What got you started?

[txcc99]

I know, old thread but what the hey!!

A friend of mine bowhunted when he was younger and said he wanted to get back into it. He went out and bought a Bow and one weekend we went out and shot it. GAME OVER!!!! Was at the bow shop not a month later and was bringing one home. Its just fun and we have some good competitions.

[BT]

That is the same way with my buddy stilllearning and how he draws in his friends

[txcc99]

I agree, its worse than crack!! Hell, if crack is anything like it, I dont want anything to do with it. One addiction at a time!! ;D ;D ;D

[BT]

It's gotta be close
My wife says far to often something like.....

Her: do you know how long you have been out there?!
Me : I dont know....an hour or something....whats the big deal?
Her: you have been out there for 3 1/2 hours! (grr)

[bengal13]

I started out as a gun hunter in 1975, and about 1980 (I was 30) a friend got me into it. I loved to hunt and bow season added another 60 days to my season. Back then gun hunting was Buck only, but bow hunting was either sex ,so I picked up the bow to fill the freezer. It only took 5 years to fill that freezer! First bow deer was a 115 lb. button buck. Today I wouldn't even take the bow off it's hook for that deer.....

First bow was a Fred Bear, Whitetail II. It must have been pushin' those 2219's at least 120 fps. No pins, shot with a finger tab, etc.

Now I will tell you I'm a bow hunter who goes gun hunting on opening week-end more as tradition then anything else.

[bambeklr]

Wow the memories this thread brings back. For me it all started with watching cowboys and indians. Making my own bows from sticks and nylon strings. Then widdling arrows. My dad quitbow hunting when I was very young. I then was given a recurve by my grandfather, and started playing. I was shooting every day until I hit the top of the target and my dads 77 f-150 had a nice little hole in the hood. I didnt get to shoot for a while. Then my uncle gave me my dads old whitetail II and I shot it until the sights rattled off. I couldnt hit much with it since it was my dads and he is left handed shooting a right handed bow. The pins were home made and about 4 inches long since he was shoting with the wrong eye. But I compensated. Then shot better when they fell off. When I was 15 I remember walking behind the house and watching deer in the bean feild in august. Then one afternoon I hid behind a clump of grass and watched 4 bucks on the one end of the feild. Then a monster came out in front of me and fed to about 12yds. He finnaly looked at me and stomped and moved hi head all around trying to find out what was behind that bush. After he left I went home and insisted on having a bow. I went right to the cabelas catalog and picked one out. A pse F-2 maxis. I got it for christmas and since then have been hooked. The first time I saw a deer while bow hunting I couldnt stop shaking. It was on the other end of the feild and I was still like that. I still gun hunt but nothing feels the same as the bow.

[kmp]

Twenty years ago my Grandpa bought me a Pro Line wooden crossbow (legal in Ohio) to extend my deer season, it is still in the closet. Three or four years after that I bought a used White Tail II and started shooting it. After two years of that I bought the PSE that I still shoot now.

My kids are 12, 10 & 6. The 12 & 10 year old boys hunted with a used Horton crossbow with me last year and they are both shooting compounds at home. My 6 year old daughter wants a bow this year. Watching them shoot, hunt and fish and trying to teach them is almost more fun than doing it myself.

I hope they look back on our time together now the way I do when my Grandpa took me out.

[BT]

Thats some good stuff kmp

[BT]

It was on the other end of the feild and I was still like that. I still gun hunt but nothing feels the same as the bow.

I would do that every time for the first few year
Sometimes the deer would simply walk past because I couldnt pull my bow back ;D

[smj]

I think I was in second grade when my dad brought home a little yellow and white fiberglass bow for me. I could buy wood arrows up at the department store for about 12 or 15 cents each with a target tip on them, or maybe around 18 cents with a field tip on instead! It would shoot farther than our backyard, so I would shoot my arrows up in the air a bit higher to keep them in the yard - I never thought of shooting at a target... (May be why I like to watch arrows fly...) Although I do seem to recall shooting at the apples in a neighbors apple tree a time or two. The old guy even came out a couple times with a ladder to help me get my arrows back! I don't remember dad giving me much of a lesson at that point, just turned me loose. I think my allowance was a quarter or two when dad had it to spare, I would walk over a mile each way to go buy more arrows! Once I got a bit older, say around 4th grade, dad started to take me to an indoor range, and offer some instruction about how to do it all.

My first time deer hunting, I was put up in a tree that bent way over and was right next to a golf course. As the sun came up, I was looking at a branch and thought that the wind was really blowing... Then it dawned on me that the branch I looking at was the branch I was trying to stand on - and no other tree had so much as a leaf moving in them! The golfers started coming by after a bit, and they all stared at me and laughed. I slunk home and didn't hunt for a while after that one, but I think I have made up for it over the years!