A few months ago my wife and I had one of her co-workers and his family over for dinner.  I had several of my bows out and the son, James who is 11, gravitated to them like a steel to a magnet.  Well, this weekend I finally had some time and invited them to join me out at one of the local archery parks.  After getting them set up and some instruction, we hit the course flinging arrows like madmen.  After 4 targets and some frustration on James' part, I figured out that he is strongly left eye dominant and I had him set up with a right handed bow. Duh, I should have checked at the outset.   We hiked back to the shop, got him a left handed bow then hit the course again.  The improvement was immediate, from shooting all over the place, to hitting the paper almost every time.  By the time we finished the 16 target course, he was asking when he could go hunting!  Both him and his dad had a great time and hopefully will be buying bows in the near future.  The fire has been lit!  Both of them were smiling all the way home.

That is such an awesome feeling watching a new comer take interest and improve as time goes on. Good work on making it fun for them.  

Keep that fire burning!
I try to keep a couple youth bows around, just for that.  No telling how many I have given away.I love to see a youngster have a good time with a bow and arrows!
Great Job, Sir!  

One of my neices is an amazing shot but my sister is not real keen on letting her shoot, of coarse everytime shes at my house the bows come out. My sister is getting warmed up to the idea, finally. Good on you for starting the fire.

Good on ya, Chris!

Thank you for promoting our sport.

It's such a wonderful family friendly(in most cases) activity. I suppose if you're one of those guys whose wive's think the "Honey-do" list comes 1st it could be a problem but otherwise, it's great.

You and all those who share what we love are a real assets to the rest of us.

God bless,Mudd

That's an awesome feeling when somebody else shows an interest in something that you hold dear to your soul.
Great Job, and you probably just created a future bow hunter who will be hooked for life!
You should have patted him on the shoulder and said
"Welcome to my world, it only gets better from here on out"

That's the way I feel when I'm helping my 8yr. old nephew Tucker in the back yard with his shooting. He loves to shoot and has practically begged me to make him an Osage longbow......Well guess what he's getting for Christmas?
It's up on my bow making bench right now.    

That's great! Good on you!

Semo-That's funny, I said almost that exact thing to him and his dad when we were finished!  

It was a great day, thanks for the kind words.

Great job! That is exactly what the world of bowhunting and archery are all about.  Putting more of the time and physical effort into it than what we get out of it.

More often than not the reward is internal, occasionally we get lucky and tag and bag one.
     

good stuff !

Awesome right there.

Good Job!    I had that fire lit with my boys, but now one is in the Army and the other is now more into girls than bows. KY  

QuoteOriginally posted by KYArcher:
Good Job!     I had that fire lit with my boys, but now one is in the Army and the other is now more into girls than bows. KY    

That's ok, the new always wears off of girls after  a while when they find out how much of a pain in the @$$ they are. Bows and bowhunting is a passion and a fire that never goes away once you got it in ya!

Yeah your right Semo, I'm sure we all went through that stage.     KY

Good Job! It's great to hear and see others finding the passion of traditional archery!!

Way to hang in there and have the boy try the other bow. He will now have more fun than frustration. Sounds like you have a future hunting buddy.      

Thats how its done      

It's amazing the way people gravitate toward archery equipment. You could have a collection of baseball gloves, hockey sticks, basket balls, golf clubs etc, ad infinitum. People will look at them and say very little. But let them have a peek at a bunch of wood arrows and a few recurves or longbows and maybe a back quiver or two hanging on the wall and it's like a moth to a flame. There is always interest. Ya gotta love it!

JW