Bow Hunters?

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LawrenceU

Puritan Board Doctor
I'm curious at how many bow hunters we have here. I guess I'll ease up and allow those 'compound device' users to say they are archers ;)

What is your setup?

I shoot 30.75" POC shafts with 145gr. Zwickey two bladers, three 5" left wing helicals off the shelf from my Black Widow HF. She pulls 46# at 28. My draw length is 30". She's 55.5 lbs from there.
 
I've been a target shooter for years, and have been using the same Bear compound without bells and whistles for 30 years. It's fun, and I'm currently teaching my youngest daughter at the local range (20 bucks per month for both of us!!). She has a Greattree recurve with a 22 pound draw.

But hunting takes time and money, and to do it with any semblance at all of efficiency, I take a rifle ;-)
 
Perg, that's one thing I still have from my time there, a set of a bow and arrows. The bow was made from a kind of black palm tree, which is really strong and springy. They didn't use fletching, though, and their accuracy wasn't what it could have been.
 
The group I belong to makes D-section English Longbows [not to be confussed with American Longbows] and they hunt with them. We are breaking in a warbow right now with a draw over a 100#, somewhere around 130#. I also have a recurve. All of our arrows are hand made, the shafts are rounded out by hand and the feathers are attached with thread.
 
JM,
I once made a D sectioned long bow. In truth that is what a long bow is. Most today are long flat bows. The bow I made was from Yew, 70 inches long and drew 105 lbs. It was something to shoot. I made the shafts from birch boards and fletched them with goose. The fletching was glued using hide glue and stitched on with linen thread. That bow had cast! I sold it to a reenactor. I miss it. It was too long to hunt with efficiently, but it was a joy to shoot.
 
How long does making something like that take? Do you have to specially season the Yew?
 
Forget Yew it cost too much and doesn't like damp weather. Osage is the king but can also be expensive, they make nice shooters with a lot of zip, little hand shock. We've used hickory, maple and oak with success. We have used staves and boards from Home Depot. We've also laminated different woods like hickory and maple, or oak and maple, we also have one made of locus.

It takes about 6-8 hours of steady work on a single board to make a bow and yes, you can hunt with a board bow. The bowyer that leads our group hunts with a $10 board bow wtih a draw around 55#.

You can order a kit from : Rudderbows Archery, Custom Made bows, at a great price!

A simple board bow design : Hickory Board Bow

PS: Real men shoot off the knuckle! lol
 
JM,
I once made a D sectioned long bow. In truth that is what a long bow is. Most today are long flat bows. The bow I made was from Yew, 70 inches long and drew 105 lbs. It was something to shoot. I made the shafts from birch boards and fletched them with goose. The fletching was glued using hide glue and stitched on with linen thread. That bow had cast! I sold it to a reenactor. I miss it. It was too long to hunt with efficiently, but it was a joy to shoot.

Lawrence, I agree with you, the American LB is a flat bow, not many know the difference.
 
Board bows are great! I've made some that were real zingers.

You are right Yew is awful if you live in a wet climate. I just wanted to do it. Osage, Bois d'Arc, is great wood. Good luck on finding a straight stave long enough to make a long bow without a splice though. When I was in Kansas I had an old fence corner post that I found that was about seven feet long, straight, perfect, and large enough for several staves. I found it about three weeks before moving to Alabama. I made the mistake of putting it in the stuff that the moving company loaded onto the semi trailer. When it arrived here it was no where to be seen. :mad: They wouldn't inventory it because it had 'no value'. After some digging I found out that the driver of the truck was a bow hunter. Wonder where that fine piece of Osage went. . . hmm.
 
I have been labeled an "avid" bowhunter. Which is probably true.

I shoot a Ross 331 compound. 68#. Carbon arrows, 3-blade Muzzy broadheads.

I actually have a little shooting range set up in the back of the church property. Missouri season opens in 10 days, Kansas in 17.
 
You are right Yew is awful if you live in a wet climate.

How is it then that this was the wood of choice for English longbows for so long? The UK is a set of outright soggy islands. Is it perhaps all they had?
 
A self Yew bow loses cast in warm humid weather and can draw heavy in the cold. Yew is very elastic.
 
Matthews DXT 70Lbs, 29inch draw, Carbon Express Maxima arrows, G5 100gr. broadheads.

I can hit beer cans at 60 yards, w/ broadheads...no joke.

But...after spending over 80hrs hunting pronghorn antelope this year, all I have for it is 3 misses on 3 nice bucks to hurt my pride, a bum knee, and a whole buch of cactus pricks. I'm better off sticking to shooting the beer cans
 
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