Your First Years

[Lawdwaz]

I was thinking this morning about Doc and others with their vast experience in bowhunting. Doc has been at it for almost a half a century! Congrats 'Ol Timer! <grin> My wifes uncle Bob was a founding member at Hawkeye Bowman and has a truck load of memories, though they are fading.........

What great stories the older guys have and can pass on to some of the younger (and older guys like ME!) up & comers around here. How about it Doc, who was your mentor? Early equipment? Camo? Scent control? <grin> Hunting Clubs and friends?

What can you share?

[Kot2B]

I was just thinking about starting a thread about everyone's first deer hunt. Last night in my stand I was thinking about it and the smell of the woods, sure is a privilege to be able to get out.

[Doc]

Well, you asked for it .... lol. This is going to get long.

I started archery at ripe old age of 11. I found an old "draw-shave" in a room over the garage, and hacked down a hickory tree and began to build a long-bow. When I got done it looked like an actual bow ... lol. A little twine for a string and some un-fletched willow branches for arrows, and I was ready to go up into the hay-loft and hunt some pigeons. That was the beginning.

During that same year, when Christmas time rolled round, I found a book on building laminated bows. Figuring it was better than a tie or a pair of socks, I bought the book and wrapped it up as a present for my Dad. Well, guess what. Next thing I knew he was buying and building specialized wood-working tools and a glue drying oven, and was cranking out some pretty exotic looking laminated bows that shot pretty darn good. Each of us kids got one, and he sold a few. He even built a special building to make bows. Unfortunately, he found that he could not compete with Fred Bear, Ben Pearson, and all the other bowmakers of the time and that activity folded. But we all learned quite a bit about what goes into the construction and hand-finishing of recurves.

His next venture was a family owned and operated commercial 70 acre NFAA 28 target archery range with a restaurant and a full line of archery equipment sales. That was when we all got serious about competition and deer hunting. We stayed open for about 5 years and even did fairly well at the beginning, but eventually, different family members got married and drifted off to other parts of the country, and the work-load got a bit too much for those of us that were left. So the business was shut down. However, in it's wake was a lifelong love with archery and bowhunting.

Who was my mentor? .... Well technically I was the one to introduce archery to the family, and we all were kind of like the blind leading the blind .... lol. Somebody would read something in a magazine and then pass the info around. So I guess there were no official mentors other than each of us mentoring each other.

Camo??? It was a bunch of years before I ever even thought about camo. Dungarees and a red checkered flannel shirt was about as close to camo as we ever got for a long time.

Equipment?? Well I suppose the first was that hand-made hickory bow. Then there was the bow that Dad made. My first purchased bow was a Ben Pearson hunter. That was followed by a Shakespeare, and a Wing Gull, and then came the Bear Magnum, Damon Howatt, Bear Minuteman take-down, and a bear tamerlane, and then finally came that old war-club called the Bear Whitetail Hunter (My first compound). I killed as many deer with that as any of the super-expensive high-tech bows that followed (and there was a lot of them ...lol). It was a regular "killing machine" and I hung on to that for a lot of years, finally giving it to a friend of my youngest son.

Scent control??? Hah! That only meant keeping the wind in your face. That's all there was. I do remember buying an aerosol can of apple cover scent. It probably made absolutely no difference .... lol.

Hunting clubs??? I was a member of The Avon Bowmen for quite a few years along with my wife and kids. That was a pretty intense activity with week-end league shoots, a weekly Wednesday nite league, and an indoor league held in an old building in Caledonia. Along with all thatwere the work parties for course and grounds maintenance, and the monthly meetings. Eventually, work demands began to erode that activity and the 30 mile commute to the range started to wear a little bit, especially in the winter. So I quietly faded out of the tournament action and concentrated only on hunting.

It's been a lifetime of full involvement in archery and bow hunting that is still pretty active even today.

[crappyice]

Thanks for sharing Doc...whose brave enough to follow that lineage?

[dave6x6]

About an hr. ago i posted a thank you to Doc for sharing some insight into those early bow days. I posted that on that 50 yrd. thread. I wish i had read this first or that i could move my post over here but i don't know how so i will simply say this to Doc. You da man. Good stuff..

[Red]

im 31 years old my uncle use to take me along the rail road tracks in the thick brush when i was about 7 years old chasing rabbits and other small game from then on i was hooked. i hung out with him alot while i was young hunting and fishing my first year bow hunting i was 15 we hunted together almost every day that season i was kind of blind to him becoming a druggy then when i turned 16 we were out in the country at my grandmas place waiting for opening day of shot gun the and he bought me and him so much ammo it was enough to go to war lol about 8 pm hat night he got all antsy and called a limo to drive him an hr and a half into the city so he could go get stoned i never looked at him the same after that. and just as im finishing this up just got the call to get up to hospice my other grandma isnt looking so good tonite.

[First-light]

My Father in law Gus who we lost this year would tell stories of hunting pheasant with bow and arrow when he was a kid. This was all done in the Bronx just as you go over the Whitestone bridge. He and his buds would make home made bows and arrows. Yes they did get a few! The stories go on and on and mostly take place around Indian lake and Roscoe. Old green and red wool coats and pants were the dress. He had mittens and boots from Korea.

Hunting was done out of a army tent with a wood stove..............I'll miss that man but somehow I think he is with me, saw 3 shooter bucks last weekend.

That never happens...................

[Paula]

Well, you asked for it .... lol. This is going to get long.

we are use to it, lol

Great story!

By chance do you have any of your bows?

Edited October 13, 2012 by paula