I’ve always been intrigued by archery but never tried it before. Always wanted to. Last week I was thinking about it and wondering why I hadn’t seen any Olympic archery on tv so I went to the NBC website and watched all the videos. I had to know if it was as fun as it looked. I found a range online that not only provided equipment and gave lessons, and was within a half hour drive - - it was all free. Destiny. So I showed up Saturday morning and shot for the first time. It was every bit as fun as it looked, and maybe even a little more. It’s quite a rush loosing the arrow and seeing it impale itself right where you intended it to.
I left wanting more and have been thinking about it ever since. I’ll be back - every Saturday, I think.
I’ve been practising archery occasionally, on and off. But I’m an extremely poor archer. Never even could decide whether I’d rather use a modern or traditional bow (I like a lot those wooden bows, and it’s more fun at first but it quickly becomes highly frustrating). I’d like to alternate but everybody told me that it’s the worst idea ever.
They fire recurve at the range I went to and I really liked it so I want to stick with recurve. My dad has a compound he would let me borrow/have, though, so I wonder how hard it would be to learn fundamentals on that and switch back to recurve later.
I’ve been doing it on a weekly basis for nearly four years (first with borrowed bows, admittedly). I can only say that I can’t stand compound bows. But then, I’m a bit of a junior medieval weaponry nut.
I’d do it for a higher level - competitions are great, great fun - except I don’t have the back for the higher draws, any more. I’m currently shopping around for a longbow of the Agincourt model, properly made, no expenses spared. (The goal is to have it by Christmas, as I’ll save up for it) I usually deal with 50-70 pound draw bows, but do well enough with 110.
My current favourite that I own is the PSE Savannah Longbow Supreme - as seen here - with a 55 pound draw, RH for preferance (though I’m mostly ambidexterous).
I’m also looking into doing my own fletching, both to save some money and because I’m a compulsive hobbyist
To tell you two things I wish they’d told me when I started - GET A GOOD BRACER! Trust me, wrist-slips - where the string hits your wrist or underarm - WILL happen. And it hurts like a sonova#¤£@€ . . .
And do some back exercises, unless you’re already in good shape. (And even then it won’t hurt) Archery does some mischief on your backs, trust me.
I did it in junior high and really enjoyed it, even though I wasn’t very good and my form was probably awful. If I had some spare time the local sports center probably offers classes in traditional Japanese archery, although I don’t know if my ego would take getting lumped with (and probably beaten by) the elementary school kids.
I used to practice archery when I was younger - about 25 years ago. I shot a little in local competitions in the ‘heavy tackle’ category (not the fancy bows with all the stabilizers and sights and such - just an open hunting bow, no sight). It was great fun. More fun than shooting guns. I even did a bowhunting trip once, but I’m not really a hunter and didn’t enjoy it that much. But the target shooting - a riot. Get a cheap but decent compound bow and have a blast. As hobbies go, it’s one of the less expensive ones.
Not an archer, per se, but I shoot a little. Recurve, bare bow (no sights). Cisco, from what I know and have heard, it would be an make adjusting easier if you learn on a recurve and transition to a compound. With the let off, you have a few seconds to compensate for any draw errors with a compound, whereas a recurve has very little margin for error.
This stuff kinda turned me away from archery. (Unfair, I realise now.) i didn’t have the patience to deal with the negative aspects of the sport.
The wrist-slip left a welt on the inside of my left forearm.
Also, the finger glove didn’t fit (I had/have small hands), and holding the string taut was difficult (the string kept wanting to pull the fingertips of the glove off the fingers). I ended up taking off the glove to get a better grip, but then the string eventually made my finger tips sore.
I used to keep in practice during college and the years after college, but I didn’t keep up with it very much after that. I still have my recurve … I’ve thought about displaying it on the wall at home – it’s particularly nice looking, IMHO – but then I wonder if it would give the living room too much of a Ye Olde Hunting Lodge vibe.
I would strongly recommend mastering the fundamentals (and by mastering the fundamentals, I am thinking about 1 year, not 1 session) on a recurve before moving to compound.
It happened every time I shot saturday! Luckily the club bows are only 20lbs (I think that’s what he said), so I didn’t bleed or anything, but it left a welt each time.
Yeah, I’m in decent shape but apparently archery uses muscles that otherwise don’t get used. I took a nap when I got home and woke up in pain! My back and upper abs were hurting. So those areas are getting special attention in the gym from now on.
Ideally I don’t ever want to shoot compound. I like recurve and that’s what’s used in competitions, which I want to enter eventually. I can’t afford my own at the moment though, unfortunately. The instructor held up a bow during the lesson and said it was a mid-range bow, not really ideal for competition, and it cost $1,200 :eek:. I have a baby on the way so my wife would kill me if I dropped that kind of coin on a brand new hobby.
I took some beginner archery lessons a few years ago and I loved it, but found that it was too expensive to keep up as a hobby. The archery club was also a pretty decent distance away, and it wasn’t very convenient.
I had a recurve when I was a kid - around when I was 11-13, and liked it a lot. I didn’t compete or hunt or anything like that, I just shot targets out in the back 40. My uncle gifted me with a grown-up recurve last year (after I blathered on about taking archery up again), but I haven’t gone to get arrows or anything yet. I think this thread will kick my butt into getting a range set up this weekend though.
I shot a ton as a kid as our family belonged to an archery club. It was a legitimate club with it’s own land and a building with an indoor range, meeting rooms, and a bar/lounge.
The land was mainly wooded and they carved out a few walking courses that had targets set up at various distances. They’d have leauge nights and other assorted tournaments not unlike a bowling club.
There are a lot of these type “clubs” throughout southeast Wisconsin.
Most of them like ours would run an annual 3-D shoot that was open to non-members to go through the outdoor course to shoot at 3-D animals carved out of styrofoam. Some of them were pretty elaborate with gorillas, zebras, moose, lions, etc. They’d give out trophies for high scores in different age groups.
They’d also have various novelty shoots like a running deer that moved along a track or cable, giant elephant targets set up in a field and shot at from long distances with $100 bills taped to them ($5 for 3 arrows).
The coolest one I saw was a place that built a life size T-Rex and set it up in the bottom of a quarry and you’d shoot at it from the top edge.
I’m not as into archery as I have been in the past but in my collection I have a Jaguar from Martin which I use for some target shooting, 3-D shoots and it’s legal for hunting.
I have a few recurves for target shooting and SCA war-archery use. I also have a Hungarian bow (similar to the ones here) that I’ve used a few times and hope that one day in the future I can start trying some mounted archery. I need to upgrade my horseback riding skills first.
Wow, I was going to say that’s CRAZY, but then I realized it has been a few years and I suppose inflation has been at work. It still seems high to me, even so. I would suggest shopping around a little and seeing what you come up with, or maybe even find someone selling used. I know with a baby on the way (congratulations, btw) nothing is really cheap anymore, but my instinct is that you should be able to find something completely workable for a new archer for about 1/2 of that price, or even less.
I used to shoot at camp. It was great because we got to earn pins - I got up to 20 yards, 130 points (I think). After I became staff I hardly ever managed to make it to the shoots and couldn’t shoot well enough to move on. At least two staff members have done the whole range of pins with both arms.
I’d always hit my arm and it’d go under the guard and leave a god-awful bruise.
Thanks. Those sound really fun. At first I thought you typo’d Sonora because I’ve never heard of Sonoita, but it looks to be a pretty little town down on the border.
Oh, I will most definitely be buying used. I’ve seen a few on Craigslist already in the $150-$200 range, but I have no idea how good they are. At the lesson they said that if you come out for 6 or 7 weeks in a row and you’re still interested, they sit you down and talk to you about your goals and what kind of bow is best for you. I think the implication was that you can’t just use their bows forever.
