Do you remember your first bow?

[hvyhitter]

Outers 35# fiberglass recurve around 1971. Bear 76er around the summer of 76. Browning Wasp in 78.........got out of archery for years then picked up a 80# Mamba in 1991 and havent looked back........

[stickem1]

My first was a red Bear glass bow 15 or 20# I think, then a green solid glass 40#er that I think was a Pearson. I'll never forget how much I got in trouble for shooting my first rabbit out of my bedroom window. I remember it like yesterday, summer of '77.

[Ron LaClair]

My dad made my first bow when I was 5 years old. When I was 9 I got a lemonwood bow from Montgomery Wards catalog. At 15 I got a Par-X aluminum bow from the second hand store. Then in 1955 I got my first real bow, a new double shelf Bear Kodiak. First thing I killed with it was a fox...luckiest shot I ever made..    

   

[Cyclic-Rivers]

I used to make bows from saplings when I was 5 and 6. I would simply cut one and tie a  string to it. Eventually my dad gave me a  gray fiberglass bow which I believe was his as a  kid.

Then I started hunting with his 1969 Bear Grizzly. 45 lbs. He still has that bow but unfortunately with a  broken limb.

[halfseminole]

Did the same, cut privet for green wood bows and strung it with blackpowder fuse line.  Killed a bobcat with one.  Later I shot a yumi owned by my teacher as well as his fiberglass horse bows.

[Bjorn]

As kids we made bows from saplings. When I was 12 I bought a 22# fiberglass Bear bow with money from a paper route.

[mahantango]

25# green solid glass Bear recurve from S&H Greenstamps when I was about ten (1970). First grown-up bow was a U-finish recurve from Wilderness Outfitters in Utah, advertised in TBM around 1978. It's been a long strange trip since then.

[Igor]

Don't remember the weight...but it was a little red solid fiberglass bow that I received about 1958...made the local small game's life miserable...not that I harvested many...but I was after them!

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Glenn

[longbow fanatic 1]

Mine was a Browning Spartan.

[dbd870]

Mine was a Ben Pearson; couldn't tell you the model.

[tippit]

I didn't start bowhunting till I was 30.  Growing up in Ohio there wasn't any deer season in the 60's so I was pretty much a bird/shotgun hunter.  My Dad's family was from Northern Wisconsin and all my cousins were bowhunting deer with compounds.  When my Dad retired, he & Mom moved back home.  That year I flew up to do my first deer hunt with the family.  Dad & I got Darton compounds...not really a bow so doesn't qualify as my first         Anyway in camp a friend of my cousins was hunting with a longbow.  When I got home I called a young guy in Michigan and ordered my first longbow.

Tim Meggs longbow green glass 55#@28.  Oh that young guy was Ron LaClair...1980.

PS:  Years later I purchased a longbow off **** that ended up being The Longbow from my first deer camp that started my journey...Dave Johnson cedar longbow with my cousin's friend name on it!  I've reduced the weight on it twice since then so I can still shoot it...tippit

Bear Grey Fox.  

Got it from my brother in 1968 or so.

[Bill Turner]

62",45@28 Wing Thunderbird. Beautiful bow.    

[Mike Taylor2]

I'll never forget it as long as I live.  Mine was a Creamsicle orange and white, all fiberglass with a grip large enough to shoot left or right handed.  I killed enough Rabbits, Squirrels and Chipmonks to build a bow sock to protect Santa's $10 present to me.

[lbshooter]

I don't have to remember my Bear Grizzly too hard.  I still have it and shoot it on occasion.  Bought it new in 1967 for $39 after cutting lawns and painting fences all summer to pay for it and a dozen arrows at 16 years old.

[WildmanSC]

My first traditional bow was a T/D recurve built by Mr. Bob Jones, a local bowyer who built bows for over 50 years.  Sadly, he had to retire from bow building around a year ago because he was getting to weak to draw the bows he built for people.  He wouldn't sell a bow, if he hadn't shot it first.

Even more sadly, Mr. Jones has been diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's, disease.  He's 87 years old and has lived a full life.  It's still sad to witness his decline in health.  :(

Bill

[jeff w]

When I was 10 or 11 (@40+ years ago) my mom bought my dad a Colt archery set--fiberglass bow, arrows, armguard, etc.  Dad never really liked outdoor stuff and before long....the archery set was in my possession.   My first 'real' recurve was a Ben Pearson Cougar that I bought by saving up my lawn-mowing money.

[centaur]

I was 9 or 10, got an Indian fiberglass longbow. I think it was marked 30#, but I probably didn't pull that much. Terrorized lizards, rabbits and birds in and around Ft. Bliss, Texas with that bow. In about 1971, I got a Bear Grizzly, and it was all downhill from there.

[JEFF B]

my first bow was a supple jack vine and hey bale twine it was awesome but the birds did not like it one bit. i wonder why?  

[Brock]

First bow was in middle school...my uncle went to college and grandmother gave us his archery bow...a Browning Prep...35# if I remember right and some fiberglass target arrows with bullet points on end.

Nobody in family nor friends did any archery other than my uncle and he was in Florida...while we were in South Carolina.  So my brother and I would pull it out of the corner of my closet and shoot it.  Few times it was fine and then came apart...came unglued or laminated.  It appears it was SUPPOSED TO BE HARD to string the correct way and the easy way was backwards.  No wonder everything felt wrong about that bow...hahaha.

My next bow was supposed to be a Bear Grizzly recurve but could not find one to buy while in military in Holland in 1980s....guy at work told me to buy a Browning Badger so I ordered one not knowing the difference.  It came with energy wheels, finger elevated weather rest, some aluminum arrows with vanes, and a Saunders Fab Tab and a single pin sight.  I shot it for a year and then got rid of sights....and returned to states.  The bow was disposed of in Sumter SC and I went to Mr. Owen Jeffery on Pepper St in Columbia and bought a brand new Jeffery Royal Hunter with clear glass, red oak veneers over a maple limb core....and a laminated riser dyed in what he called his new Mountain Camo setup.  Still got that bow....shoots great.  Not the prettiest or the fastest but it is like an old glove or pair of boots...it just feels comforting in the hand.

keep em sharp,

ron herman