Archery discussions

[Flyinfool]

Well I know there are a lot of members here that like guns, I'm one of them and own many. I was wondering how many here are into archery.

 

When I first got started in archery I was talked into it by a couple of guys I worked with, one was an avid archery deer hunter, and the other was getting ready to compete in the summer Olympics (he is scary good). They hauled me down to the archery shop where they both shoot on a league, and I went through all the measurement stuff with the range expert to pick out a bow for me that would work on both the range and for hunting. Of course it was a nice compound bow, and they also signed me up in the league that was just about to start and helped me get the new bow tuned and adjusted for me.

 

In archery league shooting a perfect score is 300 which would be 60 bulls eyes.

My first night there I shot about a 130. My 2 buddies shot 290 and 300. It was a handicap league. well of course I improved rapidly by 10 to 20 points a week. in a handicap league that pretty much makes our team unbeatable. By the end of that first season my average was up to 280.

 

After a couple of years I got a better bow that is more specific to hunting. It still worked for the leagues ok but with a 60 lb draw it was a bit tiring at the range. my left hand would start shaking trying to hold that draw weight to aim, even with the compound let off.

 

Some times the engineer in me gets the upper hand and I have to buck the norms. I am right handed and left eye dominant. So when it was time for another bow, I looked into getting a left handed bow. The engineer in me said it had to work better. I would now be holding up the weight of the bow, and aiming and holding the draw weight all with my stronger and more accurate right hand while my weaker left hand was anchored to my chin for stability. My new bow had an max 85 lb draw weight and I found it was no problem to shoot that accurately in the leagues because my strong hand was now doing the heavy lifting so to speak. I really felt like a very uncoordinated goofball the first time I tried a left handed bow, everything really felt all wrong after building up years of muscle memory to do it "right".

 

Because I learned right hand and then switched to left hand I can now shoot equally good with either hand bow. I am now to the point that I can consistently hold a 3 inch group at 50 yards outdoors with the wind swirling around. This good but not great, My buddy that is of Olympic caliber shoots a 100mm (4 inch) group at 100 meters, outdoors. I will never be in that class, his bow cost more than a new car.

[luvmy40]

I was an avid deer hunter and shot a lot of 3D competitions, but I haven't really had time for it in many, many years. I still have all my gear.

 

My bow is a 75# Archery Research 34, which was PSE's high end line of hunting bows about 15 years ago. I still have my Loggy Bayou climber and an old Baker hanging on the wall in the garage.

[slowrollwv]

Jeff I use to shoot field archery at our Izaac Walton club many years ago before 3D archery became the norm. I still use a bow for hunting and enjoy it more than with a rifle.

[cowpuc]

Jeff I use to shoot field archery at our Izaac Walton club many years ago before 3D archery became the norm. I still use a bow for hunting and enjoy it more than with a rifle.

 

:sign yeah that::sign yeah that::sign yeah that:

 

It was a steady progress in that direction thru the years in my case too Roller.. Starting all the way back in the 60's with a Bear Magnum recurve (still got wooden arrows in a case downstairs) and then onto an "Allen Speedster" (remember those?) when they first came out.. Killed many many deer with that little compound until I left it on top of my car after hunting in sub zero tempts and climbing in to warm up..

After Dad passed I stopped hunting (kids all grew up anyway so our need for meat went wayyyyy down) and havent looked back.. Still got all the tree stands and archery equipment though and know that those runways are still as active as they used to be.. Fact is,, living here near the State Park where deer seemed to have a nack for standing in the roads and getting run over,,, I highly suspect that I will be set for venision for the rest of my life.... Probably seperate my shoulder if I tried to knock an arrow and pull that old compound back to bring the string across my eye now adays anyway.....

I LOVED bow hunting!!!!!!

[Kretz]

Hey Jeff, Well what do you know?

I too have been an archer (off & on) since being a teenager! I used to do pretty well in my teens (when I first tried archery) & twenties in a local league in the UK. I practiced & dropped off for years as work, jobs, time, life & the universe allowed. Then I just lost interest... again for years.

After moving to Canada I took it up again in a small way, then took courses & became an archery "judge " (referee) why they call us judges I'll never know. I also took the NCCP (National Coach Cert. Prog.) course & became a Coach & along with one of Canada's very senior coaches whom I'd got to know we started a number of "Archery in Schools" programs. Each week we would go along to three local schools to teach the kids "Olympic (Recurve) Archery. It was hectic, we also taught & coached at a local archery club (my wife also took the coaching courses so we are both qualified to teach)

But as often happens, politics, know alls who don't like their methods questioned & helicopter parents made it difficult & we backed away. We still shoot ourselves but have backed away from the rest of it.

As for the eye thing my wife is Left eye dominant but strongly right handed, she also has a problem that she can't close her left eye on its own (ie wink), we tried for a while doing what you did but she both looked & felt deformed. At the time she was getting all sorts of advice form folks trying to help, just made matters worse! (it was those episodes that made us decide to get into coaching, but properly). Anyway a lady that was heading to become one of Canada's next Olympic Archery Coaches visited the club one day & she & my wife hit it off big time! She decided that due to physical difficulties my wife really should shoot right handed, so I thought about the problem & came up with a solution. I opaqued the left lens of a pair of shooting glasses to stop her left eye from "taking over" & it worked!

Some time after that due to diabetes complications my wife lost her sight first, partially, then totally. She wanted to continue shooting so I thought about it & designed & built a "tactile sight" (from bits of proprietary kit) that she could "feel" & that allowed her to continue shooting. She did amazingly well & you can imagine some of the comments when a "blind lady" was led onto the field holding a bow & arrows!

At that time her coach (the lady I mentioned earlier) was taking a team of Paralympic archers to Beijing & tried to persuade my wife to go along & compete. But it was all too much both emotionally & physically dealing with the sight loss & she declined.

Anyway, the wonders of medical science (& five operations later) my wife's sight was restored somewhat for which we are both sooooo incredibly grateful. So we still mess around with bows & arrows, but not at any serious level, we are able to shoot short distances in the back yard. Last year I bough myself a compound but only have it set at around 50lb due to a shoulder injury from a mva. I play with it but don't shoot competitively.

My wife btw was also Silver medal winner at the BC indoor championships (the first major competition she entered) some years ago, she even shot a "Robin Hood" in that competition! She's shot two in her short archery career I however have never shot one (She says it's more good luck that management!) LOL

We also try once a year to have our "riding group" over to our place for an afternoon of archery & a BBQ. We provide all the equipment & instruction, last time there were around 15 attended. They thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact I guess that's what got me into the shooting & guns as one of the participants said, "Hey! Dave, You should come to the range with me sometime & have a play with some of my guns!"

So there you have it a short history of Kretz, his absolutely, incredibly, amazing Missus & their archery exploits!

A very long winded way of saying Hey! Jeff! I'm an archer too! LOL

 

PS. We both enjoy 3D too, our local Rod & Gun club has a 3D course, they are currently looking for an Archery Chair, I'm tempted, but then I think Nah! It's back to the politics & BS again. One of the local clubs around here does an indoor turkey shoot around Christmas (no we don't actually shoot the Turkeys) it's a regular 3D but indoors, prizes are frozen turkeys.

Edited July 11, 2018 by Kretz

[BMW]

:sign yeah that::sign yeah that::sign yeah that:

 

It was a steady progress in that direction thru the years in my case too Roller.. Starting all the way back in the 60's with a Bear Magnum recurve (still got wooden arrows in a case downstairs) and then onto an "Allen Speedster" (remember those?) when they first came out.. Killed many many deer with that little compound until I left it on top of my car after hunting in sub zero tempts and climbing in to warm up..

After Dad passed I stopped hunting (kids all grew up anyway so our need for meat went wayyyyy down) and havent looked back.. Still got all the tree stands and archery equipment though and know that those runways are still as active as they used to be.. Fact is,, living here near the State Park where deer seemed to have a nack for standing in the roads and getting run over,,, I highly suspect that I will be set for venision for the rest of my life.... Probably seperate my shoulder if I tried to knock an arrow and pull that old compound back to bring the string across my eye now adays anyway.....

I LOVED bow hunting!!!!!!

 

Bad neck and shoulders pushed me into using a crossbow. There are some really nice ones out there nowadays. Purchased a Ravin R9 last year, if you haven't seen or heard of these you need to go to BassPro and have them let you try it out. You might just want to get back up in the tree again.

[RDawson]

Funny to see this just now. I just got off the phone with Bill Leslie one of my best friends. Those in the competition circuits will know the name. Bill is a long bow shooter that was captain of the USA team that won the world title back in the 90s (I think 90s) in France. He holds many national and world titles. He helped coach my daughter for the archery in schools program. I have a couple compound hunting bows but haven't shot in years, watching him shoot puts me to shame.

[Flyinfool]

Here in Wisconsin they finally also legalized cross bow for hunting. I have been thinking of exploring that route to. I always said that if they open a deer season for another kind of weapon I will have to get one.....

[slowrollwv]

They did that here in WV. a couple years ago. Before it was only legal for handicap people. In Maryland they have hunting areas just for people with a handicap.

[BIG TOM]

I also have competed in both indoor (298 av.) and outdoor (540 av out of 560 ) .Our longest shot was 80 yds. that was a few years back....still very active in archery today teaching weekly youth and woman's classes all summer long. I am also on the BOD of Hawkeye Bowmen in Marilla NY. I became a primitive archer some years ago and build my own selfbows and primitive arrows as well as shooting a compound. ( I have many bows to this date, target, hunting , recurve and primitive.. don't want to say how many because Taters cant tell one from another. lol) .I build arrows for a select few, it doesn't pay because of the time involved in making a quality arrow ...You can but mass produced much cheaper.....Archery have been a large part of my life for over 52 years. It keeps me out of trouble.....most of the time....lol

[Kretz]

Here in Wisconsin they finally also legalized cross bow for hunting. I have been thinking of exploring that route to. I always said that if they open a deer season for another kind of weapon I will have to get one.....

 

Hey Jeff! You can pay crazy amounts for crossbows. If you do decide to give it a try & just want a cheapie, have a look at the "Centerpoint Sniper 370". I did a LOT of research for a friend. He ended up buying one & is extremely happy with it. Very adjustable for fit & it get some rave reviews. It's the one I'd get fwiw. Definitely worth looking at imo. It's also now in its second generation & they have ironed out a few of the minor niggles that some folks had.

[RandyR]

I've been shooting a bow since I was about 8 years old. Never shot competitively.

 

My family moved to Grayling, Michigan the original home of Bear Archery. We moved to Grayling because a friend of my step father's lived there who was a conservation officer. The friend hunted with Fred Bear occasionally. And my mother worked in the accounting dept of Bear Archery.

 

I didn't shoot much archery while a teenager, but after Army and college, moved to Maryland and I took up archery again for deer hunting. If it wasn't hunting season, I usually shot every weekend for several hours with a Bear Whitetail hunter compound (low cost) bow. When I switched jobs, there was an indoor archery range in an old bowling alley that I used to stop at a couple times a week on my way home.

 

I bow hunted (new Bear compound bow) and practiced for several years after moving to GA, but stopped after injuring my right arm. I have a compound crossbow now, and have practiced with it once in a while, but haven't been hunting with it yet.

[Condor]

Well I know there are a lot of members here that like guns, I'm one of them and own many. I was wondering how many here are into archery.

 

When I first got started in archery I was talked into it by a couple of guys I worked with, one was an avid archery deer hunter, and the other was getting ready to compete in the summer Olympics (he is scary good). They hauled me down to the archery shop where they both shoot on a league, and I went through all the measurement stuff with the range expert to pick out a bow for me that would work on both the range and for hunting. Of course it was a nice compound bow, and they also signed me up in the league that was just about to start and helped me get the new bow tuned and adjusted for me.

 

 

Because I learned right hand and then switched to left hand I can now shoot equally good with either hand bow. I am now to the point that I can consistently hold a 3 inch group at 50 yards outdoors with the wind swirling around. This good but not great, My buddy that is of Olympic caliber shoots a 100mm (4 inch) group at 100 meters, outdoors. I will never be in that class, his bow cost more than a new car.

Well yeah...kinda... Never got into any organized archery, but have killed a tree stump or two... Here's a pic of my dusty Darton 70# left handed.. (left master/ right handed)... Darton was the first to get into mechanical bows....

 

[Oldodge]

I shot both indoors and outdoors back in the 1980's. Had a blast, went from freestyle class to unlimited class very early on so I could use a release. I was the worst fingers shooter ever I think. I still have my, and my better half's, stuff. I started out with a Jennings T-Star and then moved on to Martin bows. I still have a Martin Cougar target bow and a Martin Bobcat hunting bow, but I haven't shot either in many years. I was never as good as my equipment, but I did ok. I won a regional once, as a "C Freestyle" shooter, nothing to be too proud of, but it was my first year and it got me hooked. Spent many a winter evening shooting indoor leagues and a lot of Summer Sundays shooting at various club outdoor shoots. Like everything else, life got in the way and it fell by the wayside. I continued to hunt with a bow until I quit hunting in 1990. Bow season was my favorite of all the seasons.

[Carbon_One]

I started shooting bows shortly after joining a local club in 1971. Having shot compounds for the most part with several Darton models then progressed to Clearwater bows and then High Country bows. I haven't shot anything since fall of "12" when I was broadsided on the trike. Broken ribs and collar bone took me out of the game. Lost interest in hunting about that time too.

Prior to this we, Joyce & I, shot a lot of 3-D archery placing in the top 10% most times. Besides local clubs shoots, state IBO, & IBO Championship we really enjoyed traveling and competing with our bows. Joyce won 1st place 6 years in a row, 94-99, Michigan bow hunters broadhead championships. Best I could do was several 3-4th and I think one 2nd place. Great memories looking back at those years. Now with Parkinson's disease I can't hold steady enough to get good shots off.

Larry