Through the week I went for look for a mob of goats that have living in some hills near my work. Decided to take my primitive setup. No goats were seen or heard but a bowhike with a primitive kit fully sourced and made from scratch never fails to evoke a feeling of connection to the roots of our species.



Brigalow selfbow. Rawhide string, rabbit fur silencers, bark tanned axis deer hide quiver stitched with rawhide. Bamboo shafts, obsidian points.

Jerry Gentellalli was the owner of Rancho Safari. He was a very innovative person. His CatQuivers came in various sizes from the original with just a hood enclosing the fletching to the II which had pouches on either side of the hood to the three which had a knapsack around the hood, to the 3.5 and other models that incorporated his CatQuiver Mini with backpacks. He also made a belt systems for the CatQuivers.

In addition he made a fantastic ghillie suit and system.

In 2007 a fire destroyed his business. It never recovered to the extent it was before the fire. Jerry passed away in 2022.

Lookin' real good Randy!

I set it up with a new set of white tip 45-pound limbs.  Really goes well with the autumn orange arrows.  A 2018 flies like a dart off of it.

While I waited to get the riser back form the shop, I ordered in what parts I could from Monte Dunaway and robbed the others from another junked riser.

I ended up going to an automotive specialty shop and had it bead blasted and then ceracoated. Back when I competed in F.I.T.A. in College one of my favorite risers was Texas orange that I had custom painted in a motorcycle shop.

I came across an old flocked B riser awhile back that had been abused and was missing all its hardware.  As nasty as it looked, I decided to see if I could bring it back to life.

I'm sure I will raise the ire of some of the Trad police for this... 

I shoot several ILF risers with a magnetic flipper rest and cushion plunger.  Makes for great arrow flight and simple to tune. I decided that I would set one of my Eichlers up in this fashion for our indoor season.  Really simple to do. Just remove the two small screws at the back of the adjustable side plate and it come right off. Back out the adjustment screw and a cushion plunger screws right in.  Adjust your center shot and then adjust tension to get the bare shaft to fly

Really happy with the results so far.

My girls started at that age with little bears and I then found the little Shrews (PunkyShrewster) to be easy to tune and easy to grow with..the design actually allows amazing adult draw lengths also. I draw 30" and shoot their lil bows once in a while with a 700 spine lol..but back on point I used teensey micro diameter arrows started with 1600 spine Easton Avance shafts with their break off insert target tips allowing easy tuning. I might be weird but I did start them at that age without fletchings.. And shortened and tuned slowly before fletchings any shafts. I left the shafts shooting pretty weak and then once I had the arrows not flying nocks high or low by adjusting string nocks points.. gave em feathers..and periodically would toss in a bare shaft when they were shooting just to see..thats how I kept up with their changing strength and shooting form changes.. I have three daughters who shoot well and they all shot the little Shrews 25#@28" progressing through spines,  some faster than others. 1600, 1400, 1200, 1050..playing with shorter lengths and less point weight..till they went hunting with little Kudu single bevels on the micro shafts..They make lighter weight shrews too..This is my 7 yr old daughter. She just stepped up from a 12#@24" Bear little bear to this 25#@28" 52" longbow that her sister used to shoot and hunt with and seems to be doing fine.

Have not shot at all, I mean zero, like these are my very first shots in 10 years, likely more......using the 3Rivers calculator I came up with 67.7 to 66.6 dynamic spine of bow to arrow yielding a nice arrow setup for a dozen Carbon Express Heritage 250 I had squirreled away forever. I am using 200gr up front and 24gr rear DIY lumenock and arrow is about 30-1/8" OAL. I think we are on right out of the gate perhaps a smidge nock high.....#3 was my initial shot, you see the nock go left and led bobber unit go right, and arrow dead straight. I guess Fletch tite doesn't quite hold them in them as I recalled....and I had way more hair when I started this sport!



Arrow Tune 1

Arrow Tune 2

Arrow Tune 3


Maybe a bit nock high?