What is the story behind the reason you got into archery?

I started when i was about 10-11, my dad got me a youth bow from walmart an i shot that for a few years (my 4 year old daughter now shoots that bow just turned alll the way down) till i jumped up to a bit bigger bow, still the kind from walmart when i turned 16 i figured enough was enough and i wanted to go hunting with a bow. So my dad an i went to the local pro shop an he bought me the bow i have now, a PSE Deer Hunter. I skipped out for a few years after havin a kid but got back into it theses past 2 years an have not an will not stop!

 

My bow hunting started one Easter dinner when my future father-in-law said to me "Hey, you have your FID card right?" I informed him I actually have my LTC but ya, and why? I knew he was a hunter but only by bow. He hunts turkey but always seemed to run into bad luck hunting them. They would stay just out of range, catch the motion of him drawing, knocked an arrow off his own rest when drawing on a tom at 10 yards, and an unfortunate off target shot that led to a 4 hour hunt of a possibly hurt turkey. So truth be told, he just wanted someone with a shotgun there to just blast one. Sort of end a dry streak for him. Well I took him up on his offer to hunt with him and to make a long story short 15 minutes into my first hunt..... BOOM! Job done. But the thought of bowhunting my next one took over. To me the whole shotgun thing seemed too easy. A bow, to me anyway,seemed to even up the odds and I liked that. So a grand later (actually way more but I'm afraid to really count up the receipts) and now I'm sitting in a blind calling in turkeys all the while planning for my first deer season in my head.

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Started hunting with my grandpa when I was 16... shot a 3-pointer. After coming out of the service (and being on the base rifle team) shooting deer with a shotgun became too easy. So I decided to purchase a recurve.... been archery hunting ever since.

Two years ago I got rid of my long guns and so now I only archery hunt (even during rifle season).

 

When I was little, my dad and my uncle would take me out shooting when we went down to visit our PA side of the family. They took me on a few bird hunts, which I loved, but since my dad had basically given up his hunting days since his 20s, I never really had anyone in my area to take me hunting. However, fly fishing was our big family tradition, so I spent most of my youth in the woods along side a stream on my days off from school, and thats where I became hooked on the outdoors. I decided to try deer hunting for the first time when I was 18 at my uncles property in PA with a rifle, and was able to put down a nice little 5 pointer. For the next three or four seasons I fell in love with deer hunting and felt like bow hunting would be the like the "fly fishing" of deer hunting for me, and allow me to spend more time in the woods. So last summer, with some help and advise from one of my good friends, I bought my first bow, and I can't get enough of archery and bow hunting.

 

Just curious...whats an FID & LTC card?

 

Not 100% on the FID but I think its a Federal Identification. Some states make you have them to purchase firearms and ammo. I'm pretty sure the LTC is a License To Carry. Pretty much a concealed carry permit.

 

Ok...thank you for your response.

 

My dad grew up bowhunting and really made a name for himself in the late 70's and early 80' in the forest park IL area. He worked in and out of various pro shops and was going to go really deep into the archery scene before he met my mother while she was working at the nap factory in forest park. She got pregnant with me and continued to work there until I was born. He got out of the shops and settled down with the new family. It wasn't until I was around 15 that I really picked up a bow. Now I'm 18 and I can say the olny thing I live for at this age is archery; and with no real bills or responsibilitys the majority of the money I make goes into the olny thing I love. I hope to one day open my own archery shop and carry on in the footsteps my dad made before he gave me the life I have.

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Absolutely correct. Sorry I am from Mass and firearms here are considered the tool of the devil here. They make you jump through hoops to obtain a firearms license only to end up being the bad guy because you believe in the second amendment. Don't move to Massachusetts!

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Newby here too.
Both son in laws bow hunt and the guy I hunt fowl with hunts archery big game too.
The have all been trying to talk me into it for years. Last year, at age 60, I got started, thought maybe better while I could still draw a 60 lb bow. :D
Having a ball. Shot my first 3D last weekend. Went home with all my arrows

 

I just wanted a longer deer hunting season. We only get 9 days for gunhunting and that just was not cutting it for me.

 

Pretty much exactly the same for me aswell.
I grew up firearm hunting and have always enjoyed it. I remembered how I enjoyed shooting a bow the few times I did as a kid. When I realized that I could have 4 months of hunting whitetails, I was sold on the idea. The only thing I regret is not starting sooner.

 

My dad grew up in a deer hunting family and started bowhunting in his 20's sometime in the late 70's/early 80's. Sometime around 1987 he opened up an archery shop and I spent time there after school every night for a couple of years. I filmed him shoot a bear with his bow when I was 11, then a moose when I was 12. The rest I suppose you could say is history.

 

Yeah that's how I knew what an FID was. I live in RI and frequent the Bass Pro in Foxboro. The last time I went there I was getting a choke tube for my 12guage and figured I would pic up a box of shells while there. Haha. Nope can't buy ammo there without an FID. Lol. I said "Ok Nevermind the local shop back in RI has the ones I need anyway".

I'm sure I'll go get one just to have it but didn't feel like dealing with the paperwork and stuff right then, just to get a box of shells.

 

I had always gun hunted growing up, starting with squirrels and working my way up to deer. My grandpa got me a bow when I was 12. I'm not sure if it was because he used to archery hunt or if I asked for it but I knew archery season was a lot longer than gun season so I know I wasn't a stupid kid.

 

I was completely obsessed with hunting and fishing as a kid. My dad hunted, but only occasionally every few years and only with a gun usually on opening day. I got hooked through hearing stories from my Dad about how he hunted when he was young, and then watching it on TV and reading all the books and magazines I could get my hands on.

Since my father never really had time to go hunting with me and my mother didn't know how, they didn't trust me to hunt alone with a gun. I then decided I wanted to learn how to bowhunt because it would allow me to hunt when I wanted instead of the one or two days a year I could get someone to go with me. I mowed lawns all summer to buy a 35lb Darton recurve at a garage sale, then shot hundreds of arrows every day in the yard until I was able to convince them to let me out there alone with a bow. I actually didn't even hunt with a gun until I had killed a couple of deer already with a bow.

 

Great responses.

I started when I was 5 mos old. Well not really hunting, but my dad was a big outdoorsman (hunted, trapped, fished). He took a backpack when I was 5mos and cut feet holes in it and he would take me hunting, bow mainly. He done this until I was about 4-5 and then I could walk the woods without assistance. At 7 I received my 1st compound bow, I had had recurves before that. I would shoot with him and his buddies. By 10 or 11 I was in the tree by myself on the 1st day of bow season with my dad in anouther tree less than 20 yds away. At 12 I took my 1st deer with a bow, and by 14 I was scouting, and hunting by myself. I hunted and trapped extensively until I was about 19 and then school, work, and girls took over. After 14 years of being out of the sport I want to get back into it. I don't have the land in the family that we used to, but that wont keep me down. I always enjoyed shooting a bow and looking to get my first one in years, last one was a High Counrty Sniper that was a hand me down from my dad when I was about 15/16 yo. My dad hasn't shot a bow regularly in maybe 16 years and he is talking about it also now, and my wife would also like to start shooting.

Jeremy

 

Starting hunting with muzzleloader and found I could hunt an additional 6 weeks with a bow, During the rut! Once I started I was hooked and now I carry a bow well into shotgun season.

 

I grew up around it.

Everybody in my family hunted and fished when I was a kid. I started out shooting my grandfather's old Bear Kodiak when I was about 6 or so. I shot wvery time we went over there (probably once a week)

When I was about 10, my brother and I ran across some bows at a garage sale while out riding our bikes. Some fast negotiating, and we each rode home with a Bear Bearkat bow for a combined $5 (it's all we had on us, I was feeling pretty flush, I was mowing yards). We shot every evening in the back yard after school.

When I was 12, I took my lawn money and bought a Jennings Super T Star bow at the local bow shop. We still shot every evening in the back yard a few months later my brother had saved up enough for a PSE Nova, and my pop bought a Proline bow. A out that time my grandad had found a local 3D tournament, so we all loaded up and went to shoot it. We wound up shooting a tournament every couple of months for the next few years while I was in high school. I went off to college, and wound up taking archery as a PE credit. That led me to finding the job I had up there, working in a cabinet shop, and he had a small bow shop for him and his buddies mostly. We'd work all afternoon (school in the morning), and then after work we'd go grab a 12 pack and shoot 3d targets behind the shop until dark (or we ran out of beer)

I continued to shoot after college, until a out the time I met my wife. She kind of consumed all my time, and before I knew it, 8 years has passed by.

I was at work, and one of my colleagues had brought his new Drenalin, and let me shoot it a few times behind the shop. The next day I blew the dust off my old bow and got right back into shooting. That was in 2009.

It wasn't long beforeI was right back into it. Been at it ever since.

My daughter started shooting with me when I started back up, and is now getting to be a heck of a shooter. I couldn't be more proud.


All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure - Mark Twain

 

Rifled hunted most of my life and I was introduced to bowhunting in the mid-90s. I have been hooked every since. I don't hunt with anything else.