Why?

[Doc]

So what was it that fascinated you about shooting a bow? I remember poking around up in the shop over our garage where I found an old draw knife way back when I was about 10 years old. I took my trusty hatchet and went up on the hill where I hacked down a hickory sapling, and used that draw-knife to fashion something that looked like a pretty good version of a longbow, and built some arrows out of willow branches. The bow worked fine, but the arrows didn't fly all that well. Of course the question comes up as to what the heck I did all that for. There was nobody in our family that was into archery or bowhunting. No magazines or books for encouragement. But as soon as I saw that draw-knife, that was the first thing that came to mind was that I had to use it to make a bow ..... lol. There was just something about a simple bent stick being used to propel another stick at a target that was and still is fascinating. It had nothing to do with getting a deer or hunting anything at all at first. I suppose all of that is not all that strange because quite a few kids get involved with archery and never really do have any thoughts of hunting. It's just a challenging activity.

So how about the rest of you? What was it that was the big fascination with shooting a bow?

Doc

[sweet old bill]

never able to master the bow. With a rifle you sight in and with a scope you are one year after year. With abow you had better practice day after day to increase your skill level. After 55 years I finally am in the 2nd stage of childhood and it due to the bow and all the fun you can have.

[First-light]

Doc good question. It was many years ago, I was in middle school my older brother in high school, they were on the archery team. They took my one Saturday afternoon to shoot in the gym. Targets placed against a cement wall. Use you imagination what happened there! I got hooked on the whole thing that afternoon. They then took me, probably at the time, the only bow shop on L.I. It was down Commack road, I think the guys name was Walter who owned it. He was a hunter and it just fascinated me that you could stalk and harvest game with a recurve bow. I bought my first recurve, a Browning which I still have. that is how it all began for me. I have owned 4 bows in my lifetime, 1 recurve and three compounds.

Thanks for stirring up some good memories!

[Lawdwaz]

I think the reason why I liked it as a kid is because the fact that at a young age and living in a neighborhood with folks that frowned on little hoodlums running around with guns,  the bow & arrow "appeared" to be a safer thing to do.  I quickly changed that perception by shooting arrows straight up, whacking mallards in a local creek and constantly trying to perfect that darned flaming arrow shot.

The days of the old Bear fiberglass recurves and the original lemonwood longbow are gone for me now but the memories are still very fresh in my mind.

I really truly pity the poor kids (including mine)  these days that are missing out on all those great outdoor activities because of the "electronic age" that we are in.

[FULLDRAWXX75]

I really know if I remember exactly "when" the fascination began, all I know is it was early on in life ...................................It wasn't until I was @ 19 that I bought my first bow to hunt with, it was a used Jennings T star II compound. I shot the heck out of that bow, everynight at the range, 3D shoots, backyard hay bales. I took my first archery kill(doe) with that bow.

I traded @ three yrs later for a new Golden Eagle, I regret that deal.......................The Eagle never really felt as comfortable as the Jennings and my shooting showed the results. I sold it to a kid at work and bought my first BowTech (don't regret that move) LOL

Over the past 27 yrs. I suffered two major injuries that should have ended my abilities to shoot ever again, but my passion to be able to launch a pointed stick out of my bow and accurately place it into a 1" or less cirlce at 40 yds. keeps me going. For me it is relaxing, calming and very self challenging........................that is probably why I am also drawn to horseshoes, darts and golf. The challenge of throughing/hitting an object towards a target of distance with precise accuracy.

I have passed on the torch as my 12 yr. son has taken up the sport with a vengence..............................LOL

FDXX75

[Pat Rockets]

It was my second yr of hunting and one of the guys had taken  a doe..it was quick..quiet..and looked easy..

3 yrs later i had my first deer..a button buck..shot him in the ass artery..ugly shot..but things got better

Now for me its closing the distance..i use scent control and wear a ghille suit. I like my deer coming into the range of single digit yardage.

Two yrs ago a doe came down the path..i knew she was small so i wasnt shootin..so i hugged the tree still facing her(i mostly land hunt)..she ended up touchin the back of my knee with her sniffer and kept going to field

I have no idea how she couldnt hear my heart trying to tear itself from my chest..one of my most memorable experiences

I now have quested myself to shoot one of everything with a bow..last yr got my first turkey

Starting with a recurve this yr

[wooly]

So how about the rest of you? What was it that was the big fascination with shooting a bow?

Doc

To put it quite simply.....the ability to kill without anyone knowing.

I know that sounds terrible so let me rephrase that....

The silence and stealth of a predator on un-suspecting prey is what drew me into bowhunting....

Basicly....the devil made me do it!

Gods honest truth! ;D

[nyantler]

when I was growing up (elementary school age) we had a village sponsored recreation day at a local park every day during the summer... in the morning we would shoot archery, do crafts, play ping pong, then in the afternoon we would have pickup baseball games.. all of which was supervised by some local higschool kids (their summer job) and our school gym teacher.

The archery was fun and competitive.. I'm sure that's where I realized that I really liked archery.

[G-Man]

My father only gun hunted and would get a deer pretty much every year a sm buck or doe, but my uncle on my mothers side bowhunted i rember him coming over to borrow our cub tractor to get a buck he shot off the neighboring farm, it was huge! seeing that get done with a bow and the fact he's a taxidermist so it was mounted and seeing it and the other deer he mounted every year made me think about bowhunting. I'm left handed so i never had a bow to shoot though,we never had much had extra money around.  untill one day my uncle came over with a lefthand used pse compound and a whitetail visions video on vhs that i must of watched a thousand times(and now own on dvd) It was and still is the most informative bow hunting video i've ever seen!

[solon]

The top 2 reasons were the challenge and quiet of the woods..i had gun hunted since i was a teenager and when i was in my 20's a friend suggested bow hunting.

It took a lot of practice and it still takes a ton of patience and practive

Quietness of the woods - during bow season the woods are so peaceful - it's the best stress relief on the planet - I gun hunt so no disrespect but there are too many people running around in the woods, ready to pull the trigger  - don't have to worry about that during bow season - just tranquility

[Doewhacker]

For me it was simple, my father and uncle and brother and cousin all shot in the yard and hunted so I was exposed to archery from a young age. I grew up shooting from a very young age and never stopped, shooting squirels in the back yard, 3-D shoots and finally hunting. Nowadays I like shooting because I can compete against myself and I try to shoot better every year, although I am getting close to maxing out on that I think.

[WNYBuckHunter]

I got into it as a way to extend my hunting season and quickly fell in love with it. My dad shot a bow when I was little, but gave it up back then too. I always saw his bow laying around as a kid, it just never peeked my interest back then.

[Fantail]

Well you know one fine day I had an extra half-grand in my pocket - this pro shop was in the neighborhood..

About 15 years ago I can remember driving home in the fall from where camp was at the time, and I would occasionally see someone walking from the woods with a Bow. And I thought, 'What the heck would motivate someone to be in the woods with such a thing. Just pick up a damn gun already.' Forward a few years and a friend of mine is into bow hunting, on occasion picking up a deer well before I am, while I'm sitting in the woods putting up with skeeters hunting squirrels & turkey. A few years go by and I got ahold of an older Bear whitetail bow to mess around with. Yeah it was accurate enough but with zero let-off I didn't take to well to it. Meanwhile I'm still helping my buddy process deer way before I'm able to even the score.

The short of it is at some point you realise what your missing out on and decide to take the plunge. It is the next few critical years either a bowhunter develops or simply does not. Well I seem to have taken to it, maybe being a bit stubborn helped. And now, when I think about not realy getting into it years before I could kick myself. I do like the practice and time of year I can hunt with it. And the extra challenge.

Plus one of the best things about it is getting more time in the woods & peace of mind. 

[Geno C]

Well, no previous fascination to shooting a bow besides this...

my dad entered a raffle for a bow package when i was like 11 years old at a sportsman show. they said thew drawing was in an hour or so and to come back and i would be one of the kids to pick a name. Well, long story short we came back for the drawing i was like the 3rd kid to pick a name and you guessed it i picked my dads name out of a barrel or names! lol

my dad said he didnt need a new bow and would like to get me setup, we did just that and i was sized up for a PSE combo. been shooting ever since and grew to prefer the use of the bow! my 3rd bow later i shoot a Mathews and love every second of it. When i got my first bow you would have to pry it from my hands, i shot hundreds of arrows everyday! no lie...

[Doc]

I have to admit that even if I didn't hunt with the darn thing, I'm sure I would be messing around with archery anyway. It all has the same attraction as any shooting sport (only more so). The mental and physical discipline required to keep trying to put the next projectile closer and closer to the last one is the same challenge that comes with any kind of target practice. The fact that it requires a rigid set of form and execution consistancies is exactly the appeal of the whole thing. Success and failure is mainly a product of your own physical and mental developed abilities. And then to take all that personal accomplishment and apply it to hunting is just frosting on the cake. For me, I just could never achieve that kind of enthusiasm toward firearms. The ultimate challenges and satisfactions of hunting success just simply could not be equalled with anything but a bow. Yes, I hunt with a gun as well and thoroughly enjoy it, but I have to admit that it is the bowhunts that rank the highest in my memories and supply my standard and definition of hunting.

Doc

[Geno C]

i live for bow hunting, i feel more one on one with the animal and it offers a bit more challange trying to get them in to your desired range. i would never get board enough to feel i have to down grade my equipment to offer that challenge, such as shooting a recurve and what not. i enjoy shooting the bow so much that i just can not get enough of it. i know there are guys who desire a more challenging envronment and go to shooting recurves and go as deep as making there own arrors and broadheads but i just never did understand that fully or ever get to the point where i felt board enough to do so... shooting the bow can be challenging enough even with a top of the line compound, even at 15 yards. Especially when your at full draw on a nice deer in close for over a minute, lol cant do that with a recurve. well unless your hulk.

[eagle rider]

The Dukes of Hazard and shooting out of the General Lee with dynamite taped to an arrow.  So ridicolous, but it got me thinking about bow hunting initilally.  Then an electrican was doing work in our house like 30 years ago, he was a bow hunter and he stardted talking to me about it a lot.  That summer I went to a DEC camp and actually shot a bow for the first time.  I was hooked.  When I was 18 I bought my first bow and I've been shooting ever since.  That bow was a Hoyt Game Getter II, I jumped up to a Hoyt Spectra, than Alpine Rebel, next was a Pearson 440, a Martin Pantera, a Golden Eagle Revolution, a Buck Master 2000, a Martin Cougar Magnum (had that one for eight years), a PSE Bow Madness, and now a Bear Strike.  10 bows in 25 years.  No, I don't still have all of them.  Just the PSE Bow Madness and the Bear Strike now.  So yeah, I drank the bowhunting Koolaide big time. 

[Culvercreek hunt club]

for me it was an introduction though Boy Scouts earning my archery merit badge. The target shooting was ok...but the real fun was using that old 35# long bow and blunt tip arrows to go around the woods course shooting 1 gallon milk jugs hanging from strings to simulate hunting conditions. kind of a 3D course before they got popular. up hill, down hill, across the creek kneeling under a pine. It was fun and I was hooked.

[Doc]

Yeah, that's kind of the point I was making earlier. It doesn't even have to be really pointed at hunting. Shooting a bow is just plain fun. Hunting with it is simply frosting on the cake. It's pretty darn easy to get hooked and is a lot more fascinating than other weapons that are not quite so directly hooked up with the shooter's personal abilities. Don't get me wrong, I do a whole lot of target practice with rifles, but that time on the range with the bow still has a special attraction for me. And some of the novelty shooting (like those plastic milk jugs) just adds to the fun. It's kind of like the "stump shooting" that SOB always talks about. It's just plain ol' fun that really has appeal to primarily a bowhunter.

[nyantler]

A buddy and I always carry blunt arrows during the turkey season.. we stump shoot our way out of the woods @ noon... sometimes that can be the highlight of the day if you know what I mean ;D 

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Can't wait until life slows down a bit. I really want to get back into traditional. Practice time seems to be at a premium lately. Was always fun having a little friendly competition with buddies .....we use to play a game like hose in basketball...lol...the prize...braggin rites until the next outing

[nyantler]

I try and shoot 10 arrows a day with the recurve.. i make it a contest with myself to try and get a tighter group at 20 yards each day... 10 arrows doesn't eat up a lot of time

[gjs4]

I grew up shooting miscellaneous bows my grandfather got me from garage sales but never thought of huntinn (despite shooting them well). Then in HS (lates 80s early 90s) it was the cool thing to do in my rural school. Never took it seriously as I was basically a self taught deer hunter who only knew how to gun hunt and was proficient with it. Gave it up for a few years. Matured as a hunter a bunch, and to top it off got bit by the mature buck bug, and tried it again and WOW!!!! A bow is a fine weapon which I love to use. No interest in the envitable crossbow deal we have encroaching....but really it is much more about what is seen/experienced afield this time of year. Told many a gun hunter theyre being robbed by not being into bowhunting. Just my experience and this is a very brief summarization how I truly feel, and love bowhunting

[SteveMcD]

never able to master the bow.

You never master the bow you become one with it. You develop an understanding of what the bow can do and what you are capable of.

For me,,, it was easy. Archery = Deer Hunting. But I became mesmerized by the flight of the arrow along the way. It is even more gratifying when you make your own.

[nyantler]

If you keep your shots down to a reasonable distance.. 20 yards or less... you have a better chance of becoming more proficient... if it needs to be 10 yards or less for you to be confident hunting.. then thats what it should be...just don't try to do what you can't do