3 years ago watching tv I just decided on the spot that I wanted to get into it. I went to a few archery stores the next day and purchased my first bow. Spent the entire first year just shooting at the house and range by myself. My second year I finally went out and started hunting. That was the time that I also discovered a few websites and started making friends with a bunch of you. Now looking back I really wish that I had someone to help me get into it back when I was younger. I really wish that I didn't have to miss out on it for all these years.
Hmmmm...I don't remember how or when I got it, but I had an all fiberglass bow as a kid. I promptly lost most of my arrows and started being very selective with my shots. I'd learned that if I shot upward and lobbed the arrow, it would stick up and be easier to find. Soon I came up with the very BAD idea of trying to see if I could make the arrow land right beside me...you see where this is going don't you. One morning standing in the middle of the front yard, I made one of the most perfect shots ever. There was no wind and I drew back and tried to find perfect vertical. I released the string and watched the arrow fly until the tiny dot disappeared. Then the light bulb came on... I ran as fast as I could under the limb of the largest maple tree. As I watched, I heard the fffffft as the arrow zipped into the ground exactly where I'd been standing. I'm not real smart but I can be taught...lesson learned As I got older I graduated to firearms and the little bow had a broken nock end so it wouldn't hold the string any more. So I gravitated to guns. Then when my girls got big enough, my brother made them longbows. Then he let me borrow a recurve, and the fun of the old fiberglass bow was back.
My buddy got me into it. I would go over to his house and we would go on our pellet gun adventures, and everynow and then he would get out the Mcpherson, sling a few. He had tons of Trophies he had won at 3d shoots at the cub level, I was interested got me a super shooting Bear White-tail hunter.lol and Ive been slowly growing as a bowhunter ever since.
For me it was my brother, we hunted most of our lives with our father and grandfather. Then one year he went bow hunting with a co-worker and he came back with the bug, so the next year I went too, and after that the guns found the closet and it became all about bow hunting baby. That was ten years ago and it has become more than a hobby for me, it is what I live for.
heard a ton of stories about my dad and his bow, all the great shots he had and took with it and thought, hey i could do that. asked him if i could have his old bow. got pretty good with it shooting fingers and ended up missing a nice 8pt on fall. next day i bought a brand new bow and have been doing it ever since. did i mention i have never touched my rifle since?????????
My uncle started shooting bows when I was 15 and I shot his a couple of times. Picked it up quick and then grand dad gave me his compound. I shot it for a year or two and started hunting with it. It was old though and I did not want to break it so I picked up another bow. I was completely self taught on hunting though (and still trying to figure this out!), nowbody I knew really hunted for deer so it took 3 years for me to connect. It was alot of magazine reading and scouting. It's been 4 years since I connected so I might need to go read somemore!!!
I always thought and most bowhunters I had met told me it was too difficult for most people. My brother in law, who was my friend before I married his sister, bowhunted. I knew if he could do it so could I, but all kiddin aside he helped me get started and is still my best bowhuntin buddy! Even if we are too busy to get together very often, we are both on the same lease so we at least get to compare notes. lp
I grew up in a family that hunted, but no one really bowhunted while I was growing up. My father did quite a bit of it when he was younger, but rarely even made it out for rifle season anymore while I was a kid. He did manage to get out with me to rifle hunt a small handful of times when I was young, but for the most part it was all self learned. He was always supportive of me when I was younger, but was rarely directly involved with it until I was in my mid 20's. I learned to read at an extremely young age, I can remember being as young as 6ish years old flipping through my fathers Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, and begging my neighbors for their old magazines to read. I would dream of hunting and learned everything I could read through those magazines. I remember my mother taking me to the library when I was young, and by time I was in 5th grade I had already read every book that library had on hunting. I remember calling coyotes and stalking deer on our property in Vermont as young as 7 years old, with no weapon because I wasn't trusted to carry a BB gun yet or anything else. By age 8, I was allowed to carry my fiberglass long bow (given to me by a neighbor that asked permission of my parents to give to me), and a handful of my fathers old wooden arrows and I terrorized every living wild creature I could get close enough to. I'd bet I killed hundreds of tweety birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and even frogs/fish with that thing. Went to boyscout camp and like Matt spanked every kid there, although I had quite a bit of experience with a bow by that time. I think I was 10 years old when my mother gave to me a 35lb recurve that she had used for target archery with my father when they were in college. My father was very active in college with their archery team, and had recruited my mother into it at that point. I did chores around the house all summer and finally came up with the $$$ to buy some garage sale fiberglass arrows with glue on wasp 3 blade heads. I hunted small game with that bow, but wasn't allowed to hunt deer quite yet, my parents didn't want me hunting deer without a license. The following year (11 years old) with a hunters safety course under my belt, I took to the woods with an ancient PSE that I had worked all summer long to purchase from a family friend, along with a box full of 2117's and some Razorback 5's. I took to the woods alone that year in Vermont on the morning of opening day, and sat in a treestand that I had build and tied into a overlooking an apple tree. 2 months earlier I had found several deer around the tree on several occasions, and I remember specifically thinking about how the magazines said to setup downwind. At 20 minutes after first light the very first day I ever deer hunted with a bow, a single doe came into my shooting lane at roughly 10 yards and I let her have it. My father (who probably figured I didn't have a chance) was still sleeping at the house, but had instructed me to come back to the house if I shot one to get him, and we would recover together. I still remember knocking on his bedroom door that morning, and him coming out wondering what was wrong and why I was waking him up so early. I'm sure the last thing on his mind was that I actually had gotten one. That's how it all started. 18 seasons later the fire is burning just as hot as it was that morning of my first sit. 90% of what I've learned I read in magazines, or on the internet as I got older, but most of it was through trial and error.
Another member here, MOmightymite got me into hunting and archery. We have been friends since we were 4 or so and when I was 16 I believe, he brought his bow over to my house. I can still remember the first shot I took. It was at a pizza box tacked to a hay bale with an old PSE nova. I thought it was pretty cool so I went on ebay and found a used bow, a reflex bighorn that I still have. Started hunting very casually that first year, not knowing what the hell I was doing (not that I know much more now ). We've been at it ever since. Hunting has sure bonded our relationship to a new level and don't know what I would do without him. Sure has cost me a lot of money though...:d :d
Good thread guys - its interesting to see people's backgrounds and how they came to where they are at now. As for me, I grew up with a dad who was/is a psycho bowhunter. Since as far back as I can remember my dad was out bowhunting every chance he got. It's interesting to hear him tell stories about how in the late 70's and early 80's you would rarely even see a deer in this part of Illinois. I can very clearly remember being around to watch him field dress and skin deer since about as far back as I can really remember. When I got a little bit older, around 7 or 8 my dad used to take me out hunting with him, both with a bow as well as during rifle season in Northern Wisconsin. I also accompanied him on several recoveries as well. When I was 8 he took me to Ontario on a spring bear hunt and I watched him shoot a cinammon black bear at about 15 yards. I was so scared that I didn't want to get out of the tree because I thought the bear was going to come eat us. Then when I was 11 I actually filmed my dad shoot another black bear with a bow. I will try to dig up the footage and get it online somehow eventually. From 11 to 16 I accompanied my dad on his annual fall moose hunt with his bow. I filmed him shoot two bull moose in those years, unfortunately we didn't recover either of them. That sucked bigtime. I should also mention that from when I was about 6 until about 10 my dad owned and operated one of the only archery shops around, and I spent every waking hour of my free time there. He was also a check station for deer, so I got to see a lot of really nice bucks checked in over the year, and listen to the stories of the locals as they hung around the shop, talking deer and drinking beer. During this time my dad was also on the board of the local archery club, so I spent quite a bit of time there walking the course, shooting at targets from the Cub stake with my red fiberglass Bear longbow. I took my hunter's ed class when I was 12, shot my first deer with a bow when I was 15, and 13 years later I still love shooting deer with my bow as much as I ever have. Although I've set my sights a bit higher on some bigger bucks over the past few years, I enjoy bowhunting more than anything in the world. I still try to hunt with my dad as much as possible, even though we don't exactly see eye to eye on how to kill big bucks. I keep telling him to look at my wall and then look at his own to see who's killed more, but to him I'll always be just a smartass kid who doesn't know what I'm talking about.
A few photos I managed to dig up... Getting introduced to dead deer at a young age. Dad and I with the bear I filmed him shooting. Go Bears! I didn't get this kill on film, but it was one of the coolest things I've even been witness to. Shooting my old JVA Astro in the backyard, getting ready for hunting season. Dig the cutoff sweatpants for shorts. I had style.
