Trad Gang
Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: J-dog on September 16, 2010, 07:41:00 PM
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Thoguht I would start a thread abut the person who really opened you up to trad.
I was into shooting bows from the time I could walk. A man whose daughter babysat me early on later saw me with a simple compound bow - he let me use this recurve he had and I loved it. I might have been 9-10 couldn't really use the bow that great - I still went into the compound thing for a bit. The started watching highnoon bucks video and Paul Brunners videos on instictive shooting - rest is downhill - On the back of the highnoon bucks video I saw the advertisment for Schafer silvertip bows! My Mom made me pay half but I ordered a silvertip. Just like the one I had seen on the video. been lost ever since. Recurve is a much better hunting weapon that the wheelie ever will be.
I wish I knew what kinda recurve that first bow was Mr. Rice let me use? still do not know and neither does he.
Mr Rice also mentored me into the Fire Service! Go figure? No at 38 I am a Deputy Chief and he has long since retired.
So how did you end up forever lost to trad bows??????????? did someone introduce you or did you just pic it up and start? whats the story.
Should be fun!
J
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I read a Roger Rothaar book and never could shake the bug, that was 13 years ago. Ron LaClaire set me up with a Raco long bow by John McCullough and some cedar arrows, away I went with a huge smile. I ended up shooting my first deer that year with a long bow, a buck even! Just try to pry my wooden bows out of my hands, I dare ya'!
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Wow, that's a tough one. I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade when I made a bow out of a sapling limb and string. Terrorized robins in my neighbors yard until the string broke. I imagine my arrows were also just sticks with grooves for nocks and no fletching -- I can't remember because I was 8 or 9 years old. No one I knew had a bow in those days so I imagine I picked it up from TV. Were the American Sportsmen shows on by then (1962 or 1963)? My first real bow was a Pearson Cougar mom bought for dad when I was about 13. He shot one arrow from it - straight up from the front porch of our house in a sub-division -- no idea where the arrow went -- we were both shocked!
I hunted chipmunks and groundhogs with that bow until I was 16. Then, a cross-country teammate invited me on a deer hunt 120 miles from home in Brown County, IN. On opening evening (we skipped opening morning) I killed the 1st live deer (5-pt) I ever saw in my life. It was a 15-yard whot with a cedar arrow. I was using Bear Razorheads instead of the Deadheads that came with the Pearson "kit".
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I got to meet and talk to Fred Bear when I was 14 years old. At the time, I didn't realize I was talking to a living legend. That was 46 years ago.
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First was my mom. She took me out when I was about 5 and cut a bow out for me and put it all together and showed me how to shoot it. Then when I was about 9 or so we had a school assembly and Howard Hill did a bunch of trick shots and talked to us about archery. I got a longbow that year and have been an archer every since then. somewhere around 1954 or 55 I guess.
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i just feel a traditional pull, its fun shooting a recurve, to hard for me to hold a sight pin on a compound on my target , Its easier just to look and shoot!!
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Born hunt freak!!! Gun accident at 12 nearly cancelled me & we were thereby restricted. Learned to hunt with my aunt's LB & never stopped bowhunting. All these cards fell right into place. I'm no better than anyone hunting with whatever; but, I am much luckier than those folks to hunt with a LB. I figure we're all (tradsters) pretty lucky that way.
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Dad had an old recurve that he hunted with a little when I was a kid & it fascinated me. Fred Bear's field notes were the last nail in the coffin - could not put the book down.
My friend Bubba Kirby gave me a Bear Kodiak Magnum and I was done :thumbsup:
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There has been a few, Mr. Hill in the Robin hood movie, Mr. Bear with His hunting Videos that where on TV, I have always had a love for the Bow more so the American Indian bows.
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Seeing stories about Fred Bear and also Jim Dougherty. They lit the fire in me. Had no teachers, mentors etc. Just caddied all summer and saved it all to buy a solid glass bow. Hunted rabbits and birds growing up.
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Dad's a doctor, and after working on a bunch of gunshot wounds, both intentional and accidental, he didn't want any guns in the house, not even BB guns or pellet guns. So despite my pleas as a kid, he never let me have one. Guess he never saw any arrow wounds, though, because he let me have a bow and arrow. He and I picked out a Bear recurve when I was a young teen from a bow shop. Don't even remember what kind of Bear bow it was nor do I remember why we chose a recurve instead of a longbow or compound, but I'm pretty sure it was the cheapest one available. Had lots of fun shooting it for a year or two til it broke, most likely due to my abuse and lack of knowledge on how to properly string it and take care of it. 30 years later I decided to get a longbow - that was just recently. Don't know why it took me so long to start back up with it again, but am glad I did.
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Two men. Sterling Holbrook and Russ Dickson.
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I saw Rev. Stacey Groscup (hope I spelled that correctly)at a bowhunter festival shooting disk out of the air from horseback then he was shooting aspirin out of the air. It just blew me away.
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I grew up in a huntin and trappin family, some folks do the football or baseball thing we hunted.With that said my father and grandfather HATED bowhunting, so being a black sheep I took up wheelie bows. After I felt accomplished I went trad, my grandfather ask me before he pasted "cleve whats next rocks".
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I know I will never remember the names of the presenters but when I was a youngster in grade school our public schools used to have special programs for educational and entertainment purposes. On two different occasions they had archery as the programs.
I was immediately mesmerized and transformed.
I've had it somewhere in my psyche ever since.
God bless,Mudd
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When I was a kid I used to make bows out of anything I could bend and put a string on. My dad told me about Ben Pearson and all the things he shot with a bow and he took me to see a beg bear that Ben Pearson had shot, I just had to have a Pearson bow and for my 8th birthday I got a Ben Pearson fiberglass bow. That was 46 years ago and I have been missing targets ever since.
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I was introduced to archery and bowhunting when I made a promotion and was assigned to a new fire station. There was a couple of hard core bowhunters there who got me started with the wheels. I had a blast and was immediately hooked on bowhunting. A couple other friends I hung out and shot 3D with were into traditional bows. One of them talked me into buying an old Bear recurve. I went to a 30 target 3D shoot with them with a quiver full of arrows, and had to borrow one from one of the other guys to shoot the last target. Every one of the almost dozen arrows I had brought with me were either bent, broken, or lost. That shoot drove it home to me how hard traditional archery is. Learning how to shoot a trad bow well was a tremendous challenge and I was bound to do it. I was about 25 years old then and am still addicted to trad archery/hunting. My next birthday will be my 50th. I truly hope I can keep shooting trad bows right up till the day I pass on to the Great Hunting Grounds.
Bisch
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They showed Howard Hill films on the weekends on one of our local TV stations. I must have really liked it because I had my first bow when I was three or four years old and I have been shooting bows and playing with canoes ever since. When the neighborhood bulleys played cowboys and I was the Indian, I won because I did not have a gun that went bang or pop, my toy was for real.
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I was first exposed when my cousin had a ben pearson recurve that his granddaddy gave him. We had a great time shooting that bow. I was about 11-12 yrs old about 35 yrs ago, man that time just flew. It is amazing thinking back on it now.
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1. My cousin introduces me to wheels.
2. 3 years later I met 4runr. That was about a year ago. I haven't shot the wheels in 10 months.
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My Dad, he bought me my first bow when I was 11 that was 46 years ago.
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Adam Howard got me started last year about this time just by taking the time to shoot with me and show me how much fun this can be.
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My apartment manger. Know to most as the Bowdoc. He and friends were always shooting in the basement, were we lived. So other than wishing and dreaming as a youngster. I owe all my knowledge in archery to the St Charles family and 'the real bowdoc'. Thanks,
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My father. His love of old Bear recurves and the simplicity of the stick and string turned me away from my compound friends early in my teens, Thanks Dad!
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When I was 8 years old,(1956) a family friend, Clyde Mead, gave me a light weight lemonwood longbow. He was a target archer and kept me supplied with cedar arrows - whenever he would break an arrow, he would just cut it down and replace the point. I terrorized our chickens daily and also had a heavy cardboard 'charging' lion in our hayloft - and went on many pretend safaris. A couple years later my dad picked up a couple recurves at a pawn shop or farm sale. (I still have the one recurve - 48 inch Black Hawk.) I ordered a 42# Bear Grizzly in 1966, the year I had my first deer permit.
Clyde passed away a couple years ago - I'll be forever grateful for the introduction to traditional archery. (Of course back then - that's all there was.)
Thanks for starting this post - it brought back many great memories.
Craig
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I grew up shooting a K-Mag, MicroFlites, Bear Razor heads, wore WWII camo, face net, drank Pete Rickard's "Indian Buck Lure" for full effect ;) OMG so in a sense, I've always been 'trad'...then the compound days came upon me and after some time, it was Mr. Allen Wrench and his cousins (S.A.E. and Metric) that did it in for me. Never could find the right one, just a pain in the arse with all the gadgets and constant fiddling with screws and E-clips and wheel timing. We won't mention squeaky launcher rests that cost me any number of deer, nor the busted glasses from the mechanical release cock-up, nope.
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When I started that's all we had, recurves and longbows.(1949) Tried the compound thing for a few years back in the 70's, but went back to trad and still shoot trad.
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That's an easy one, the guy holding the arrow in the photo. I still have it and the Kodiak bow he gave me.
(Note: Hit F5 on your keyboard to refresh the page if the photo fails to download.)
(http://logsdonstudios.com/fred102.jpg)
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Not to bowhunting cause I was already there....but to the outdoors in the 60's.....
"Hello, I'm Curt Gowdy and welcome to the American Sportsman". Can still hear those words from long ago.
Jerry
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That would be my good buddy Toby Rey, a.k.a. BTH.
Thanks bro! :thumbsup:
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This is good - good stories and alot of shared memories. Thanks to everyone! It is really neat to hear from everyone but especially the older cats - I get closer to the top of the mountain but not seeing over the top just yet. I think I have seen the evolution of compounds in my days -but what is neat is when there was nothing else but trad!
I will tell one more story of my first mmmmmmmissssss on a deer with a curve. This would be after I had felt proficient enough to hunt a living breathing critter. I was really dying to arra a deer with the silvertip as I had seen in the videos! all instinctive!
I was in Roxboro NC and invited to hunt with a friend. Well when I shoed up at his house I thought we would take my truck to one of the many huge farms. Nope he lived on the edge of town and had a perfect funnel at the end of his street. I just took my stuff and walked down to the end of the road through a yard and into a little creek bottom.
I expected the deer to come down the bottom, I was ground pounding, hid out good. Then I see movement in the yard! here come two does right to me on the same trail I dropped into the bottom on. I was excited and had the lead one skinned already in my mind. They came in 12 yrds stopped broadside sniffing some vanila killa (yeah I used it!LOL) and I proceeded to send an arrow right under the lead does chest. They were gone and I was dejected.
Went home and taped a piece of tape onto the upper backside of my riser that evening - "PIC A SPOT! Stupid" I did the classic aim at the whole deer.
been awhile ago -
J
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when I started they didn't call it trad. . . just bowhunting. I had no mentor, it was just in my blood.
ChuckC
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Back in my younger days I would send a few bucks to the Fred Bear Sports Club in Grayling MI to rent one of Fred's 16mm films. The films were free to members so you basically only had to pay for shipping. Titles like "The Oldest Game" or "Kodiak Country" would arrive on a big reel that I could only view by checking out a projector at the local library. It was great inspiration and served to fill in the gaps between occasional bowhunting segments broadcast on ABC's American Sportsman. Fred's adventures were THE reason I wanted to take up the bow. A few years later I finally met the man and we became friends, sharing stories and trading out personal possessions each time we met until a year before his passing. Mrs. Bear was very interested in "anything antique" and would write carefully handwritten letters to me asking about art and photos she they had received. Very nice folks.
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I started out with my dad with a recurve before there was compounds, then looking for something better we went the route of wheelies. One of my mistakes in life, but after dad went to a better place I went back to a better way of hunting; traditional. Loving every minute of it. ;)
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I got started in 1958 when a friend I graduated high school with let me shoot his bow. I think it was a Bear, not sure. He's dead now, but think of him often when I'm shooting. About a year after I started shooting he had a wood arrow break and ran it through his forearm and out his wrist. Not pretty-I'm glad I wasn't there. Hap
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Mentor might not be the correct term, but along the lines who showed you a trad bow. Yes this really applies to folks who came in the wheel days. But also folks who may have shown you a bow and caught your interest.
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OWE! Hap - that had to a been painful at least after the adrenaline wore off!
J
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When I started that's all we had, recurves and longbows.(1949) Tried the compound thing for a few years back in the 70's, but went back to trad and still shoot trad.
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