After the compound craze dealt a blow to the popularity of traditional archery in the 1970's there was a rebirth in the mid 80's into the 90's. It didn't just happen on its own. There were people and forces at play that influenced this.

Guys like Ron LeClair, G. Fred Asbell, the Wensels, and TJ Conrad's & CO at TBM contributed to it. Who were some of the others at the national, regional or local level that were influencers of this rebirth in popularity? There must be some many of us have never heard of or know little about and how they contributed. Who were they?

Roger Rothhaar.

Glenn St. Charles

Larry D. Jones

The local guys who never were tempted by the compound carrot that was dangled in front of their noses. They were the ones who influenced us as much as anyone at the local shoots. Guys with longbows and recurves,who shot well.......we wanted to be those guys.

Paul Brunner

Moleman1 X2.

Paul Schafer, Steve Gorr , John Schulz and Jay Massey.

Moleman x3

Been shooting bows for 55 years and still only know of maybe 3 people above. Heard other names many of times but couldn't tell you what they have done.

One of our Minnesota guys was Lamont Granger with "The Footed Shaft" down in Rochester, who never let the tradition ember go out. Dick Robertson was getting his start back in the 80's I think? Our own "skookum" just kept on making his one string bows during the hullabaloo time right up until a couple/few years ago. I'll let others add some of their own.

Jim Hamm, Tim Baker, Paul Comstock, Dean Torges and Bob Holzhauser all had a hand in keeping my love for making all wooden bows alive. Jawge

The Ekins, Ken Beck and the Black Widow crew.

Yes sir Moleman!!!!!!!!!

Dan Quillian

Fred Bear

Byron Ferguson

Doug Kittridge, Jim Dougherty, Bob Lee, Ben Pearson, C.R. Learn.

Moleman hit it right on

For me it was Barry Wensel hunting October whitetails. Running shots , deer drives exciting stuff.

The companies who kept making beautiful wooden longbows and recurves throughout the '70's despite the trend towards compounds. Howatt, Black Widow, Browning, and Herter's come to mind.

As names get bandied about, there are some of those named that switched to compounds. Some came back to traditional, others didn't. And, a lot of the modern traditional shooters didn't know anything but compounds, but that's how they got into archery and bowhunting and helped our numbers expand as they experienced the older traditional style. I remember when it was all traditional even though we didn't have to call it that. We are still a small segment of the entire sport, but we are growing each year. Good to see, and always good to recognize those who stayed on course to keep the fires burning.

I started with a compound in the late 80s. Several years later I bought a recurve just to play around with. It was several years after that that I got serious with the recurve. This was long before the internet and any knowledge of any trad bow elites except perhaps Fred bear.

I've lived on the coast of VA for 22 years and have met ,,,one,,, trad bow shooter and he doesn't live here, he has a lease here,I believe he said he lives in VA beach.

No trad bow rebirth in popularity in my neck of the woods.

I started shooting a bow in 1969 and have shot and hunted with either a recurve or a longbow only ever since, but I sure didn't influence anybody. I never owned a compound bow. I remember going to shoots in the late 1970s and 1980s and the compound guys were properly thinking why I was still shooting a recurve or longbow. "LOL" I even had a few ask me if I ever killed a deer with my bows. "LOL" I started carrying pictures to show guys if they ask.

I know many on here don't consider any form of using the arrow to aim as being traditional but it is still just a stick and a string. That being said I think that the Lancaster Archery Classic has given traditional archery a huge boost in the last few years. The number of shooters is growing every year. I am personally seeing compound shooters going to recurves and competing. In this arena John Demmer has inspired allot of people to take up this style of shooting. It's all good.

My eyes…I got back into archery ( shot a bow until I was 15) in 1989.

I took a look at some compound bows and thought they were ugly, heavy and overly complicated…nothing like the stick and string I shot as a kid.

So I found a used 1969 Super Kodiak. And read one of Fred Asbel‘s books. And have been bowhunting ever since. Still have never shot a compound…

I never heard of any of those other guys, except Damon Howatt and Bob Lee until 2014.

Same here, Frank C.

Cannot forget Mike Fedora Sr. that carried the torch.

Skookum told me that when he stopped working for FASCO , he worked a bunch of years as a schoolteacher. Then one day he saw an ad with Glenn St. Charles promoting a compound bow...and got so disgusted that he started Cascade Mtn. Archery, building beautiful traditional bows to help keep the trad ways going.

Mike Knefley started ETAR over 30 years ago. That shoot has helped the growth of trad archery in the northeast like nothing else.

A lot of really good people listed above with like mindset, Enjoy the traditional Sport,

I Do.

Black Widow and Howard Hill were the only advertised traditional bow companies for a long long time. Others may have been in operation, those two seemed to hold the torch.

I know for me I was 24 years old back in'82 and I saw an article by Asbell in Bowhunter magazine. On the cover was a full page picture of Asbell heading up a mountain with his Bighorn recurve, wood arrows and red feathers.

I looked at that picture for a good 5 minutes. That did it, I was a convert for life...

I was a child of the 80's renaissance of traditional archery and Asbell was my mentor.... though unknown to him.

Bob Swinehart in PA.

I'm going to give a shout out to one of our local MD legends, Bill Fowlkes. I've known and shot with Bill since 1968 and we continue to travel to 3-D shoots and shoot together. Not mentioned in the post on the MBS website he was a founding member of the Fred Bear Sports Club and met Fred at the first meeting. An around great guy who is very modest about his accomplishments.

https://marylandwhitetail.discussion.community/post/bill-fowlkes-traditional-machine-2569897?pid=24646861

Stringwacker, I have that photo signed by GFred. One of the best. Shick

Here in Georgia, for me anyway, it was Dan Quillian and Roscoe Reams. In 1989 my college roommate loaned me a copy of Instinctive Shooting and it began to shift my interest from compounds to shooting without sights; it seemed like magic! Ha ha

I grew up interested in the bow and tried to make a couple of very primitive bows as a young teen and actually managed to make a bow that would fling an arrow but not much good for anything.

I was deer hunting with a gun by the time I was 11 or 12 and our school system even gave us the first day of gun deer season off from school because they knew it was useless to expect most boys to show up that day. But deer were sparse and hunting seasons were short.

Somewhere, in my early teens, I was given a used Bear Grizzly and a quiver full of arrows, by my dad for a birthday. I still have it. But the arrows got lost and or broken fairly quickly and I didn't have a source for any replacements, or the money to buy them. And I didn't know anything about archery and didn't know anyone who did.

About age 20 I got serious about extending my deer hunting season, through the bowhunting. I bought a few cheap cedar arrows and started practicing with my old Grizzly but I still didn't know anything or anyone who did, about bowhunting, but I started seeing those Bear Archery adds in some of the hunting magazines, showing the new compound bows. So, I located the only archery shop advertised within 100 miles of me and made the journey, where he fixed me up with my first Bear Compound Bow, and that got me started and I killed my first bow kill later that fall.

It would take a few years but bowhunting really took off and eventually I bought a Martin Hatfield 60# takedown bow and never used a compound bow afterwards, although I did take a few deer with the crossbow in-between.

Now days, in my area traditional bowshops are quite rare, and the archery shops only care about the compound guys. I have to pretty much get everything mail-order. There are a couple of very small traditional shops around, but they are very obscure, and you have to just know where or who they are and try to catch them open. But their inventory is often low and insufficient.

Back in my MUCH Younger days when I was "trying" to fling arrows, I bought a cheap compound made by Browning. As the old saying goes? "Tried it...Didn't like it". Sold it to somebody but I don't remember to who or for how much. After so many years of simple stick and string, just could NOT get used to that thing. I wonder How many of Y'ALL had the same experience with a wheelie bow??

My favorite of them all - Jim Dougherty. I lived in Tulsa for nearly 40 years and I would drop by his shop from time to time for equipment or just to browse and maybe talk to him about things I needed to know. He was the man and still is.

https://lostnationarchery.com/index.php/product/view/side_stalker_ ii

I actually didn’t have anyone get me into it. I got tired of missing deer with a compound because I couldn’t judge distance. I took the sights off my bow and figured I might as well be using a recurve. That’s how I got stared in mid eighties.

I remember sitting and talking to Mike Knefley at the Potter County Bowhunter Festival around 1987. I was shooting a Bear takedown so he sat down and ask me if I though a traditional only shoot would go over enough to put the work into it. He also shot recurves, and I told him the only way to find out was to try. Two years later he had the ETAR setup. They had app. 200 shooters and 12 vendors. History tells you what happened next and it was flat- out amazing.

That shoot, as Red alluded to in his above post, did a lot to spawn new traditional shooters in the Northeast and quickly spread to other states as well.

Instinctive Shooting was the Asbell book that I read in 1989...fascinated me.

As I said above, I shot a 25# (then a 35#) fibreglass bow in my early teens with store bough arrows and some I made...I managed to take some small game...then in 1968 I could use a gun and dumped the bow.

Picked the bow back up 20 years later in 1989...with a much better bow and tackle and all the experience of my youth, the ability to shoot flooding back. I figured out I had been shooting instinctive for years!

Got my first deer in 1992 with a Super Kodiak and then I bought a Howatt Mamba with some 2016's and never looked back...

So I guess my mentor was G. Fred Asbell.

Ted Kramer, Keith Chastain, Dale Dye, Pete Weatherford...

Bill Krenz. Arguably, Bill did more in the "dark days" to promote traditional archery than anyone else who comes to mind.

My dad started shooting in the '50's. He shot longbows and recurves exclusively until he passed away. He is the one who kept it alive for me.

Fred Bear and his tv shows plus Barry Wensel in Bowhunting October Whitetails helped steer me from the compound device to recurve bows. I also had experience shooting a recurve before 1977 when I was given a Bear compound at my high school graduation by my older brother. I switched totally to a recurve in 1995. After I switched G. Fred Asbell’s book Instinctive Shooting was a great influence as well.

Candyman, Aiming a longbow or recurve. I still consider it traditional I just don't consider it instinctive shooting.

Like many of the others here I started shooting a bow and bow hunting long before the compound came about. Clearly Fred Bear and Howard Hill were Bowhunters that I respected. Many of the other names mentioned here kept my interest going over the years. And there were lots more from friends that never accepted the compound to well-known figures.

If I had to mention folks that helped keep traditional archery moving ahead I’d look to the local clubs that held traditional shoots, bowyers, some long gone, that kept building bows without wheels like Jim Emerson from Ohio, Dick Robertson, Jerry and Rick from Great Northern, Fred and his Bighorns, Martin keeping the Hunter bow in production, Rick Ingraham, a longbow maker and others I am forgetting to mention.

I don’t want to forget local groups too. The PA Longbow Association partnered with Mike Knefley to host the first Denton Hill shoot and look what that has grown to. ATHA, Compton’s and other organizations helped keep the interest going. And Paul Brunner’s Screaming Eagle Doug Kitterdge’s Bowhut, Jack Howard’s Bowhunters Catalog and more than a few others were like Christmas Wish Books for many.

Mr. Magistro, I also enjoyed the catalogs from the companies you listed plus ones from Robin Hood Archery , Anderson Archery and Herters. As a teenager I spent a lot of time dreaming about shooting new bows and arrows while flipping through them. I still have some and look through them frequently. 50 plus years and not much has changed, I still dream about new bows and hope I always will.

Reading Jay Massey really got Me going. Then I was fortunate to meet Gary Davis and who guided Me into the world of Selfbows, and became a Good Friend of Mine. Bob

I think Traditional Bowhunter magazine had the most influence when traditional archery started to pick up again and expanded after the premier issue going foreward.Major major influence in print.It was on the magazine racks at many stores which helped big time with exposure!1st one I saw I was like whats this.Bought it and bought a bow and started shooting traditional for fun,competition and most of all for the challenge of hunting with a traditonal bow.Ditched the compound right away.Had a few guys join with me when they saw what I was up to and got hooked themselves.

I've been shooting since the mid 50s. I never really left. Jawge

A lot of you guys who have successful in target archery and hunting have influenced and are influencing new archer's. I think it's a shame when I read some don't take pictures, one good picture sparks the adventure for someone else.

TBM was responsible for me getting back into Traditional Archery. When I saw that magazine in Bass Pro Shop it was the second coming of Traditional Archery.

Can't answer thread starters question. I've never done heros. Those that are great ACHIEVED that by applying themselves, giving it everything they got. That's the way I roll as well.

I had the first issue of the mag and had years of them I sold them all T J Conrads has a set of my taper tools I think the first mag he put an ad in it for me.

Bob R The question wasn't who is your hero, it was who influenced the rebirth of traditional archery and they don't have to be great. Could have been a local guy and some posted examples of that. Sure some are hero worshipers and some of the names listed might be heros to them but that wasn't the question or the point.

Boy, some on here ride pretty high on their horses don't they.

When I started shooting a bow in the 1940S (that is right kids there were people around back then) my first hunting lic at 12 in 1953, there was nothing called traditional archery, just bows and arrows. Today I have to say those who have kept me in this game these last 20+ years are a couple friends from Pa, Scott and Tom. as far as others BEN and LINDA GRAHAM from HUMMINGBIRD BOWS Darn I love this game of sending arrows into the air.

No offense to any of the fine gentlemen mentioned earlier in this thread, but for me at least, I didn't learn about the Wensels, Rotthars, Conrads, Robertsons, Fergusons, Asbells, LaClairs and most other household names here until TBH came around, and I'm not that old!

My childhood bowhunting hero was always Fred Bear. All I knew about archery and bowhunting growing up is what was contained in his 1968 Archer's Bible. And that's it. Later I learned about Pete Shepley at PSE and Ben Pearson (because his name was on some bows I saw) and Howard Hill (from a friend in college who had two Hill bows) but Fred Bear was the man when I was a kid in the 1970's and there was nobody in East Texas that I knew at least, who was into traditional bowhunting. Anyone who bowhunted (and there weren't many because it was still frowned upon by most deer hunters in Texas and still is in many areas of Texas) was looking for one of the "new" Compound bows.

I still remember ogling the Bear Take-Down in Oshman's Sporting Goods in Tyler, Texas in the late 70's and thinking how much better looking of a bow it was than any compound I'd ever seen.

So yea, just Fred Bear to me. I was already shooting and hunting with traditional bows in the late 80's before I really knew about anyone else.

Sorry - TBM (Traditional Bowhunter Magazine), not TBH

"Bob R The question wasn't who is your hero, it was who influenced the rebirth of traditional archery and they don't have to be great. Could have been a local guy and some posted examples of that. Sure some are hero worshipers and some of the names listed might be heros to them but that wasn't the question or the point."

Ok KRAG, I get it. Pardon me.

How about Jim Ploen? He has been at it for a long time and still shooting a 50lb bow at 90 plus years of age.

my first custom bow built by Jim Brackenberry. ordered in 1985

When I started Fred Bear was probably the only archery name I knew but that was only for the infrequent tv shows. When the local deer population grew enough to catch my eye it inspired me to get a bow...my state firearms tags were completely impractical. As I developed an interest in archery I had to switch to a non-compound bow.

Even back then the shops were almost nothing but compounds and shooting a single string bow meant doing your shopping by mail order...no internet either.

I guess, much like today, anybody who makes single string gear, supplies or info more accessible gets some of the credit.

I'll jump into the way back machine to 1955 and my first bow, a Ben Pearson longbow. One of the first books I read had Bob Markworth, who recently died, on the cover so he was a very early influence on me. Howard Hill was a big influence as well. They showed Howard Hill shorts at the movies.

Keith Chastain from Wapiti Archery. Advertised in the first TBM and still going. Building stickbows since 1962. Founding member of White River Bowhunters in Bedford,IN and shot together with G. Fred Asbell a lot back in those days. Shot with my mentor Mr. A.C. Bair. Andy always shot longbows and recurves and never quit until he passed. He killed bucks with his longbow when it was special to even see a deer during a hunt. That made the newspaper back in the days....

I started around 1959 and just never stopped. The biggest influence for me though was the same as Limbwalker, the 1968 version of the Archers Bible by Fred Bear. I got my first good bow that same year a Bear Kodiak magnum and then discovered target archery in college in 1971 and really got into that along with my hunting. I ended up with a compound after college due to a severe injury to my string fingers but it just never felt quite right. Back to what we now call traditional around 1980 and never looked back. We had few archers in the rural Florida I grew up in so for a good time the Archers Bible was all I learned from. Still love target, field archery, indoor archery , 3D and hunting. Still love my K.Mags for hunting as well and am a life time die hard and fan of Bear bows I suspect from my upbringing and the wonder full journey they started me on.

I think there will always be a insurgence. There will always be those individuals who want more out of bowhunting/shooting than the easy buttons. There will always be those who want to accomplish archery in the purest form and chase that goal.

For a lotta years I have liked to start my Deer season by watching "Bad Medicin For Big Bucks" with Paul Brunner and Tom Storm. Just sets a mental image for me of days past.

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