smitdog

have they started into archery yet? If so,What age are they? What kind of setup do they have? I would like to start looking at getting my daughter into it. She is seven.

FOP23

My daughter is 7 also, but no I haven't introduced her to archery yet. I did get her a youth .22 this year and she has had a positive experience with it. As for archery equipment, I'm going to hold out until she grows a little more. The summer camp she goes to has an archery unit which she enjoys, but I'm not going to make the investment until she shows a dedicated interest. I believe then she'll be stronger and more "trainable". I am going to take full advantage in PA's mentor firearms program in the upcoming years so if the desire is there, we'll switch to archery. I think she'll get more out of it.

BobCo19-65

My son started at age 6 with a fiberglass longbow. He went through a bunch of bows and now has a 45# @ 28" Bear Recurve for his main bow. He also has a Howard Hill 40# longbow. Hejust turned13.

Arthur P

IMO, you're getting her off to a late start.

I made a selfbow for my son when he was born, but had to wait a spell to see him shoot it, though. I got him started when he was 2, popping balloons at 5-10 yards. Kids love seeing stuff happen when they shoot it. Taylor was about 10 before he decided he wanted a compound, so I set him up with a Browning Micro Midas. He terrorized his age group at the local tournaments for a few years.

I'm glad I got him going early so I could enjoy his company for awhile, because once he got to high school he didn't have much time for ol' dad and archery, and it wasn't very long after he graduated that he joined the Army. But he's like me, being a well rounded archer. If it shoots an arrow, he can shoot it and shoot it well. Compounds, recurves, longbows... doesn't matter to him, although he does prefer longbow.

MC Bowhunter

My daughter started with a recurve at age 7.By age 11 she was into a compound and able to pull the 40# legal limit to hunt in our state. She took her first deer that year at 20 yards. A perfect heart shot.

Darrall

Greg / MO

Here's my son with his first bow, which he'd been shooting for over a year at that point... pretty decent results, huh?



He graduated from that to a bigger blue fiberglass model from Wal-Mart, and I just gave him a brand-new Diamond Cutter last week, complete with Victory Jr. arrows finished off with Spiderman wraps courtesy of Onestringer. He'll turn 5 at the end of July.

The Cutter (and similar model Edge) has the ability to go from 20-lb. limbs up to 50-lb. limbs, which should carry someone a long ways in growing up. The neat thing is that Bowtech has a program where once you start out with the lower limbs, all you have to do is take your bow back to an authorized dealer and they'll send it back to the factory to have the next sized limbs put on your bow, e.g., going from 20-lbers. to 29-lbers. The factory will also go through the bow and make sure everything is in top-notch condition ... for $50.

Sooner State Hunter

My daughter will be 8 yrs old in May, bought her a BB gun for Christmas and now she wants a bow so she can shoot with mom and dad.She'll get one for her birthday present.

We didn't start her earlier b/c at the time rodeo was more important to us,so she started riding horses on her ownat3 and swinging a rope at the same time, so I guess whatever a parents interest is, the child should be involved early in their childhood so they can determine for theirselves whether it's something they want to pursue when they get older.

Greg / MO

Good point, there... though my son sees me shooting daily, and he does shoot with me often, he also just often takes one shot and lays his bow down so he can run down into the creek that cuts through the back corner of our property to look for minnows and crawdads. I just watch him go, knowing that if I push him, I'm likely to push hiim away. Besides, I would have loved to have been able to catch crawdads in my own yard when I was growing up!

virginiashadow

A late start at age seven? Come on.

Best of luck to you smitdog. My daughter is 5 and son is 3. They play around and shoot a recurve bow with me sometimes. They see me shooting all the time, so they are very interested. My son even asked me to " go do a hunt in the woods" yesterday. If you get her a bow, please let us know how she is doing so I can take some notes.


Greg, HAHAHAHAHAHA! Your son is lethal!

shed33

both my boys started with the little panda bear compound at age 3..

Jess is shooting a Mathews Genesis now at age 7 (yesterday was his bday) and Tyson is still shooting the little bow at age 4. We are shooting almost everyday now with better weather and daylight savings time helping us out after school. They really get into it, its fun working with them.