Are there many archery stores near where you live that carry a REAL selection of supplies for the traditional bowhunter? Local shops here I northeast Missouri don't carry much at all.
I'm good with ordering online but I sure like to patronize local business when I can.
Does anyone know a good shop in the St. Louis Missouri area??
Not near me, however the owner of the local archery shop (wheelie) will order stuff no problem and is quite trad "friendly" at least. I buy arrows from him on occasion and have always enjoyed my dealings as he's a super customer service oriented guy and knows quite a lot about archery and is an avid shooter. He stocks Samick Polaris and Samick Sage bows on a regular basis and sells quite a few, especially the lower poundage models to young adults and kids, which is a great thing. However I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw him setting up a new Sage for a customer with a 4-pin sight, whisker biscuit and peep sight (per customer's request).
Not close to me . Fedora is about an hour. Wheelie bow place in Lancaster has some selections. Other than that Big Jim's or Three Rivers.
3 Rivers is 2.5 hrs away from work.
Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear and it's a long ten minute drive
Nothing close by. We normally get up to the Twin Cities once a year, and always detour through Rochester so I can stop at The Footed Shaft. They are awesome people to deal with.
I can get anything I want from a couple of basement operations and I do
DDave
No. Bass Pro carries some stuff, but I do not consider it full service at all.
Pretty close to St. Louis, Town Hall Archery in Bellville, IL is quite good.
My good friends Mike and Sue Shaw have a nice shop in Boyertown, PA. It's a two hour run for me but nice to hang out once in a while. Of course I have one in Lancaster, PA too.
Archers Advantage in Little Rock, Ar. has as much trade gear as anyone could want.
You won't do any better than The Nocking Point. They are sponsors here and either Terry or his wife Sheila are the best that's around. :thumbsup:
You don't have to order on line, just call them direct.
The archery shop in my town has a few tabs, stringers, and such, but not really anything else. If you need anything else around here, you have to order it.
Bisch
Yes. Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear. There are none better. Ken
When I had my shop, I worked out of the house, internet and hitting as many shoots per year as possible. And the business barely supported itself, I didnt make any money. But I had a great time and made some really good friends, which is not all bad :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
You need to be in a very good area to be able to earn a living with a brick & mortar shop and also have a strong internet business. Lets face it, there isn't much demand for our hobby/passion.
If you want to check out a bunch of stuff you need to hit some of the shoots around the Country, you wont be sorry! Great people, good fun and good food.
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Hey archer66 I second town hall archery. I'm in St. Louis and its a pretty quick drive. If you ever want to ride up together or go shoot just send me a PM.
I'm actually 100 miles north of St. Louis so that's a bit of a trek for me. I do get down to STL several times a year which is why I asked about that area.
All,,,, I love to see the loyalty you have to your respective shops.
ya that is quite the trek. Well the offer still stands though.
None where I live. There is an archery shop about an hour away, but they only carry funny bows with training wheels that looks like they came from a sci-fi movie. :laughing:
They are Few and Far Between from me too. The best place to shop, right here....OnLine. Saves Gas too! :thumbsup: BONUS! :goldtooth:
I second "The Nocking Point" near Sand Springs, OK, (Tulsa). Stopped there once when in Tulsa to see relatives but they were at the Pre Spring Arrow Fling. After they got my telephone message, they called on the road heading back home from the Shoot. Pretty impressive and really nice people.
There's a really good archery shop just fifteen miles from my house but they cater to compound shooters. The owner is a nice guy and very knowledgeable as he's been in archery for prolly 60 years and of course knows all about traditional gear. It just doesn't pay him to stock the supplies. He's glad to order stuff for me but I can do that myself. It'd be nice to be able to walk into a shop and have on hand everything you need when you don't know for sure what you need...for instance during arrow tuning or whenever the mood strikes to tinker.
Raptor Archery is about 6 miles from my place, he has everything you need.
I buy from Big Jim and 3-Rivers. And I live very close to a smooth talking Archery dealer in southern Maine (trad and wheel), however he is a well known, convicted poacher / felon and outright scoundrel. Yeah... I'll stick with Big Jim and 3-Rivers.
Archer,
I use to go to town hall once a week being that I'm only half an hour away. But it wasn't worth the drive after a while and you can't REALLY tinker. Most of the guys working there don't understand why you want to bareshaft/cut back/bareshaft/cut back, paper tune change nock heights, side plate materials etc...some of the people working there would get annoyed when I would make multiple cutting requests on a single shaft to figure out my tuning or whatever and it wasn't worth the fuss. They are paid to help but don't believe what I am doing matters (at least to a select few there) So I said screw it and I now do everything myself. I basically have a full service archery shop in my basement. In The long run I'll save money and I won't have to rely on people that don't get it and certainly don't Care to help with the tinkering and so on.
Good stuff. 9 shocks...I've been pricing supplies recently. Might end up like you.
My Friends at Kustom King are in the process of moving about 15 minutes away from my house. 3rivers is a good 2 hours drive.
Raptor Archery is completely into trad and only 750 miles away from me; and as close as my computer.
My local "wheelie bow" shop (10 miles away) has nothing for trad shooters except string wax. There is what I call a combo shop (75% wheelie, 25% trad) about 50 miles away that does right by me with the basics and some good advice. The owner is very trad friendly but he has to pay his bills too which explains his shop mix. Have found one shop about 35 miles away that is 90% trad and 10% wheelie (replacement stings and arrows) but the owner is semi-retired. He's a great source of information and has been extremely helpful to me as a new archer. As Chez12 pointed out, location and proximity to trad folks is key. I just took my state mandated bowhunter education class in summer 2014 and there was no one else in the class that shot trad. The primary instructor said I was the first trad archer he had seen in over 5 years.
House of Arrows in Sparks, NV. Rick carries trad bows, cedar shafts and lots of leather. Primarily a wheelie shop, but he shoots a Schultz and carries the stuff for those of us so inclined
Northwest Missouri isn't too much better. It's tough for a shop to carry lots of gear when there aren't a lot of people to buy it.
But that's one of the things that intrigues me about this sport. I like its uniqueness. If everybody and their dog shot trad bows, I'm not sure if I would have ever shown an interest in it.
I'm sure glad I did though.
Archer's Advantage in Little Rock has a good selection of traditional bows and equipment. The owner, Jerrel, has been in trad shooting forever and is the anchor man in that shop. He has the wheel bows there too and a staff that works on that sort of equipment but he is a trad man. When I go there I ask for him so I can get real help.
There was an article in a local magazine about traditional archery that was pretty good. It featured a few local trad and self bow makers. I took it as a good sign that folks are still interested. These small magazines are always looking for "stories". If you know people in the field of journalism, introduce them to traditional bowyers and shooters.
Sadly our closest place here in western MI closed the doors not too long ago. Got some great deals on arrow making stuff. Now it's a long drive up north (not all bad) to a big sporting goods store that stocks the good stuff, including some Northern Mist and Bear bows.
There is Little Ridge Archery in Gasport NY. Roy usually has a few bears, hoyt buffalos and sometimes some customs from his own collection. Sells trad arrows, heavy inserts and points, good broadheads, and gloves and tabs.
I am pretty lucky. There's a shop called The Outdoorsman that's 5 minutes from my house. They have a bunch of trad gear. I didn't even realize how much trad gear they had until I went in yesterday to see about some feathers and nocks. Everything I need except bare wooden shafts they have it with a good selection of colors and diameters.
There's even a used black widow sitting up there....so tempting!
Anyhow, good luck on your search OP.
I can be at J&M Traditions in 10 minutes, Fedora's in an hour.......IJ
Nothing anywhere around here. I haven't even been in a shop that has much in the way of "trad" stuff since the early 90's.
I order everything.
I buy from and recommend the Footed Shaft in Rochester, MN. Their business has been long built on honesty and integrity. Service is quick and accurate time and again. Chad
Wooddamon1, you're not the only one who misses that shop :(
Just a personal observation; I don't think a small shop can stay in business as a trad shop. Sales are too limited - bow, arrows, glove or tab, maybe a quiver? Then what? With the weelies and X-types, you can sell constant "upgrades" and then a new bow every couple of years. So I think it is a given there will be a mix of gear with the preponderance on the wheelie side.
That alone just won't do it, though. A small shop cannot compete with the constant, low profit margin sales of the "big guys". A small shop will have to really beat the bushes with aggressive advertising to attract buyers. They will have to offer classes to get new shooters involved. Get them hooked on trad before they get all wrapped up in compounds. There need to be leagues.
At which point I guess it stops being a small shop, but let's face it. The days of small shops are limited. The upcoming generation has access to ideas and information from the time they are old enough to work a keyboard or smart phone. They want it all. They want it now. And it's available somewhere - just an on-line order away.
A trad shop is going to have to really market their (our) offering to get noticed above all the noise.
There are no trad shops near me. Archery Traditions in Athens, GA is an hour away. But it is by no means even close to the shop Mr. Dan Quillan operated so many years ago. Not sure why they keep the name. Big Jim is 3 1/2 hours away and I have made that drive and will do it again. However, my stuff is usually bought online.
Wooddamon and Bladepeek, I also was sad to see Black Dog close their doors. I bought a few bows from Tom last week but I will miss having him around as a co-petitor.
We operate Lost Nation Archery out of our house to keep expenses down and as everyone said, it is hard to make a living selling trad. The good news is we have been at this over 11 years and we plan to continue as long as possible.
We have no other archery shops within 10 miles and we have had the very amusing situation happen where somebody walks in with a compound bow and says "there is no shop around here that carry the archery stuff I use." If you live in Sturgis, MI, you can find a trad archery store but you can't find anybody to work on your compound.
Anybody looking to move? We would love to have you as a neighbor.
It's a fact that the market for traditional is not as large as it is for compound, nor as profitable. Wheelies buy everything from the shop, whereas a large percentage of traditionalist will try to figure out how to make their own equipment. They don't just want to buy it and shoot it, they want to make it and shoot it. I can't blame them for that because I feel the same way.
To make the point, we had 10 guys at the (EFA) shop last night for our weekly shoot. Two of them had longbows that they had made themselves, and which I might add shot and looked very well. Also, one of the guys had made a pocket quiver which looked pretty good. We had about 20 pocket quivers in the shop that were well made and reasonable priced, but there is just no substitute for using something that you made yourself.
To be successful today as a small traditional archery shop you need to give quality service, be innovative with new products, have a good website, probably go to a lot of events, host a shooting league and, or teach archery. One last suggestion is to get to know the Wheelie shops. Most of them don't really want to deal with traditionalist and will be happy to send them to you.
removing link back
The few shops in my area carry some trad gear but not much. I understand that. Probably makes up only 5 or 10% of their business. Most of their staff are high tech guy's, interested in the newest and the fastest. That's where the money is. When I need stuff. I go to the Footed Shaft, 3 Rivers or Big Jims. All have provided excellent advise and service.
I can say I am very lucky to only be 15 minutes from LOST NATION ARCHERY They have a good assortment and Larry and Janice are two of the most honest people anyone will ever deal with.