Pat no one is insinuating any wrong doing or asassanating any ones character. I am reading the book about Fred Bear which I like so far even though I find it dry reading in parts. I have always thought Fred Bear was a lefty and have even seen his polar bear and the Kodiac Recurve he shot him with at Cabelas in Michigan. While I have seen his bow there for the life of me I can't remember if it was left or right handed. This spur of the moment question was tossed up here only because I'm curious and I thought this may be an interesting topic is all. I guess I have a new excuse to drive down to Cabellas to look at the bear and bow again on a fact finding mission and while I'm there do some shopping.

Pat the book you have is it Trailing a Bear by Robert Munger 1995 ed. That is the book I have before me. The top picture title is "Fred shooting a Polar Bear" which just shows the bow right hand tilt. The bottom picture which I have just re-read shows a picture of Fred at Full draw "Taking a shot at a Polar Bear ice sculpture". This I have just noticed is an ice sculrture not a bear.
In the book Munser mentions that one of the camera men left camp every day for an hour or so and Fred and him where courious as to where he was going so they followed him or his tracts and found that he had been carving a polar bear out of ice. Turns out the guy was an art student also and from the looks of the picture a good one as I thought this was a real picture of him shooting at the bear.

no the book that i am referring to is Bows on the Little Delta by Glen St. Charles. I def recommend it great reading.
I was not insinuating that YOU were asassinating character I was wanting everyone to know that I was not and it is not my intention to do so, simply a discussion of points that are brought out in the book i am making ref to.

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Fred's first book was the Archers Bible. His second book was "The World of Archery". Besides being the most detailed book I've ever read on traditional shooting, equipment and the proper tuning of this equipment it has a picture of Fred on page 116 shooting a target bow "with sights". It states that he was right handed but shot left handed due to a dominate eye. If you can find the book it would cure any problems you may ever have getting arrows to fly etc...A good read!

I shot with Mr. Bear at the Gainsville factory several times as well as the Gainsville field range in the late seventies. He always shot left handed . I explained that I was left eye dominant and shoot right handed and he stated he was the same originally and switched to left hand shooting. I believe Howard Hill was cross dominant as well but stayed right handed.

I'm not defending Fred Bear(he doesn't need it) and I don't look at any of the old timers as heros(with the possible exception of Chet Stevenson who was a pure hunter) but Fred Bear was indeed an innovator. He was one of the pioneers in alternative arrow materials- played around with a "poison pod" which was rejected, thank God- was early on involved with compound bows- was one of the first to make machines to produce laminations and bow limbs on a production basis- made some of the first hunting videos(the first and one of the best was Art Young's Alaska adventure)ect. I'm not saying any or all of these things are Good. Only that Fred had no small amount of drive and genius.

I had heard that he was right handed and right eyed but had lost parts of his fingers on his right hand in an agricultural accident and could not shoot a bow that way. I have tried to find a picture of Fred Bear with his right hand exposed but could never find one. Little like Napolean? I heard he would shoot a shotgun right handed. Just another theory.

Gar

I had heard that he was right handed and right eyed but had lost parts of his fingers on his right hand in an agricultural accident and could not shoot a bow that way. I have tried to find a picture of Fred Bear with his right hand exposed but could never find one. Little like Napolean? I heard he would shoot a shotgun right handed. Just another theory.

Gar

have our banquet coming up this march....guy asked me who I think would be a good speaker to have.....why Dick Mcintyre of course! Dunno where that thought came from but it sure would be cool to meet him!

Hey Gar, I had heard the a similar thing about Fred and his fingers getting mashed up in something. Cant remember where.....