.  I certainly cant be sure but there was a fiberglass production factory in Northvale, NJ that a lot of kids got bows out of the discard pile out back.  I have to wonder who all that outfit made bows for.

It has also been interesting to see the maturation of us "Baby Boomers" from stick to better to a short time with wheels and then back to stick and string.

Bighornangler:  You are too old for this thread....LOL     Sir, you are part of the "Greatest Generation"  I salute you. As us "Boomers" might say,  Keep on Keepin on......

Just thinking out loud.

[Bighornangler]

Huntschool you are probably right about being to old for this thread. But as long as I can keep doing it physically & mentally, I don't intend to quit. I am still using ladder stands (mostly) and a climber with no problems. Thanks for the kind words.

[TOEJAMMER]

Been at it since the 40's......and still haven't mastered it.

[Captain*Kirk]

Nice comment about the 'glass bows. I still have mine and still shoot it on occasion, 35# Pearson recurve made out of green/white glass (think "Irish Spring" soap...LOL!) Though often regarded as 'kids' bows' or throwaways, they most certainly introduced a multitude of shooters to archery (ALL archery was 'trad' back then) moreso, perhaps, than higher end wood and glass bows. My little old greenie has taught 4 generations to shoot and is still going strong.
Here's me circa 1968 posing for the photographer (mom).

[lt-m-grow]

Nice comment about the 'glass bows. I still have mine and still shoot it on occasion, 35# Pearson recurve made out of green/white glass (think "Irish Spring" soap...LOL!) Though often regarded as 'kids' bows' or throwaways, they most certainly introduced a multitude of shooters to archery (ALL archery was 'trad' back then) moreso, perhaps, than higher end wood and glass bows. My little old greenie has taught 4 generations to shoot and is still going strong.
Here's me circa 1968 posing for the photographer (mom).

So Brian isn't allowed to shoot?   Funny...or at least great body language.

[blacktailbob]

I was about 8 or 9 when my mother made an indian costume for me ( we have a little Cherokee in us / her side ) for my birthday ( 1962 or 1963 ) and I know  I got bow with it but can't remember much about it. What I do remember is my dad taking me and my two older brothers to an archery shop some time in 1968 when I was 14. They all got bows. I didn't. I'm a lefty and the only bows available were out of the price range. I did shoot some there.
  Enter Herters. $36 Model Perfection 45#. Talk about anticipation waiting for the mailman.
Killed my first deer with it 8 year later while in the Army at Ft. Stewart Ga. My buddies all had rifles but I alone was the archer.
After I got out in 78 I went to confounded bows for a while like many but finally came back to sticks and strings around 1993.  Why did I wait so long.

[Huntschool]

Huntschool you are probably right about being to old for this thread. But as long as I can keep doing it physically & mentally, I don't intend to quit. I am still using ladder stands (mostly) and a climber with no problems. Thanks for the kind words.

Bighornangler:  No problem.  Just tossing you a bone.  You can keep doing it and that is an inspiration to us young pup "boomers." 

By the way, is Vander Maas a Dutch name ?  Just a Holland Dutch asking. Where are from in NJ.  I grew up in Bergen County.  Family has been there since 1638 or so.  When I was a kid it was still pretty rural around Norwood and Northvale.

[Ron LaClair]

Started shooting a bow at 5, won my first archery award at 11 Shot my first game (frogs) at 7, Dad showed me how to skin out the legs and fry

[Ron LaClair]

When I was 9 we lived on a farm, I had a pinto pony named Scout, An Indian costume and a lemonwood bow plus 80 acers to roam and hunt

[Pine]

Been waiting for you to chime in Ron. 

[Captain*Kirk]

So Brian isn't allowed to shoot?   Funny...or at least great body language.

He really wasn't interested in shooting. He's upset because mom dragged him away from making mud pies for the picture...

[gifford, MO]

I bought my first bow, lemonwood, a couple of arrows, tab and arm guard for 3 or 4 dollars. I was in 6th grade, likely 1958. The equipment was well used but it was brand new to me. Target arrows cost 25 cents, field tip arrows about 50 cents. Shot in the backyard, nice hill for backstop, didn't take long for neighborhood kids to shoot my bow and then get their own.

Later on I got a solid fiberglass bow, 35 lbs and later another 45 lbs. Got a better quiver, more arrows, made a bow and arrow rack for the wall. Later on got a fiberglass backed wood bow.

Neve shot a compound, didn't care for the looks.

About 1992, I started making wood bows, saw them at the black powder rendezvous I was shooting in and said, hmm. I can do that. And did it. Enjoy making and shooting wood bows and wood arrows.

[Kelly]

Just finished my 58th bowhunting season. The attached picture of me is from the 1965 season.

[Huntschool]

Darn, us old guys are doing good.....

[George Tsoukalas]

I grew up on a farm and started around 1956 with a sapling bow. I returned to all wooden bows about 1989. Jawge

[Horserod]

 My Dad gave me a 30# Bear in 1957 when I was 10 years old.  I lived in a 100 year old log cabin back in the S.W. Ohio woods.  Me and my dog went shooting/hunting with that bow every day it was raining or snowing like crazy!  I still have that Bear but, my younger sister caused the upper limb to delaminate because she always strung it backwards(it was a semi-recurve bow).  I've owned and shot so many bows over these last decades, I can't tell you the number!  I became friends with Ron Laclair in 1981 and he turned me into a longbow fan.  I'm still shooting and enjoy the thrill of watching my feathered wood shafts do their magic.  I pray the Lord will continue to help me keep bending that bow for a few more years...….time keeps moving along...…….I try to keep up!!!   Horserod

[hunting badger]

I got my first bow in 1956 for Christmas because thats what I ask for, it was a 30# Ben Pearson lemonwood  longbow. When I was about 14 or 15 I bought a Shakespeare Wonder bow at 40#, hunted with that bow for a long time. When I went to college my three brothers used it, it disappeared some where along the way. My Dad was a rifleman so didn't know anything about bows, so he never was able to instruct me in archery. It's always been a regret of mine that I didn't have an archery mentor. If I would have someone that could have showed me proper archery form when I was first starting I wouldn't have had to spend a lifetime trying to brake old bad habits!

[Bighornangler]

Hunting badger. You took the words right out of my mouth. My biggest regret was that I never had a mentor to show me the right way to shoot a bow. It's been a long hard struggle. It wasn't until Fred Asbell came out with his book & video that I  learned anything worthwhile.
Before that it was mostly trial & error.

[Bow Bender]

I grew up on a farm in the Ozarks of central Missouri. I don't remember when I first started trying to make a bow out of a hickory sapling but it would have been in the mid 50's. My parents eventually bought me a solid red fiberglass bow, the best I remember it had yellow molded string nocks on re-curved limb tips and a matching molded handle. It came with a tab and cedar arrows in a cheap flimsy back quiver.  I can still remember the smell of those arrows, it was great. I can also remember how upset I got when I had forgot that I had placed that quiver, arrows and all on the couch and I accidentaly sat on it. I can still hear the snap of those shafts. I terrorized the local rabbits and the chickens when Mom wasn't looking. I finally acquired a Bear Cub, then a Kodiak Magnum and finally a custom built Rocky Mountain Recurve.  I still have that later bow and some others that I acquired and built,  but I don't know what happened to that red fiberglass bow.  It disappeared after I went into the Air Force in 69.

[trad_bowhunter1965]

This is one of the best posts I have read I just turned 55 and I start shooting bows arrows when I was 4 or 5 I have always shot a bow.