Thought I would share how i got started in shooting traditional bows. I know all of us have someone that struck that interest in us . I am 35 years old , started shooting those little green fiber glass bows when I was 6 . Got my first compound when I was 8 and started hunting with it when I was 10. One day when I was out shooting my bow getting ready for deer season to open , ( I was 13 at this time ) an older gentleman that lived across the road was watching me from his front porch. After a while he walked over and talked with me while I shot. We had been neighbors for many years and I had seen him watch before but in all the times we had talked in the past he never had talked archery with me. We talked for a while then he went home. About 20 minutes later he came back over to our house and he was carrying a bow in his hand . He asked me if I had ever shot a recurve. I told him no but had always wanted to give one a try. He began to tell me stories of all the elk , deer , and other game he had taken with the bow he had in his hand. After all the stories he told me he wanted to give me his recurve ( early 1940's Par X ) because his kids did not care anything about hunting and he wanted to pass it to someone that would get some enjoyment out of it . So with my parents permission he gave it to me. It was a while before I could handel the bow because it was 50lb, but I would get out and try to shoot it. Mr Wayne and I had several more hunting stories swapped before he died that next year from cancer . I will never forget him and I thank him for getting me started in traditional archery . While I shot compounds for most of my life I would get this bow out from time to time and shoot it. Around 4 years ago I sold off the compounds and shoot only longbows and recurves now and enjoy shooting moore than I ever have. I got this bow out today and shot it some . Just wanted to say thanks again to Mr Wayne .

Also want to say thank you to Mr George Stout for telling me what kind of bow this was a good while back so I could look it up, most of the writing is faded away. So thank you again Sir !.

If any of you have a story to share please do .

great story, thanks!

Great story! You met a good man.

Thank god for all the Mr. Wayne's out there!

Wow very cool!

When I started archery hunting there wasn't compounds so everyone hunted with recurve or longbows. Their wasn't many bow hunters so we had to learn on our own. We hunted mostly off the ground with wood arrows. You were lucky to even get a shot and killing a buck with a bow would get your picture in the paper.

Nice story.

Thanks.

Excellent story! Thanks for taking the time to share it!

That was such a great story of how one man's kindness can influence a lifetime. Nice to hear.

Also, George is really a very knowledgeable person.

Jawge

Like a lot of my generation (b. 1950) I got my start by watching Robin Hood, staring Richard Greene, on the TV. My Dad got me a bow and let me loose in the backyard and I haven't looked back. Lance.

Excellent. Hopefully we old guys can find more young guys to: "pass it on"!

BARBER? Most fortunate that Y'ALL met! Just think WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED if Y'ALL hadn't? Mr. WAYNE got a chance to PASS IT ON ( The BOW & the STORIES) You got THE BOW and a chance to listen and make a senior citizen's life a bit more joyful. WIN / WIN! Batman

Thanks for sharing.I just started on my own with no body I knew of doing any archery at all .Believe it or not I started making bows from green poison Oleander bushes.I always washed my hands after useing it though.I would just cut me a bunch of sticks for arrows( no fletching).My local library became my teacher.I went from pinch draw to split finger and even fletched arrows.On my tenth birthday mom and dad bought me a Canadian Les Dunsten Danarco 25# fibre glass bow.Vary rarely was I able to go to the sporting goods shops so I learned to make my own shafts with a plane from Californian red wood and very crudely trimmed bird feathers to fletch with. There were some fantastic books around in those days and through trial and error my arrow making got better.As time progressed and house hold earnings got better I was able to buy pre cut fletching.As we all know arrows break just behind the point so I looked up how footed arrows were made.Dad being a carpenter had good workshop and useing his planes and saws I taught myself make footed arrows. I havue never looked back since those days.55 years old now and still loving it. OSR

I love that story, thanks for that.

My story is very similar to yours barber. My uncle gave me a bow very similar to yours and I shot it for years with no instruction and loved it. Got a compound d and shot it for awhile but got tired of my hands freezing in winter. Was watching the hunting shows and Tred Barta came on, and absolutely loved his show and the way he hunted. Drove to three rivers to buy the Barta bow and haven't touched a wheel bow since and likely will never. Recurve so amd longbows for me and love it. A word of caution barber, it looks like your bow is all aluminum, if so be very careful because mine is and was warned not to shoot it due to the limbs snapping and possibly impaling you.

Great story Barber. Like many, I just wanted to shoot and hunt the way the Indians did and that's how I started in this great sport.

Thank for all the replys . LBshooter , yes the bow is aluminum , I vary rarely shoot it anymore and when I do usually only a dozen or so arrows . just have a hard time seeing bows hang there, feel like they are ment to be shot.

I know what you mean, mine is on the wall and it's unfortunate because it was a great shooting bow. 45 lbs and it was quick and silent.

I had just saddled a horse for the first time when I saw 2 guys doing something I couldn't make out on a hill where my range land started. rode the horse up there and found damon howatt and dr. kenagy playing archery golf. watched them for a while and damon offered to bring what I needed to join them in their game the following weekend. met them at my fence line the next sunday morning and shot my first arrow, a flight shot. by the time we had wandered and shot for 8 hours or so I was hitting the "puck" and had killed 3 jackrabbits. we were also around ten miles from our starting point. damons wife met us with sandwiches and took us all back to my horse that I had tied to a sagebrush that morning. been shooting ever since. this was in 1955.

Larryhatfield, thank you for sharing . That's a cool story.

Like many I was shooting traditional before any of us knew what "traditional" was. I strayed for a few years and tried out one of those new-fangled compound bows, an Allen Black Hunter. Finally decided I liked the look and feel of a wood recurve a lot more and ordered a Damon-Howatt Super Diablo.

I started with stick because back then that's all there was, or a gun. Nj had a 6 day gun season, but had a 2 month bow season, I did the math and liked to deer hunt for more than a week. I had no teacher, but still killed 2 my first year.

My mother told me that our neighbor made his own arrows and asked if I would be interested in watching him make some. I was 11, I thought this man was the ultimate archer, he made his own arrows, he was making flu flu arrows because he hunted pheasant, He asked me if I had a bow and I told him no my mom and dad couldn't afford one, so he took me out into the woods and we cut down a birch sapling, no he didn't whip me with it, he skinned it and crudely shaped it into a bow, he made a flu flu arrow for me and we went hunting, I thought I was the cats meow, obviously I didn't hit anything and if I did probably wouldn't do much damage. But it didn't matter, this person took out time from his life to share his hobby with me and 59 years later I still can't hit anything....LOL. I will never forget this gentleman, even though his name is not on my lips at this moment.

I had been shooting a wheel bow for a long time. The picture on the cover of the NY Bowhunter Safety education manual showed an archer with a recurve at full draw. Something about that picture stuck in my brain and would not leave. When I would see traditional bows hanging on the rack in gun shops, that picture would always pop up in my head. One day, I pulled in to our gun shop, which also had an archery shop in the back. Two guys were outside shooting at the big bales with recurves. Well, I just had to talk to them. Turns out they were shooting Bighorn custom 3 pc bows. We talked and one guy offered to let me shoot. I politely declined, but holding that bow put a virus in me that couldn't be stopped. That, then, was the beginning of the end of the wheel bow shooting. I went inside and talked recurves with the guy for an hour. They had a Martin hunter 60 pound and I put a deposit on it. Next pay day, I was officially a recurve shooter for good. Eventually, I did get my beloved Bighorn 3 pc. and never looked back.

I started with limb (green) bows that I made, pretty crude. My folks gave me this bow when I was around 10, I thought it was the best bow in the world.

I bought a recurve when I got out of the army in 69 but sold it when wheels came on the scene.

I stayed on the dark side until 89 when I became disenchanted with technology.

I bought a few Howatt hunters then a 3 piece Bighorn. Later I ditched the factory stuff for the selfbows I made. It has been a wonderful journey.

I'm probably at least 15 yrs older than the oldest compound bow, so that's why. I started when I was 6 with a yellow all glass 25# and then went to a bear Tigercat 45# in my teens. I still have 3 of my original arrows from those days in the mid 60s. Found another one in my uncles back 40 just a few days ago that he stuck upright in the ground. I can't believe it still has paint and a nock on it. No fletch or tip, but its probably 45 - 50 years old. I had a compound in the 80s but hated it and never could hit much of anything with it. Sold it to a co-worker for his son starting out after it sat in the shed for years. He was not interested in trad I guess.

Started with a shakspere around 9 for christmas and got me a chicken and had my bow taken off me. Then got bow back and got caught at a guys pond shooting carp with arrows I made out of sticks. Didn't get any but the guy came down. I thought the fish were wild? LOL

The guy flipped out and took me to my parents and lost the bow for 6 months then. I was 10 then my mother said what are we going to do with him? Father said saw the bow in half take away his arrows? You already took away my arrows well then how did you get arrows. I made some and if you cut my bow in half I will make a bow. Father said give me that d thing.LOL Good thing I didn't wound any of those fish. Same guy shot at us with rock salt before and said I had it with you don't learn to stay away from here. You shot my chicken now you shoot at my fish.LOL

At that time I didn't think of shooting targets would have kept me out of trouble and red behind.LOL

I thought bow and arrows is to get game with at 10 yo.LOL

It was around 1973 and my father brought me out to a "secret" fishing hole with my two uncles. It was a big deal to be invited. To get there we had to walk along the train tracks for a distance. One uncle brought a bow. While fishing I asked my dad about it (why would you fish with a bow?). He explained the allure of it and it left it at that.

When we got home, he called me outside and showed me his bow, a 1967 Ben Pearson Colt, 46 pounds. I could barley pull it, but I shot it and I was hooked. He knew and he would take me shooting and hunting with him and my uncles.

As I got older he gave me that bow, I still have it and shoot it from time to time.

Just a kid I went to a park in Montgomery county MD during the summer, they had archery classes. They said here pull this back t your ear. I could not as it was a huge 25lber. So I could not participate in the class. Of course they had lighter bows as well. So went out and mowed some lawns and raised $7.50. With that I bought a fiberglass bow and four arrows. Went back to the class and they let me in as I had my own bow so could say nothing. That was a long time ago. Oh, I ended up running those class later.

My Dad bought me a Bear Green Bear Bowhunting Set in 1970.

After that my love of archery and bowhunting got out of control. "LOL"

As Trapper said, I'm considerably older than the compound bow. So...we all just had bows 'n arras when we were kids. I mean...we all had a football helmet, a baseball glove and bat, a bike....and bows.

We bought arrows, wood only of course, out of a barrel at "Baraboo Sporting Goods" in my home town...a wonderful old world sporting goods store run by a couple equally wonderful old gents.

These guys always welcomed us kids in and allowed us to hang around drooling over all the marvelous goodies to our hearts content. My first .22 and a Browning Nomad Stalker were purchased there on the installment plan...the tally kept on a note pad by the cash register until fully paid for.

I kept shooting sticks until I got swept up in the wheel craze in the 70's, until I regained my senses a decade later and came back to my roots.

I miss those days, that store, those two great old gentlemen, and everything else the good old, simpler times had to offer. Nothing was handed to us...if we desired something, we worked for it and earned it; baling hay, milking cows, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, or working with my dad. Lessons I didn't even realize at the time he was teaching me have lasted to this day.

Well my story isn't near as cool as some of you guys but, here it goes. As a kid I was always in the woods when I could be but, was a bit of an odd duck for it. I came from a non hunting family so never picked it up. When I was 18 I went into a pawn shop on a whim and purchased my first rifle. From there I started teaching myself to shoot and I wanted to hunt but, had no place to go. So I decided to take up small game hunting and a few months later I bought my first shotgun, a single shot 20 gauge that's been with me ever since. It was a slow process but the squirrels taught me how to hunt, how to stalk, how to skin and butcher game. After awhile I started to get frustrated with firearms because of how loud they were. So again on a whim I bought a crossbow. I hunted with that sucker for a while and tagged some tree rats and a few cottontails but, I started to encounter deer more and more(my ground game was improving!). However, I could not hunt them with my crossbow in the archery only zones I frequented nor during the archery season which was very long. So about 5-6 years ago I traded that crossbow for my first recurve. my crossbow was a recurve type so wanted to stick with a recurve design and I have been hooked ever since. I don't have a first bow to pass on but, hopefully someday I will find someone to give that shotgun to. As it is my kiddo is not interested in hunting.

Jakeemt...I have my dad's Reminton Targetmaster bolt action single shot .22 he got used when he was 8 years old, circa 1931.

A flip up rear peep and front blade, and a real tack driver to this day. That old rifle and my uncle's Ithaca 12 gauge will stay with me to the end.

My son is now the happy recipient of one of my Black Widows, and is ready to ditch the cams for trad...I'm looking forward to going to Comptons with him next summer.

Pay it forward...

How I got started shooting "traditional." The first bow I bought was a recurve, I knew about long bows however being a brand-new beginning "archer" I did not realize that one could order bows custom made and besides Sears & Roebuck was just a streetcar ride away or a "good stretch of the legs" for a 15 year old. Compounds were 15 years in the future cross bows were "medieval" so the only bow types readily available were the "stick & string" types. Also Archery was simply "archery," the term was all inclusive. It covered every aspect of the sport. If you hunted you were a hunter that hunted with a bow, a target shooter was a target archer the two disciplines did overlap, If 3D archery was around it was just beginning.

Jakeemt,

That sounded like a pretty good story to me. My first bow was a Bear Green Bear Bowhunting Set my Dad bought me in 1970. I don't have that bow anymore. But I shot that bow so much I guess my Dad seen how much I loved shooting a bow so in 1974 my Dad bought me a Bear Grizzly. I still own the Grizzly though most of the time it hangs on the wall of my game room. Even after 45 years I still shoot and hunt with Bear recurves. 99% of the time I shoot Bear Kodiak Takedowns. But every once in awhile I take that old Bear Grizzly my Dad bought me off the wall and hunt with it.

That's all we had in the 40's.

I happened to acquire a recurve bow from my then girlfriends (now my wife and summer time shooting partner) uncle. I was into compounds at the time, and that old recurve was hanging around unstrung the whole time. One evening I had a chance encounter with two guys coming out of the woods carrying traditional gear and struck up a conversation and mentioned that I had an old recurve at the house....long story short I went and got it and they looked it over and after I explained that I really would like to figure that bow out, they told me to call this guy he'll help you get started. I called Bob Hildenbrand and was instantly amazed at the generosity of the people in the traditional archery world. I finished out that season taking a buck (my first and only one with any bow) with my compound and haven't hunted with it since.

I pestered my Dad enough when I was 8 to buy me a bow. I have been shooting ever since. Just got back to trad this year. I still had it up until a few years ago. (my middle son broke it when he was about 12, when he drew it back) it was a 22# wood self bow.

WOW, this could be a while but I'll try to keep it short. My dad, before I was born, worked for a farmer named Carroll Thurston. Carroll had two sons and two daughters. His son Brad, who was about ten years older than me, made his own laminated recurves. Sometimes we'd go out to visit and Brad would get a couple bows out and my dad would shoot with him.

I wanted to shoot so bad, but it was out of the question. These bows were probably 45(ish)lbs and I was just a kid.

One day, when I got a little older, my dad bought me one of those green 45# fiberglass bows. He'd set up bales in the back yard for me to shoot. I shot that bow for years.

Of course, I had to go through the compound bow stage. Then away from it altogether. Eventually, I decided I wasn't getting any younger and deep in my heart I always wanted to hunt with a recurve. I accidentally found this site and the rest is history.

It's not often that I go out in the back yard to shoot my bows that I don't think of Brad. He was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident when I was 12. I'm 57 now.

Even though it was dad who spent the money on my archery stuff as a kid, it was Brad Thurston who truly got me started.

Dad had bought a fiberglass 35 lb. bow and we would shoot it while camping at the local state park. Sometimes just straight up in the air to see how close we could get. In the early teens we got a couple used bears for Christmas one year and that led to making proper backstops and lots of backyard shooting. Did not take long to realize I was shooting wrong handed. Got a used shakepseare x18 that was way to heavy for a young punk but you cant tell them anything. Learned all kinds of bad form that stills hinders me today. Went the wheel way and still hunt with compounds today. In the late eighties and early nineties I tried trad again but went back to the wheels. I had a beautiful super D made and enjoy shooting it yet today. I have been fortunate enough to harvest deer with recurve's and longbow. Nowadays, I will quite often take a recurve with me to the range and shoot both. I have started collecting some of the Howatts and other works of art from the 60's and 70's. I hope to someday finally make my own recurve and longbow. The amount of knowledge one can gain from sites like this emboldens me to try more.

Way back when I was 9 or 10 my uncle gave me a chance to shoot his recurve. It was the first and only time but the seed was planted. Fast forward 20+ years. I'm now hunting with a compound bow and belong to the Michigan Bow Hunters association. At an MBH sponsored event,I handled one of my dogs for a group of bowhunters trying to shoot pheasants out of the air with longbows and recurves. That was the fertilizer and water that seed needed. I bought my first longbow later that year and never looked back. That was almost 20 years now.

Howard

I really wanted a bow, my boy next door had a little one, black fiberglass bow that we shot. So, I heard about a bow for sale a few blocks away. Lemonwood flat long bow, several arrows a tab and an arm guard. Three bucks as I recall, 1959. Several grey solid fiberglass bows, 35# and 45# (ten bucks) and arrows at 3 or 4 for a dollar. Got a shoulder quiver for a few bucks. Shot in the backyard eventually hunting in countryside nearby. I was set for a good long while. Hunting arrows were a dollar each. No names on anything as I recall. Read Bow and Arrow magazine in those days.

My 8 yr old stepson would ask me for a string and then go and make a bow from a stick he found. Then he would find other sticks and shoot them as arrows. That Xmas I bought him a cheap fiber glass bow and arrows at Big 5. He was thrilled. I knew there was an archery range near my home and he and I went there to practice, he shot arrows and I watched, I knew very little about archery and we learned the archery club gave free lessons on Saturday mornings, and I signed us up. I thought it would be a good father son activity (I was right). We both learned the basics and met some interesting people. We joined the club and have been shooting traditional ever since. He is 15 now and we are still enjoying it. Its been a great sport for us, we have met so many great guys at 3D shoots. His next bow as a Black Rhino , then a Maddog and a second Maddog and now a Toelke Whip. Its a wonderful father son activity.

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