Got my first recurve when I was around 10 years old, a 60" Bear Bearcat drawing a whopping 20 lbs. shot a lot of arrows with that bow, can't remember if I ever actually hit anything with it, but I sure did spend a lot of time with it...still have that bow, and it still cast an arrow. Mostly gets used now when there are young kids at my house. Although times have changed, I haven't met a youngster yet that doesn't like to watch the flight of an arrow.
Stepped away from archery in my late teens to my mid 20's...wasted way to much time chasing after thrills that only lead to dead ends.
Came back around to my senses in my late 20's and got back into archery, the compound scene was going strong then and I bought an Oneida bow, bought it because it looked more like a recurve than any of the other compounds. Had it set up with sights and a release, shot it like that for about six months and then took the sights off, went back to a glove and shot it bare bow. After a couple of years I said to myself, "you know, why don't you just shoot a recurve". So I sold it and bought a Martin.
In '96 I bought my first new bow, a Black Widow SAIII, Oh man was that thing sweet, she drew 63 lbs at 28" and I shot that bow exclusively for six years. It was during that time that I really learned how to shoot, self taught, but somehow I managed to figure it out.
Sometime around the year 2000, I discovered the Internet and found out there were all kinds of beautiful bows out there. In 2002 I got the longbow bug, drove all the way out to Bob Morrison's to try one of his Dakota's, and before I left I had one on order. Shot my only pope and young buck with that bow.
But I never could shoot it as well as a Widow recurve. After that I bought and sold a whole bunch of different bows, both 'curves and longbows, but for me nothing ever quite matched up to my Widows. In 2005 I bought a DAS, a frightful looking thing, all black metal riser with no pretty wood anywhere. But man oh man that thing shot better for me than any bow I'd ever had my hands on. My quest for the ultimate recurve was done, I had found "my" bow.
Still, the allure of the longbow was strong, most of them I could shoot ok, in fact I've probably killed more stuff with a longbow than I have a recurve, but when it came to sheer confidence or long distance shooting, the DAS always won out hands down.
And now at this point in my journey, I'm turning a corner, I've made a commitment to myself to master (or make a heck of an attempt) the longbow. The time has come to lay the recurve down. I don't know when or if I will ever pick it up again. But I'm sure this new stage of my journey will be not only challenging but also fun, and memories will be made.
So there you have it... maybe I should change my handle to longbowlarry...
Topic: of bows arrows and my personel journey (Read 370 times)
