I feel like we are. What do you think?
-RB
What do you mean by "Golden Era" ?
I think the Golden Era was when fellas like Fred Bear,Ben Pearson,Howard Hill, Glen St Charles and host of others like Earl Hoyt were starting to make this pastime what it is today. Now is the resurgence of what archery is really all about. More and more are starting to see the value of what we like and do. Getting young people,boys and girls, involved is just going to help our favorite pastime!! Just my opinion!!
In San Francisco, our range is fuller than ever. Even our City College now offers all-semester target classes at very low cost. Good luck getting a lane on weekends... Marco
I mean as far as the options we have now. There are sooo many excellent bows, quivers, arrows, broadheads. It's great.
Hopefully this is an era of resurgence, but believe the "Golden Era" passed us 40 years ago. It will be quite a feat to duplicate the crowds of archery participants and spectators of the 30's, 40's, and 50's.
I like just the "Era of Archery" that way it doesn't have a down side. :campfire:
Came and gone....
I think we might be headed for a second one. Hill, Bear, and the rest sure enjoyed the first one a lot.
I can't answer your question the way it is presented but I can say it is my "Golden age" of archery.
I am shooting more, enjoying it more and plan of hunting more and in different locales.
Have a good and Godly day!
God bless,Mudd
What Mudd said.
Most of the things that have passed us we miss in truth had a lot of downsides. Way easier and more satisfying to remember the good.
For some of us, it's becoming more like
"The Olden Age of Archery"
:p
:smileystooges:
I personally think with all of the focus on antler size and money, the golden age is well past us and we are on the verge of the dark ages of all hunting. Too much commercialization and not enough focus on whats important in the outdoors. I for one have had enough of it and am glad to call myself a Tradganger.
Mudd you were reading my mind. I hunted for 30 years with a compound and when i started shooting stick bows something inside me changed.
I really can't put it into words but when i have a stickbow in my hands i always have a smile on my face.
Yep it is for sure the golden age of archery for me.
Ditto on what Mudd said.
Mudd is right,this is anyway a renaissance.
On Golden Pond? :laughing:
I met ole Fred Bear in 78' & back then I thought I had met GOD, now I'm happy to enjoy the sport that I love & am not quite to my GOLDEN AGE yet but hope to be still shooting like Hill, Hoyt, & Bear did when they were in their upper years.
To me, the "Golden age" was 40-60 + year's ago. I'm glad I was able to experience some of it !
Archery...I don't know. But for the traditional bowhunter we've got to have about as good as we could, don't we? Some tags are getting impossible to draw or afford, but we can still hunt lots of different species each and every year.
I wasn't around back when but has there ever been as many bowyers as there is now? We have a plethora of fantastic choices in custom bows.
We can travel all over the country and hunt a lot of different species on public land and fully expect to kill game. Some states have deer seasons that last for months.
I am pretty thankful for what we have now. Between our choices in bows/gear and the opportunity to hunt every year...I just hope it continues this way for quite some time.
With out a doubt.....no.
I thought it was the sixties.We don't have the selection of great production bows to choose from now but there are far more fine custom bowmakers and they are producing some amazing stuff.
There are some amazing bowhunters too.Many may not seem to have been elevated to the status of our former heroes but that is often because they are not promoting themselves or some product.I think we may not pay attention to some till they have passed.Still,great bowhunters nontheless-men and women.
Our knowledge of handling equipment and tuning plus it's importance,have improved by leaps and bounds for the better.The average hunter's ethics and discipline in limiting shot distance and restraint has much improved since the 50's and '60's.All positive trends.
I don't know what this era should be called but it is interesting.I see a lot of people really trying to do things the right way and a lot of new people joining the ranks every day,wanting to learn to do things the right way.We can never go back in time but there have been a lot of positive changes guys and I expect more in the future.
It is what we want to make it.
If you are talking bowhunting I believe this is definitely the golden age -- most big game animals are in greater numbers than any time in more than 100 years -- thanks to hunter-funded and supported science-based wildlife management.
If you are talking archer numbers. You ain't seen nothing yet. In six years there will be more new archers being created each year than than there are bowhunters today. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association archery participation grew by 7% in 2008. This is 28 times more growth in a single year than the previous 7 years combined.
If you want to see why, come to Louisville, KY next Friday and Saturday before Mother's Day. you'll witness the largest youth archery tournament in world history...again.
I see these times as a re-birth of traditional archery.
I was around to enjoy archery during the late 50s and 60s. That was a great time.
Trad faded away for what seemed like a long time, but it seems to be back strong again now.
Lots of good points and information.
I'll ditto what Old York said.
Ken
For me, the golden era was in the sixties. NFAA was dominant and it was nothing to have 300 shooters at a tournament. I would say we are in the golden era of bowhunting or the "good old days", especially as far as whitetail deer hunting.
I guess it just depends on your perspective. For me, I would have to say it is not. Everything seems too commercial driven and the emphasis in the hunting world seems to be towards technology over skill at arms. A small sampling of outdoor programming on TV gives a real indication of what is important to most hunters out there. Or at least what the advertisers would like to make important. Kind of negative I guess but I've always been a little half empty.
It's a golden era for me! I can get and shoot exactly what I want. I'm not reading back and saying, "Gee, wish I could get those..." I think we have more people involved in traditional and primitive archery now than ever before.
I'm like Mudd,I'm sure enjoyimg the Good Times I'm having with my Son,Nefhew and Friends,
Kurt
It will be in another 50 or 60 years, just like it was for us 50 or 60 years ago.
RonP
I'm pretty sure I posted a response to this thread. I don't see it, so either it didn't take or it was pulled.
Any particular reason why it was pulled ? I don't recall being inflamatory or rude at all ?
What's up
ChuckC
Chuck C - I have that happen to me from time to time. Not sure why, maybe a computer burp, maybe I just forget to hit "add reply". Think maybe I hit the back button instead of the "add reply".
I think any question in my mind about whether or not this is "A Golden Era" was answered for me here: http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=092461
It just doesn't get any more "Golden" that this!!!
God bless,Mudd
Archery maybe but bowhunting with archery gear NO. The shrinking amount of true wilderness and regulations plus the cost to lease and hunt. I used to could walk out my back door as a boy and just hunt. Didn't even have to have a permit.
As far as archery we do have many excellent bowyers and lots of nice shooting events.
The golden age is here now for those that have the right mindset and stay away from the foolishness.
1.We can still find places to hunt that seem untouched with few if any other people. I know they can be hard to find, but they are there.
2. There are so many trad vendors that we can get anything we want.
3. If we can't find something trad, there is likely a do-it-yourself thread or internet info on the topic.
4. In many states there are more game animals than there were in the 40's and 50's.
5. We have the internet to share stories and information with people we never would have met otherwise!
Just some ideas,
Cherokee.. probably right. Guess I need glasses, and likely some "remember juice". My wife keeps hinting I might need something else too but that is for another thread.
ChuckC
The tournament in Louisville next May will have about 6,900 students competing -- 4th-12th grades. 38-40% will be young ladies. The do shoot Genesis Compounds but without sights, stabilizers or release aids. The Genesis has no let off.
To a lot of you that got into tradional archery via the compound route or just got into it recently I can see where you believe this is the "Golden Age of Archery". But to us who actually lived through the Golden Age it was nothing like today. I would say the Golden Age ran from the mid 50s through early 70s and the compound killed it.
We were a little naive about some of the technical aspects of archery and there wasn't a lot of information out there. What we learned usually came from sharing information on a face to face basis or attending field shoots. We related directly with the old legends who were still living and quite active and tried to emulate them. A lot of us shot every weekend in a NFAA field tournament and practiced regularly daily. No one dreamed a wheeled contraption would come along to change archery forever. We thought it would go along progressing at a snail's pace like it always had.
Hunting was different in that we could gain access to most property just by telling people we were bowhunters, a curiousity to them. We even had "abandoned farms" galore to wander. The taking of a deer was "cause celebre" and a wonder. Our portable deer stands were death traps at best and safety was the last thing on our minds. But in our hearts were were doing out best to emulate Fred Bear and the other legends as best we could.
In terms of the availability of good equipment, maybe. Otherwise, the only thing better now than in the pre-compound days is the number of game animals to hunt. When I started in the '60's, just seeing a deer made for a good season. They were rare. It was years before I got a shot, and years more before my first kill.
Archery in general progressed from predominantly target archery to predominantly hunting archery because of the proliferation of game. We're in the good times as far as hunting goes today, but the future doesn't look good, with the advent of the video craze and what it did to hunting ethics and the perception of hunters by the neutral non-hunters. That dark cloud keeps me from classing today's situation as "golden".
Some of us tend to blame the compound for fouling the stew, but in reality without the ease of entry to the sport afforded by the compound, there would be many fewer hunters today to support our cause and fund the restoration of wildlife. How many of our ranks started with the compound, and then looked for more challenge? Without that substantial number, this site probably wouldn't even exist.
After God and family bowhunting has been and continues to be the most important thing in my life. It has been since I killed the first live deer I ever saw in my life at age 16 with a Ben Pearson Cougar. In those days in many states east of the rockies big game were rare. For the first 10 years I bowhunted (only 6 of those years with traditional)I felt very lucky to get one bow range opportunity per year.I was lucky enough to kill a deer every third year for the first 9 years. Most adults I knew who had been bowhunting since the late 50's had never killed a deer. My friend's dad was a celebrity speaker at our school because he had bow-killed 1 deer (a fine doe) in 9 years of bowhunting! He brought his bow, the arrow, quiver, and even the tanned doe hide to school -- wow, this guy (an optometrist) was a real mountain man to me.
The reason I think these are the golden years is because, at least in the east big game populations abound. Outside of Missouri who would even have thought turkey would become common place and a reasonable quary for the bowhunter?
I don't resent the compound bow for anything. The compound brought a swell of bowhunters into action. This and increasing deer populations caused success rates to triple and quadruple. This caught the attention of game managers who then lengthened seasons for archers (in many areas).
The only thing sort of negative I attribute to the compound is that it stole some of the mystique of bowhunting from the traditional bowhunter. During the traditional-only days and even the first 10 years or so of the compound, others (gun hunters and nonhunters) thought bowhunters were sort of super hunters (and many bowhunters are by the way). They recognized that we had to be good woodsmen, great shots, persistent, and that we placed a premium on HOW we hunted more than WHAT we killed. However, after more people got into bowhunting, with the compound and killing deer with arrows became more common place, people didn't think us bowhunters so special or elite anymore.
Our success rates increased mainly due to higher populations not the equipoment -- the average traditional kill was 14 yards and compounds 17 yards in the last survey I saw about 10 years ago - so not that big a difference.
I'm thankful and impressed that many of you fellows stayed with traditional or came back to it sooner than I did. By so doing you kept alive and even caused expansion of the custom bowyer businesses.
I'm also thankful as a bowhunter and a retired wildlife biologist that you folks started and kept alive the state bowhunting clubs. Traditional guys are very often the most numerous of the members of these small but very vocal and often effective hunter organizations. In my state we could almost always count on the United Bowhunters or Traditional Archer's Association to step up to the plate in the name of sound wildlife management regulations and policies. We almost never heard from the firearms fraternity because they weren't organized.
Some bowhunters would like to be the only ones in the woods. However, if we don't stay strong in numbers our seasons will be eroded and time in the woods is number 2 on my list of why I bowhunt. I firmly believe there will be more bowhunters when my grandson (now 7) starts bowhunting in about 5 years)than there are today -- a lot more.
Well said reddogge. We made our back quivers with hide we ordered or acquired from a kill and cedar shafts and arrow crafting was more the norm than the exception. And you better know how to twist up a string or have a good friend who would build you one.
Now most just buy thier stuff myself included. It takes away some of the tradition. Not quiet the "golden era" we once knew.
With that said I still love it!
I believe the Golden Age followed the growth of economy immediately after WWII. Hunting and interest in the sport spread quickly in the 50's and 60's. There were a lot more archery shops, and clubs than there are today. States responded with more bowhunting areas and seasons.
Today, the number of hunters, and licenses are down in most states. Mule deer and elk herds are down, due to a number of factors, mostly due to the loss of winter range. Wolves are affecting the elk herds in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and they are spreading into Washington and Oregon. Ultimately, they will have an affect on the number of tags available in the future.
Many states are in a financial bind, and are either going to cut services, and/or raise license and tag fees.
It is important to become active in a club and national organizations. Increasing membership and getting people involved is harder today, because of the economy. But it is important to get others involved, and stay informed on the issues in your area and state. Make an effort to get others interested in the traditional way. Don't become complacent.
It may not be the Golden Age, but it can be good again.
Reddogge.
My sentiments exctly !!! Well said !
The younger guys don't understand. One had to experience