I'm sure this has been discussed before? My best friend and his Dad got me into it. My Dad is not a bow hunter, so I have had to learn a lot on my own, but we have great land and my parents have always supported me in the addiction.
I have always hunted something since I was a little kid, and I had 2 main buddies that I always hunted with. Once upon a time one of my buddies said that they were going to buy a bow and start hunting with it. Naturally me and the other friend could not be out done, so we bought bows, too:d. It has simply escaladed from there.
I initially got into bow hunting when I was about 12. I'm 50 now. I got my first bow by trading my single shot 410 for a 30# recurve bow. I got out of it when I joined the Army in 1981. ANd this is my first year back into it. I got into it cause I loved hunting and the Daniel Boone show was what I watched when I got home from school.... SB
I originally got started shooting a bow in 4-H through their archery program. We shot at a local archery club with 3-D targets throughout the woods and I enjoyed it a lot. At that age I wasn't strong enough to draw the legal weight limit to hunt, but would go and sit while my Dad hunted. I eventually developed and started hunting, but started on a rough patch in which I shot a couple deer and we never found them. I was pretty upset, and still at a young age ready to give up. I kept with it though, and now love it.
I gun hunted with my dad and with that being such a short season I decided I wanted to try bowhunting to extend my season. So it was me that started me off down the bow hunting path with help from my Dad.
a friend and I both got old school WhiteTail Hunter compounds back in the mid-late 70's just to shoot, quit shootin after I moved away and got a bit older and was playing sports and stuff... continued hunting thru the years and my oldest boy expressed interest in bow hunting after watching all the shows on Versus last season so I got back into it and santa brought us both new bows for christmas... i'd literally always wanted to bow hunt but finally doin somethin about it...
I was pretty damn fortunate. Both of my parents bow hunted as I was growing up. I was shooting little recurves and longbows at 3 years old. Nothing much has changed today as I'm still winging arrows with my recurve every chance I get. I hope to get my little girl doing the same thing In a 2 to 3 years, she's only 17 months old now.
When I was little I spent most of my freetime running around in the woods by the lake and along the Fox River. I had a bb gun and traps and somewhere along the line my older brother gave me a 40# Browning nomad recurve. Even tho' that bow was way more than a 11 year old girl should be shooting.... that bow became my primary weapon. I had a ~dozen cherished and very mismatched arrows. I killed woodchucks, rabbits and squirrels with it. There were very few deer around so I didn't pursue them. Nobody else in my household hunted (other than my brothers occasionally walking the railroad tracks and shooting rabbits) so all my bad habits were self taught. (Particularly my bad bow form) I read all the hunting mags and books I could get my hands on and dreamed of hunting deer and moose and other nifty big critters. Then I got the idea that I should buy one of those new fangled Bear Whitetail II compounds. I saved up my trapping money and allowance and bought one. So then I was shooting a 50lb bow with who knows what draw length. I actually shot much worse with the compound, prolly because I had mismatched wood arras, solid aluminum arras and every other type in there, no rest, no sights, no glove, no tab.... Anyhow, I actually lost interest in bowhunting because of it until I went to college. Up in Nort Dahkota I bought a seemingly spiffy JVA Astro bow in '88. 44" ata, 28" draw, little round wheels. 40-50lbs. Weighs about 7 lbs bare. Again, my form sucked badly... but I could shoot that puppy. (not an actual puppy atlasman) I shot it everyday. My first kill with it was a 12lb jackrabbit. It was about -15 when I shot and it did break the bow... but I drilled the rabbit so I didn't care. I went on to win a tourney with it (before there were foam 3d targets, we had bales with animal images on burlap), shoot many critters including my first couple of deer with it... I was totally hooked. I went through another bow (xi) and now I'm shooting a bowtech... a change which was very much like the jump from my '77 IH Scout to a '01 Chevy 2500HD. I also have several bowfishing bows and some recurves, a longbow and a selfbow. I don't do the trad thing much anymore because I did manage to ruin my shoulder by being overbowed for most of my life. So there you go. That's my story.
Both my parents are bowhunters. My Mom and Dad would take turns during the morning and evening sitting with us (myself, 2 brothers and a sister) in the vehicle while the other was on stand. We had some good times. There was a lot of anticipation when we could see my Mom or Dad walking back to the vehicle. We also learned to track at a very early age. My parents always made sure we were involved as possible in the hunt. As we got older they would allow us to sit in make-shift blinds made of branches with them. I'm sure we ruined many a hunts as youngsters by being restless.
I started bowhunting in 2006 when i was 16 for a number of reasons. I got into it because i had friends and family who were bowhunters, and i wanted to spend as much time in the woods as i could.
Way back in 1981.....Cub Scout PA Jamboree, Age 9 LOL Nobody in my family hunts but I was exposed to guns and finally bows in scouts and some sick switch flipped and I never looked back. At that Scout Jamboree there were almost 400 cub scouts competeing for the archery trophy. It was the first time I had ever seen, held or shot a bow of anykind.....don't get carried away and picture Olympic competition here it was kid after kid all day long in a big line at 10 yards or so with a fiberglass bow and 6 arrows to take his turn at trying to win. I can still remember it like it was yesterday, the target butts were super worn out regular hay bales with those standard gold,red,blue bullseye targets tacked in the front. The scout leader handed me my 6 arrows, pointed me in the general direction of the target and walked to the next kid with the simple instructions :"Don't shoot anybody":d Well I shot all 6 arrows dead in the 10 ring like I was some Zen Ninja archer sent from heaven to show all kids the way to archery enlightenment.....but the arrows all disappeared into the paper and worn out hay. When the scout leader worked his way back to me he looked at my target and said "That's ok son, everybody misses when they first start" I replied........"I didn't miss" He walked up to the paper target where the nocks were barely visible in the center, pushed the target in a bit so they would pop back through the paper and he turned and looked at me like I was the Zen archery master that I already knew I was. LOL I won the entire competition with a perfect score, still have the little wood and plastic archer guy trophy at my parents house and I've been "Not missing" ever since.
I got myself into bowhunting. I grew up with a single mother and an older brother. I had a cousin who's older brother taught him to hunt and I'd tag along. It started with squirrels, rabbits and doves after I borrowed a single barrel 16 gauge from my grandfather. I then started hunting small game on my own at 13 (illegal). My cousin had a fiberglass bow and some field tip arrows and I decided to go deer hunting. (I didn't have the internet or supervision to know it wasn't right). Thank God I didn't hit anything. My experiences hooked me for life. At 15 I begged for a compound for my birthday which I received, A 50-60 lb Bear Black Bear II 50% let off. I bought some 2117's and 160 grain Thunderheads with my birthday money and went hunting. (My birthday is in Nov). I actually hunted with that bow into my early 20's. Since then I've owned nearly 20 different bows and have been at it for 27 seasons. The only gun I pick up anymore is my Mossberg for gobblers and even then, sometimes the bow gets toted to the woods.
My dad got me into it three years after he started. When I started he still hadn't taken a deer, I took one on my second sit which pissed him off because I took my first deer with a rifle less than a week before on my second day of deer hunting. Dad owns me when it comes to fishing, I own him when it comes to hunting
My grandfather got me into archery with the intention to hunt but we never got that chance. So a few years back I decided to go out hunting with a freind in Texas and loved the experience so I got back into archery since gun hunting in Illinois is challenging at best.
after I moved to Wi. I started bowhunting w/a coworker, & still hunt with him every yr. gun & bow both.
Myself. My dad bow hunted about...thirty years ago, but had no influence on me picking up. I originally started to get more hunting time, and then fell in love with it. Now, by dad wants to get back into it, as well as two of my younger brothers.
