What got you started in archery? This doesn’t have to be beginning with your road to traditional archery but inevitably ending up there. Were you a compound shooter first? Who influenced you and got you started and at what age was that. What or who led you to traditional archery? Were you always a bowhunter or did you evolve into one or do you not hunt at all?
For me, I recon I was about 7 or 8 years old when my dad bought my brother and me our first fiberglass bows and arrows. Now in suburban Long Island, New York there wasn’t a lot of places for a kid to go to shoot a bow. There was enough room behind our house though for a kid to have some fun. I shot that little bow often…until the day that squirrel ran out in front of me. He ran about 30 yards from me, so I put the “stalk” on it. I got within about 10 yards of it perched on the fence…picked a spot (NOT), drew and let fly! The arrow leapt off the string and hit the mark. I got a clean pass-through and the arrow went right into the neighbor’s central air conditioning unit. Now in 1962, or 1963, that was a big deal to have. So at the tender age of 7, or 8 years, I had my first traditional kill. I also got a severe butt whipping and my precious bow taken away for quite awhile. That was the first lesson of be sure of your target and beyond. (Hunter Ed 101)
Later, I graduated to my brother’s bigger 25# bow. By then I was able to venture further away from home. Down the road and across the canal, through the fence to large field at the public school. Everyday there would be a great flock of sea gulls of maybe around 200 birds in that field. I could stand up by the school and fling arrows into the flock from 150 to 200 yards away. Then, after they flew off, I would stump shoot for the rest of the time at cattails and junk.
When I was old enough to get a newspaper route you could win prizes for getting subscription. I had spied a Ben Pearson bow that could be won. I worked hard and it became mine. I used that bow for quite a few years on and off for fun but no real adventures had begun yet.
As I got older, I began to bowfish in that same canal. At low tide there were tunnels that went under the highway and the water would be knee to thigh deep. Now my version of bowfishing, at that time, was to hold the bow almost level to the water and shoot. The goldfish were so thick that you could reach down and pick up your arrow with up to four or five fish on it.
During all this time, our family was treated to outdoor TV shows that Dad used to like to watch such as The American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy and The Flying Fisherman with Gadabout Gaddis. I still remember seeing Fred Bear, on The American Sportsman, crouched behind that boulder waiting for that huge grizzly bear to pass by for the famous shot on that world record bear. It was on another episode that Fred killed that world record polar bear. My dad although loved to watch hunting and fishing shows never started to hunt until he was in his mid to late thirties. To the best of my knowledge some of his friends from church got him to start hunting. Dad died when I was 14 years old, he was 45 and never did get his first deer. I think fly fishing was his true first passion though.
During the summers, the newly-built high school would have recreation nights. Kids could go to the school and play basketball, use gym apparatus, ping pong, table hockey. Out in the track field there would be around five archery targets and about ten “REAL”, wood, recurve bows, I think they were Bear bows. The gym teacher’s wife was the instructor and she shot a competition bow. I think it was something like a Bear Tamerlane or a Wing Presentation. I would be there every night to shoot with her.
There were the years of hanging out with the boy, then girls became the most important thing in the whole world and archery took a back seat for quite awhile.
One day my older brother came home with a recurve bow, some of the new aluminum arrows and some razor things called broadheads. He was going to go bowhunting. All I could do was look and drool at these wonderful new archery items. The bow was 50 # Bear Super Magnum with factory camouflage. It was never used and sat in the basement for many years. I would on occasions take it out and try to shoot it but the neighbor would call the law and they would make me stop shooting. My brother eventually gave the bow to me which I still have and shoot.
When the Sylvester Stallone movie Rambo came out, I couldn’t hold back any more, I had to have a compound bow. I bought a Ben Pearson “Z Bow”, XX75 aluminum arrows and Razorbak 5 broadheads. I took the IBEF course and started to read everything I could find on bowhunting. Well that compound lasted about 10 months before the cable teardrop broke. I fixed it and sold it to the first taker, lock, stock and barrel. I never did get used to all the “bells and whistles” of a compound. With the money I bought a Hoyt takedown recurve. I’ve bought 15 other traditional bows since then and still have them all.
Interestingly I didn’t start bowhunting until I moved my family from New York to Virginia in 1985. It took me five years to get my first bow kill. I still remember that first one vividly. I had gotten permission to hunt a 350 acre horse farm in northern Virginia’s Fairfax County. I had left work early at about 1:00 PM. It was a short 20 minute drive to the farm. I could be in my treestand by 2:00. The weather was cloudy and calling for sprinkles. At 3:30 a fork horn buck came walking toward me. I couldn’t believe it I might actually get my chance. He came in and at about 12 yards I drew and let the arrow fly. It was a little bit high but at the sight of that volcano of blood I was confident that is until it started to rain. Now I had never had to blood trail before and now it was raining. I got out of my stand after about 20 minutes and started trailing, 40 yards later there was my deer! I have taken at least one doe every year since then but I never have killed a wall hanger. I’m a meat hunter anyway so it doesn’t matter to me much. I had planned to go on an Alaska drop bowhunt by the time I was 40…45…50, it ain’t look’n good at this point. I did go to Tennessee to go on a wild boar hunt in 1995. I took a nice Russian boar on that trip. I still dream of going on an elk hunt someday.
Over the years, I have learned to build my own arrow (wood and other), cut and grind my own turkey feathers and make my own Flemish strings and leather items like tabs and arm guards. I’ve never really had the urge to build my own bow but I would like to learn flint knapping.
It’s been a wonderful adventure that, thankfully, I still enjoy and still am learning things about.
The first deer (picture) was taken with a Fred Bear Super Kodiak, cedar arrows and Bear Razor Heads (geen).
The hog was taken with a Ben Pearson Colt, cedar arrows and Bear Razor Heads (geen).
Topic: What got you started in archery? long read (Read 716 times)
