What got you into bowhunting?

[jmbuckhunter]

I know we just had a thread about your beginings into hunting. This is just more specific.

For me it was a combination of moving into our new house in 1992 and the Great flood of 1993 in the St. Louis area. We moved to a more rural setting less than a mile from the Missouri river. When the floods of '93 came, it pushed all of the deer off of the islands and all of the bottom land. We live on higher ground, so driving to and from work I saw herds of deer every day.

There is some open land, but not much room for gun hunting. So I started checking into bow hunting during the summer and got my first bow. I got permission to hunt a few places and saw lots of deer. But I was still thinking like a gun hunter and got busted many times. I managed to get off 1 shot that wasn't all that close, but I was hooked. Bow season lasted for months and I loved the close encounters with the deer. Plus I could hunt close to home.

Been at it ever since and managed to improve my archery skills and have taken many deer with archery equipment. So much so that I don't even gun hunt them any more.

So what's your story? What got you into this addicting sport?

[Edcyclopedia]

Pretty much hunt everything and my buddy started with archery a few years before me.
So he dragged me in and now I need an intervention because I have a deer hunting problem, I'm hooked on the archery drug

[RockinChair]

I picked up bowhunting simply to spend more time in the woods, and now I am hooked. I like it more than gun season.

[Rob/PA Bowyer]

I pretty much explained that in the other thread but what I didn't say was,

What turned me into a diehard (pretty much only) archer was my current job. When I was hired 18 years ago, my boss pretty much said you may never see the first day of rifle off. I replied, that's okay, I'll just get it done in archery. That pretty much summed it up.

He was right for the most part. Two guys in the last 18 years take the first week off. I have had maybe 6 first day of rifle season days off in 18 years and that's only when my Saturday schedule hits that week. That's why I videod that big 8 point I posted. I happened to be off cause I had to work that Saturday.

No one other than I took the rut off work as a bowhunter. Now I have one guy under me that takes it too but he as to wait til I pick it first.

[mobow]

Man what a cool thread. I love this kind of stuff.

Well, my step dad (henceforth will be simply called...dad) bought me my first bow when I was......12 I think. A bear whitetail hunter. We had fun shooting in the yard. Oh, and coincidentally, we bought a metal detector last year. Man, we are finding arrows I shot when I was 13 buried 10" underground.....That was fun.

Anyway, in 1994 I moved in w/ a guy named Mike. Mike worked at the archery shop that I work at now. He fueled the fire, and I updated my equipment, a ProLine Riptide, which I still have, and love. But the fire smoldered for quite a few years. I bow hunted here and there, with absolutely NO success, and in fact, I rarely even SAW a deer.

I joined a local fire department in......1997, and a couple years later a friendship was born. Actually, it was more than a couple....I first met Brian in......2001. In 2003 he invited me to hunt his farm for a weekend. I was still shooting my Riptide. We hunted Friday evening, saw nothing. He put me in a stand and PROMISED I would see deer. Yeah, he was right. 9 am I counted 15 does walking around, and I missed 3 of them, and a basket racked 8. This was all in 20 minutes. Ok, I was HOOKED. 2 weeks later I shot my first deer with archery tackle, this was 2003.

The next year I bought a new bow, a Hoyt UltraSport. Been hooked ever since. I look back, and that's really not been that long ago, only 4 years. Man, I didn't know SQUAT back then about archery or deer. Look at me now, I work in an archery shop, shoot multiple deer each year......Bowhuntingand archery have given me the opportunity to make some very good friends, on of which is the starter of this thread, jmbuckhunter. God gave me talents in this, and through this He has really saved my life. I am soooooo grateful to Him for that, and even more grateful for the friendships I've made along the way. And you know, that's really what this is about, isn't it? Relationships? Yeah, killing a 130" 8 point was AWESOME, but I would trade it in a heartbeat if it meant keeping my friends.

That's the long answer. The short answer is.....a guy named Brian got the fire burning. Thank ya brother, I appreciate ya more than you know.

[MOhunter46]

I simply wanted more time to hunt.

[TexasBowHunter]

I had a fried that let me shoot a bow when I was 15 and I always wanted one but couldn't come up with the money. Had to wait till I got a job and making my own money, been at it a little over 10 years now, haven't gun hunted since till the last two years with my oldest daughter.

[popeandyoungchaser]

I was 13 and couldn't get enough of hunting. Hunting consumed me and I had to be able to spend more time in a the woods. So here i am at 19 almost 20 and can't get enough of BOWHUNTING!!

[SwampCollie]

I had the opportunity to hunt on Hope Plantation in Jacksonboro, SC... which is owned by Ted Turner... when I was in college through our Rod and Gun Club. Every Wednesday in the fall... archery only.... does and feral hogs only.... I just wanted to see the place.... started my sophmore year.. which would have been fall of 2002... I lost count of how many deer and pigs I shot there over the remaining three years of school and two years I stuck around and worked in Charleston and got to hunt as an Alumni (which is not common... I guess I was special). That place, being able to hunt there... was the whole reason I started bow hunting....

[Matt / PA]

I think I just lucked into the bowhunting /archery passion........I was an outdoor NUT as a kid but mostly fishing even though nobody in my family showed any interest in it.
My mom was our cub scout pack leader and at a big scout retreat when i was 9 years old I picked up my first bow.
The first time I picked up that little fiberglass bow and cedar arrows I think I just knew.
Anyway (true story) There was only 2 instructors on the line for a whole bunch of kids and everyone needed attention. I remember some vague instructions like "Don't shoot the kid next to you"and off he went to the next kid.
I was given 6 arrows and left to my own........a paper yellow, red,blue standard bullseye target at 10 yards.

I proceeded to shoot all 6 arrows into the yellow bullseye but nobody saw it. LOL
I stood there waiting for the instructor to come back when he did he looked at me, then at the target and said (and I can still rememebr this 27yrs later) "That's OK son everyone misses when they first start this sport.....it's pretty hard"
I said 'Sir I didn't miss, they're all in the bullseye"
The target back was a worn out hay bale with a hole in the center.

I can still remember his face when he unpinned the target and pulled it away to see the arrows and they were all in a one handed group dead center. He was jumping up and down and called the other guy over to see. LOL
He pulled the arrows out slightly to get them to poke through the paper, sure enough all in the middle.
I had shot a perfect score at 9yrs old the first time my hands ever touched a bow.
350 kids in that jamboree and I got walk up in front of all of them at the awards ceremony to get my little trophy with the gold plastic archer on it.
I still have it somewhere, and I'm still collecting trophies today. LOL

That one expereince springboarded me into wanting to hunt. I BEGGED for a bow until I finally got my Bear Whitetail hunter for Christmas 1984.
You wanted to see a kid possesed, you should have seen me with that bow. It was like 29" and 60# but I was big enough to shoot it and I shot EVERYDAY. and it was amazing to think of the way things were then.........my mom would trust me at 13yrs old to hike through the woods over a mile to the local gun club to shoot at the walk through range all day and make it back before dark.

It really laid the foundation for my skills today. I probably shot more between the ages of 13 and 16 than many guys on here have shot in their lives....and it was all self taught.

I took my first deer (a doe) with that bow by myself on the ground at age 16.