New stuff for bowhunting

[Hoyt]

It's all about making it easier, problem is before long it will be so easy it's boring.

[Primitive Spirit]

...and without passion and earnestness.
 After all, isnt that why we all joined TRAD-gang?  

[Bowwild]

Certain parts of the west are a different animal (pun intended) than the east.  Some game animals are concentrated in certain western areas due to habitat restrictions,which require strict regulation and allocation for permits. Think Arizona for most big game and other western states for many popular species.

With the demise of market hunting, eastern states couldn't wipe out white-tail deer if they tried. The majority of hunters (and I don't mean this as negative as it sounds) can't kill a deer every 2-3 years. Those who can only want 1.5 because that's all they can eat in a year.

It doesn't bother me that some folks choose methods that require less time to master. They expand hunter ranks and keep us all relevant to game management agencies and the public who don't want to be overrun with certain of our favorite beasties. Their "easier" choices don't make mine less difficult.

Of course organized archery is back in schools, 10,000+ of them so far and 2.3 million kids this year alone. Bigger than Little League baseball this year. Archery is one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. and THE fastest growing shooting sport. The archery clock has been turned back about 30 years in terms of youth involvement.  Future generations will once again be able to say just what many of us 50-somthings can say,

[lpcjon2]

I wish they would bring school archery up to the north east.

[The Hawk]

Eventually many good bow hunters get tired of GeeGaws,Lookthrus, Prettys and this years newest Trinkets. When they discover that they don't need all those things to be successful or get bored with their success many will switch to trad tackle.  I did.

[The Whittler]

Laser field points at 3d shoots for trad bows lol. Now that would put a mind game on compound shooters lol.

[Roadkill]

Rose City did have those longbows with bamboo.  Jerry let us shoot them.  We had to use underspined arrows, but they were well made and shot well.  We were the only ones with stick bows on the line.
Italian recurves were also well made and pretty.  We did not shoot them.  Lots of call makers were selling all manner of calls and vthe place rocked with elk, varmint squealing, turkey , duck and coyote helping.  I liked that background noise

Broad heads, not one glue on.   There are so very many kinds, all with a gimmick. I glanced, but did not hover over any as they did not apply to me.
They had the electronic archery devices.  Not one had a setup to actually shoot, but they have some great photography.

There was a guy that had shafts the diameter of my little finger.  They were for line cutting in tournaments.

Packs of all cammo's and sizes.

Not so much for out here, but for eastern hunt g, those preloaded scent points intrigued me as being something I would try.  He has all manner of scents and will have hog , elk and bear scents soon.  Check it out at racembac.com.  

Some of you may have seen a pic of a compounder with an arrow stuck in the web of Hans and thru the index finger.  They now have a Kevlar glove. The guy was jabbing the mitt with broad heads.  I hope not to shoot myself, felt I had to report.

Sights of all varieties, but I did not dwell as I did not need one on any of my longbows or recurves.

Nice to talk to Jerry at Rose City and shoot his bows, he was the only trad guy there.  He had some great insight on cedar, yesterday and today.  He has some inventory of raw wood saved up.  He had some great stories on some of the old greats of our sport.  

Targets from bags to blocks, and now special targets for xbows.  There were a few there, too.  Did you know Winchester is now in the bow business?  
Well I make no judgements.  Only report what I saw in my two days there

[xtrema312]

I do not know why a trad shooter would even go to that show by the sounds of it.  I also do not think this is a trad bow hunting thread.

[Bowwild]

lpcjon2,
I sent you a PM. I'm am getting too close to hijacking this thread but I sent you GREAT news about NJ!

[swp]

Bowwild is right on about archery being popular with the kids. Thanks to him and some other dedicated people they have kids learning how fun archery is. I run an afterschool archery class at my work using NASP principles and equipment and just put in for a Olympic archery grant. One of the questions on the grant application was how many kids do you avg per class and over the last three years I averaged 14 kids per two week session and my classes run from Oct to Feb.  We are teaching them to shoot 3 under and instinctive using a compound bow that maintains a constant draw weight. I know a bunch of these kids are getting their own equipment and continuing on their archery journeys. Its a win for all of us.

[Earl E. Nov...mber]

How can we even debate where archery is going and sticking to an older time line on the internet with out being hypocritical.

We are as guilty of the changes in archery as anybody..

The good thing is the  good products will live the junk will die a natural death and be replaced with a new crop destine for failure next year.

It's pretty easy to look forward if we look back ward..

Just pick up the old magazines and see all the latest and greatest what nots that aren't with us today..and those that are.

[Primitive Spirit]

Well done swp!

[Roadkill]

Xtrema , great you have an opinion, and thanks to the guys who defended us so you could.
Others appreciate knowing what is going on.  We went to order materials for all archers, recurves and longbow en, can use strings, targets, cedar shafts and such. Over ten grand this year so archers can get supplies without mail order.  Others may live in more domestic circumstances, but we have lots, measured in hundreds of miles, of space between cities.  When they come here from ranches and small towns, we like to have what they want.
We do keep kids bows braced up, and they learn on recurves. Thanks for your opinion, any complaints can be directed to the moderators,  they can pull any thread or off color remarks from the less educated or mean spirited

[Traxx]

Xtrema,
My Buddy Skip,the op of this thread,is a LOT more diplomatic than I.Did you actually read what he posted?If not,ill give you,a rundown.We had very imformative discusions with Jerry Dishion and his wife,of Rose city archery.We hashed over subjects from Ishi to Howard Hill.We got a history lesson of Stotler archery and other notables in the archery world,some even controvercial subjects as well.We were the first to test a line of Natural materials laminated D/R bows that Jerry will be handleing for sale and i must say,they were quite nice.The folks at Ragim were friendly and informed us of the high increase in Interest and sales of traditional archery,world wide.What traditional archer,wouldnt be interested in that?

[koger]

When I ran a gunshop/archeyr pro shop, and went to the trade shows every year, one thing was apparent. 75-80% of the new must have, gonna get the deer on the wall  gee whiz gadget was just junk and a gimmick. I worked hard not to buy into that stuff, but a lot of customers would ask about it, and had to order it for them.That was over 20  years ago, and I believe it gets worse every year. On a good note, I believe that these gadgets prove themselves to be just that, and folks find out in short order, and these companys are short lived, as folks have less disposable income, now more than ever. Anything that gets more hunters into the woods, even rifles and compounds are great, because then you can expose them to trad bowhunting. Here it is getting harder to get young folks away from PS@ and XBox and out to do aynthing physical.

[atatarpm]

I travel all over this country and compete in 3d and State and Local Archery shoots againist all kinds of bows and find that there are some who don't shoot trad because they don't want to invest the time. Others don't know where to start.
In the three short years I've been at this I've gone from the one asking all the questions to answering a few them.
People look at my stick and string asking why I do it that way when it is easier to do it with all new new gagets.I look at them and tell them straite that it is all about the journey.
I even win once and a while.
 But the thing that pleases me the most is when they start looking to buy stick bows to start thier journey. Isn't that part of what TradGang is about?
One person says my thoughts real well here,"tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of the fire."

[Roadkill]

We find the same thing.  "can I abbot that?" is often heard.  That is how to propagate our sport, not with gimmicks.  However, look at some of our sponsors' products to see how far our portion of the sport.has moved

To each his own, arrows in the 12 ring is what it is all about and most I know use minimum gimmicks

[atatarpm]

Roadkill    Thank you sir!   Ric

[Bowwild]

35% of the kids purchase their own archery equipment and 11% buy hunting licenses. This froma survey this winter by the University of Florida.

[Shortlongbow]

99.9% of the gimmicks and contraptions out there have nothing to do with what I consider to be bowhunting. I was walking through the archery section of a big sporting goods store yesterday and the only thing I saw that might be useable was some fletchtight and ferrule hot melt.