Getting a quality archery product (regardless of manufacturer) into the hands of more and more beginning shooters is a good thing, in my mind. The better the experience for a beginner, the more likely he or she will be to continue in the sport and add to our diminishing ranks.

I know I started off with a Wal-Mart bow (a Bear Hunter) because I had no clue. Really --it was my freshman year in undergraduate school, and I had just been looking through a Department of Conservation code book and noticed that archery season was nearly four months long compared to the two weeks alloted for gun season. The next time I was in our local Wal-Mart, I of course ended up in the sporting goods section, but this time I noticed the bows hanging there and remembered what I had read. On a whim, I bought the bow and some cheap aluminum arrows and I had my start.

But -- with the equipment I purchased, it would have been very easy for me to have become discouraged because it wasn't exactly top-notch. I was fortunate enought to become passionate about the sport with what was definitely some ill-fitted and mismatched equipment to stick it out and even took my first buck and turkey with that bow. There's no doubt though thatmy enjoyment for the sport increased exponentially when I bought my first top-of-the-line bow a few years later.

If a manufacturer can provide the equipment at reasonable prices to let the newcomer feel that joy earlier on of having solid, good equipment in his or her hands, I'm all for it.