My son will be turning 12 soon and one of the presents he has wanted, for the last 2 years, is a bow and arrow set. Not a toy one. I recall getting a simple bow when I was around his age, my wife opposes the idea. We live on just over an acre with woods that run several hundred yards deep before the open into a hilly cow pasture, so with the target properly placed there will be little chance of damage or even entering someone else’s property.
My question is:
What is the best way to get him instructed and/or is he too young?
I had a bow when I was, like, nine. I wasn’t strong enough to string it by myself at the beginning, so that put some constraints on my activity. But I was sternly instructed never to aim it even in the general direction of any living thing (particularly people, dogs, etc.) I was treated to a demonstration with an old ice-cream bucket, and was asked to ponder whether I thought somebody’s skull was much tougher.
I never got up to any mischief with it. I sent a few arrows over the back fence accidentally, but tweren’t nothin’ but a corn field back there.
You and your wife know you son’s maturity level better than any of us strangers, though.
I got my first bow around that age. I was fortunate enough to have someone that knew what they were doing teach me how to use it.
I would check with the YMCA. There are also some very good books on the subject.
In addition to educating yourself, some other safety things you might want to put into place (while he’s still learning) are :
Buy arrows that are a little too long
Make sure he wears proper equipment
Never shoot at hard targets (arrows have a quirky ‘ricochet’ effect)
NEVER let him shoot straight up. This may seem obvious to you and I, but a kid with a bow can turn into Chuck Yeager and want to ‘see what it can do’. B.T./D.T.
Instill in him (over and over) that it is not a toy and can hurt and kill.
But I had a blast with mine. Kept me off the streets. I’d say O.K. with supervision.
Last thing, I would start with a stick bow - not a compound.
Everything that has been said makes perfect sense to me, except I don’t understand the advice to buy arrows that are a little too long. Could you explain the thought behind that comment?
make that ‘direct on sight supervision’. So sayeth the mom of Ben who has a manly looking scar from ‘the arrow incident’. (IME, they often think ‘I know what I’m doing’ so it’s ok by myself’ and then end up doing things like shooting Shirley Temple - mybrotherwiththeBBgun- or tuggingonthearrow - my son with the manly scar).
Undiciplined shooters have a tendancy to overpull at the last moment before release to get more ‘uumph’ into the arrow (which of course it does, but at a great price in accuacy). The proper arrow length should barely exceed your bow hand at anchor point. Pulling further back will put your hand in FRONT of the arrow. Bad. Plus, shooting an arrow an inch or two too long won’t affect accuracy until you get pretty good, which you won’t until you learn proper release.
The 180° rule:Tell your child to hold his arms straight out like “Jesus on the cross”(I was raised Christian) and make an imaginary line that stretches as far as the eye can see to the left and right. Tell him never shoot if anyone is standing on the target side of that line.
Additional thoughts:
Unless your son has thoughts of becoming a competition shooter, let him learn to shoot instinctually rather than with sights. It’s harder to learn but more accurate for general shooting, IMHO, once learned. It’s also more fun.
For that type of shooting, I find the 3-fingers-under or ‘Apache’ draw (as opposed to one finger above, two below) to work best as it allows you to site down the arrow better. The noch will hold the arrow in place on top.
One of my sisters taught me to shoot her bow when I was about nine; her bow and several dozen arrows became mine when she left for college. An encounter with a neighbor from across the street resulted in my not keeping them. SOB said that it was illegal for someone my age to be shooting arrows, which he may have said only in fear of my shooting in the wrong direction. It wasn’t just what he said, but the way he said it.
Depending on the size of your city you may find a local archery club. Someone at the local sporting goods store may be able to point you in the right direction as well. Before you enlist the skills of any self-proclaimed experts make sure you have seen them shoot and observed their range safty habits. If he happens to be in Boy Scouts he could work on the Archery Merit Badge.
I had my first bow when I was about 10. One of those cool red fiberglass jobs. My dad set up a stack of straw bales about 6’ high and 6’ wide. For a target, he just stuck a paper plate in the middle of it. He had me start out standing about 20’ away from it. When I could put twenty arrows in the paper plate in a row, he moved my “shooting line” back to 30’. Kept this routine up until I could do it from 50’ and then switched to the small size paper plates. When I could do it from there, I got a really good bow and smaller targets. By the time I was 16 I was an extremely good archer. Plus, as a kid I could spend hours out there shooting until it was too dark to see the target. Every day I was Robin Hood.
Damn I almost want to go buy another one of those bows again:)
I know the feeling, TDog, I lived to shoot. By 18 we were shooting plastic trashcan lids, and later Frisbees, either thrown or rolled as moving targets. I’ve actually taken 2 quail ‘on the wing’. Yummmmm…'course I won’t tell you how many I shot at to get those two
My almost-12 year old daughter is really into archery at the moment. (She practices at an indoor range at least once a week and hopes to start competing soon.) I would strongly recommend finding an archery club somewhere with people who know what they are doing so your son can get some professional instruction. They will teach him proper safety as well as proper technique.
I wouldn’t see any problem with him shooting on your property, provided you are absolutely sure that there is no possibility of anyone wandering onto the range. Is your property fenced or otherwise posted? And, while each child is different, 12 is certainly old enough to shoot, but perhaps with supervision?
Oh, and a warning…if he really gets into it, the equipment can be damned expensive!
Just out of curiosity, did anyone else here do archery in gym class at the age of 12? By that age, we were shooting fiberglass bow and arrow sets across the football field in gym class. Despite the fact that there were 25 kids shooting arrows across a football field and one teacher, I don’t recall anyone being injured in any way. I’m not sure I’d suggest this as a preferred mode of instruction, however.
