Traditional Backyard Stickbow Playground

[Friend]

I have been accustomed to attending over twenty-five 3D shoots a year. With the current demands of the farm, I made only six 3D shoots last year and the Saturday weekend work schedule, again, appears to be mighty full.


Have a large ladder stand with multiple 3D targets setup in the woods for my hunters.  I am restricted to the ground and wished to expand on my own traditional entertainment and share with my traditional friends. Am in the implementation phase of setting up a backyard stickbow playground. Should be completed enough within a couple of weeks to post some pics…Note: Still waiting on delivery of supplies…

Please share your own traditional backyard stickbow playground?

[SlowBowKing]

Scott, I’m in the process of setting up a small course through the woods. It won’t be anything spectacular, but will keep me entertained, I’m sure. 

I will post some pics as soon as it’s done.

[Friend]

Doesn’t need to be elaborate as a requirement to provide great practice and plenty of continued entertainment. Have been enjoying
the traditional way since 1969 and decided to pursue a dream traditional stickbow backyard playground.

Hope to visit you ‘King’ and shoot some rounds on your setup.

[SlowBowKing]

Absolutely! I will keep you posted on the progress.

For now, I’m making the most of my humble setup...

[Terry Green]

I bought a bunch of used targets from Traditional Bowhunters of Ga years ago CHEAP. Filled the the 'main effected area' with crazy foam...and it did rise about the target.  So, I trimmed the crazy foam off with a large sharp butcher knife and painted just about the whole body one color, the color the animal is suppose to be.

I don't have a 'course set up right now' to show you pics, the there are ways to add you your range in less expensive ways....

[STICKBENDER98]

It’s still kinda snowy where I’m at in Michigan, so I don’t have all my targets set, here is my main one.

These straw bales are 3-4 years old.


jason

[STICKBENDER98]

Here are some more I use,  couple blocks a black hole & what’s left of a Glen Dell buck, the glen dell has been repaired 3 times with spray foam like Terry was saying, I use cheap plastic wrap to help keep the foam from expanding & having to trim it as he was saying

[STICKBENDER98]

Here’s a couple more, I got the elk target from Big Jim last year, it is a 1/3 scale blem Rhinehart, and as stood up well.


Jason

[SlowBowKing]

Jason, those bales will last a long time if they’re out of the weather, be it a tarp or a nice little shelter like you’ve built!

[SlowBowKing]

Guess I need to work on figuring out how to rotate pictures. 


Jason

I’m guessing you’re also posting phone pics. What I found to work really well is to go in and crop photos to be either square or slightly landscape orientation. Then always choose to post them as the “small” size. Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve had no issues! That’s from an iPhone. Not sure if it will work with Android or not. YMMV!

[SlowBowKing]

To get my son more interested in shooting, I’ve come up with some different targets to keep it fun. My hope is that as he enjoys it more and more, the gimmicky stuff won’t be as important. I think it’s trending that way now!

This unicorn piñata was leftover from Halloween. Why toss it when you can make it into a cool archery target? 

My son plays a lot of Super Mario games, so I thought he’d like to take on some of Mario’s enemies with his bow, so I drew a couple on 11” x 17” paper to make them the perfect size. I was right—they were a hit!

[Roy from Pa]

Jason they must have up righted themselves:)

[STICKBENDER98]

Thanks Roy    SlowBow, yes I posted them from my iphone, I'll have to try that next time, I also have a 15 foot double ladder stand set up to shoot from too.  My covered back stop has been the best project for my backyard, had some spare building material laying around, the skids are the butt end of a power pole that has the creosote on it, I split it in half and built on top of it to keep the bales off the ground and used 2 ratchet straps to compress them, the most expensive part was the horse stall mat from TSC.


Jason

[McDave]

Another thing that I’ve found that helps correct the sideways picture orientation from an iPhone is to edit the photo, and squeeze in the sides a little.  It doesn't take much, and has worked every time I’ve tried it so far.

[Roy from Pa]

There are app's for iphone that resize pictures.

Do an online search with your phone.

[Friend]

Having a setup that iis geared to maintain youth insterests is a winner.

[M60gunner]

Looking forward to seeing your range progress. Personally I would need about 50 acres to play with. I would be changing the course every-once-in-awhile so as not to get bored with same shots. 

[Kokopelli]

SloBowDude;
Something fun for kids (and adults).
Go to a toy store and pick up a T-Rex toy or other dinosaur. Stand up a piece of cardboard, put the T-Rex on a stand and put a flashlight behind it. Dim the lights and play with the size & focus. Outline the shadow with a marker. Cut the silhouette out with a knife. Now put the silhouette over a clean piece of cardboard and spray the outline with black spray paint. Quick, easy & cheap................ and who doesn't want to shoot dinosaurs ????
 

[SlowBowKing]

SloBowDude;
Something fun for kids (and adults).
Go to a toy store and pick up a T-Rex toy or other dinosaur. Stand up a piece of cardboard, put the T-Rex on a stand and put a flashlight behind it. Dim the lights and play with the size & focus. Outline the shadow with a marker. Cut the silhouette out with a knife. Now put the silhouette over a clean piece of cardboard and spray the outline with black spray paint. Quick, easy & cheap................ and who doesn't want to shoot dinosaurs ????
 

That is ingenious! I’ll definitely be trying that out!

[Kokopelli]

Another one you can do is to spray a piece of cardboard with a white basecoat and then a sunshine yellow. Do the same shadow graph routine with a yellow rubber duckie. Draw in a simple wing, an evil eye and a couple of canine teeth ................. Instant killer duckie.
Neat thing about this one is you can have two aiming spots, one in the body and a smaller tougher shot to the head.

Yes, I do have too much time on my hands.