What was it that made you pick up a bow as the weapon of choice to chase whitetails with? For me it was moving to my present home. We moved in August of 1992. During the summer of 1993 we had the worst flooding of all time on the major rivers around here. I live about a mile from the Missouri. (High enough that it will never reach me) There were more deer that got pushed out of the bottoms and off the islands into our neighborhood than you could count that summer. Driving to and from work was and obstacle course every day. It is mostly suburban areas here with subdivisions and a few open areas. I knew I had to find a way to hunt those deer. Gun hunting was probably out with the number of close houses, so I went bow shopping and have been hooked ever since. I got permission to hunt a few 3-5 acre lots and a few larger tracts, the biggest being 25 acres. I still hunt around home some, but have since purchased my own 85 acres in IL to hunt on.
Watching the Duke boys shoot bows with explosive tip arrows as a kid... Made me want a bow. It all went from there. No one in my family hunted, so I was not introduced to archery or hunting from anyone. I just knew it was cool
Watching a member of our hunting club teach his kids how to shoot (they were 11 and 12, and I was 13). I remember thinking, "that looks pretty cool." At the time, I was already an eager early hunter (my dad was my HTE instructor), but my family were gun hunters, so I asked my dad if I could get into archery. I didn't have to ask twice before we were at our local sporting goods store getting me fitted with my first bow. All downhill from there
Both my dad and mom bow hunted before I was born. I pretty much grew up with a bow In my hand. I consider myself very fortunate.
I grew up in a bowhunting family. They put a bow in my hands at the age of 8, and after that it was all or nothing for me. I have a personality that when I do something, I put a 110% towards it. So shooting archery and bowhunting fit right in. When I killed my first deer with a bow at 12 years old I couldnt get enough of it. I then figured out, that with bowhunting it is close encounters with animals in their home territory. So this is what got me into this bowhunting addiction!
Kinda started with rabbit hunting when I was a little boy... we always had a couple beagles growing up, and Dad and I killed thousands of 'em. Later, when I found myself in college and attempting to put meat on the table for myself, I grabbed my shotgun and hit the various fencerows and ditch dumps trying to do what I knew best. The occasional rabbit I kicked up didn't go too far. I was sitting in my apartment one night flipping through the wildlife code handbook, nonchalantly looking at various game seasons and dates. I came across "deer"... then subsequently a few pages later saw how long the archery season was for deer. I thought to myself, "Surely I can kill a deer in three months!" I went to Walmart, bought a used bow package somebody had returned (a Bear Whitetail Hunter), grabbed some Thunderheads and aluminum arrows, and I was started. Of course, the bow was SO out of tune it wasn't funny... and it had a 31" draw (I'm a 29"), and my arrows corkscrewed all the way to the target at 20 yards away. It's literally amazing I "made it".
My grandfather got my dad started hunting when he was a kid. Mostly rifle hunting in Northern Wisconsin. Around the time I was born my dad started bowhunting and pretty much fell in love with it. Several years later when I was 6 or 7 he opened up an archery shop and I spent every single night there after school, hanging out, listening to all of the good ol' boys stop in and shoot the bull. At the time IL still had check stations so all of the locals brougt there deer in to get registered. During this time he was on the board of a local archery club and I attended all of the club meetings, 3-D shoots, and was put to work maintaining targets and the course during the summertime. At the time I got started shooting a red fiberglass Indian bow. When I was 8 my dad took me to Ontario, brought me up in a tree, and I watched him shoot a black bear at about 10 yards with his bow. 3 years later we went back and I filmed him shoot another one with his bow. That fall I watched him shoot a moose as well. So you can pretty much say I literally grew up in the woods watching my dad hunt. We went everywhere and did everything together. I got my hunter's education card when I was 12 and hit the woods with bow in hand. 18 seasons later here I am, as hooked as ever.
My dad got me started. He bought me a little red bow and some wood arrows when I was 7or 8 and away I went. Have been shooting and hunting since.
I was born into it. I have 2 brothers and a sister. My parents would take turns sitting in the vehicle with us while the other one hunt for an hour or so. Those are some good memories.
My grandfather and dad had me in the woods since I was 4 gun hunting, I still remember being so cold on the gun seasons. We lost a good farm here in Boone county Illinois back in 2000 and I haven't really gun hunted since then, I just started getting into bowhunting around that time, so for about 10 years now. I love this sport I wouldn't trade it for another. Theres nothing like hunting on a nice cool brisk fall day, with the smell of the changing leaves and the woods exploding with activity! Theres just something about bowhunting that is I don't know sometimes it's unexplainable especially to people who really don't have a grasp on the sport. All I know is that I look forward to oct. 1st every year like it can't come fast enough. I could probably keep rambling on but I won't, but I want to thank my grandfather who just recently passed away this past feb. and also thank my dad for taking me all these years, now I have something two look forward too with my daughter and son!
I started hunting on my own my senior year of high school in 1992. My dad bought me a Bear Whitetail Master or something in 1999. In 2001 I started to hunt with the bow. After I shot my first deer with a bow in 2002 everything changed. By 2005 I went to only hunting with a bow and have not looked back at all. Something about the simplicity of a bow was appealing to me. It is kind of like fishing with a plastic worm...finesse finesse finesse, then BAM you set the hook! Or in the case of bowhunting it is silence silence silence then WHAP, you rip an arrow through somethings lungs! It is who I am now and I just love it that something drew me to bowhunting.
My grandfather and my dad... I remember sitting outside as a kid just waiting for them to get back from hunting so I could hear the stories about what they say and what happened. Some of my earliest memories are from when my twin sister and I were out on tracking jobs with my dad and grandfather.
My family got me into hunting at an early age and I fell in love with the woods and the animals right from the start... but it wasn't until a few years that I got into bowhunting. I wanted more time in the woods, to get closer to animals, and bowhunting just plain seemed awesome. And I sure was right ..
A room mate of mine back in the day was a bowhunter. He got me started. But it was years before I shot my first deer with archery gear. That's how I got started. What made me decide to go bow exclusive? Shooting a deer. That did it. Hooked. Done. Over with. End of story.
OK,OK, this might tell my age but anyhoo, I read Deliverance by Jamesy ****ey like 100 times, and just KNEW that if any one could been out in the woods and survived with just a bow and arrow, like Ed, or Lewis, I could too! Then came the Duke boys tearing it up! Nobody in my family had even picked up a bow let alone hunted with it...Hah! All the way up to my grandfathers, all they did was fish. I took my new Indian up behind my grandparents house and shot and shot and shot..It was like.. I don't know, like a birth or something corny like that. I just know that over the years I have tried other ways of hunting, and always came back to archery... The End...
Like most little boys, we all want to be like our dads. I was no different. As a kid I couldn't get enough of deer hunting. I would watch as many hunting videos as I could, beg my dad to take me on preseason scouting trips, and I even ate clover at one time because I was told it would make me a better deer hunter when I grew up. I used to sit behind my dad for countless hours as a child watching him sling arrows out of his old recurve. At some point he thought I was old enough for a youth bow. It was a Golden Eagle or something like that and shot cheap Wal-Mart arrows. When I was around 11, I got my first hunting bow, a XI Prodigy. I was hooked from the start. Like gri22ly said, I never really had a chance. One day, I hope to break out my pops old recurve and get good enough to take a deer with it.
