Despite the fact that I may be unemployed (odds are about 50/50) I'm not going to stop living my life - I'm not getting any younger! That said, in about a week I'll be buying this awesome longbow in preparation for the 2013-2014 deer archery season here in Georgia. Even if budget cuts lay off game wardens and biologists and others who run hunting here at Fort Gordon, I will find places to hunt. Anyway, I'm getting this Internature Viper (also called Manchester Black Solo which is pretty gay/scary sounding IMO) because two or three companies make the same model bow, much like Plymouth and Chrysler both made the Neon. It's whisper quiet, has a small, thin grip and is almost 6 feet long for a smooth, no finger pinch draw. I'll get a 40# draw version BTW, which could end up being from 37# to 43# - it's not an exact science. It's enough to "double lung" a deer, so that's good enough for me. I am so pumped folks!
Longbow update! The longbow previously pictured isn't made anymore. I found out I ordered a bow from an old (not updated) web site. Red flag to not deal with this company! So, I ordered + received a 69" Samick SLB II Hunter. Made of walnut and maple with a thin brown fiberglass lamination. Right out of the box, I started shooting pretty tight patterns after a 25 year archery layoff. I'm not bragging about myself, but rather about the bow. Once I tuned it up and put string silencers on it, I really fell in love. I took it to work (we have a big field surrounding our office) and everyone who shot it fell in love. It weighs 1 pound 6 ounces....it's like a feather basically, and whisper-quiet. Deer are very unlikely to "jump the string". And these guys have never shot anything but modern compounds (pulleys and whatnot) or shot instinctive (no aiming with sights, just keeping both eyes on the target) but still started shooting great patterns. Here are some pics of the type of bow it is. BTW Samick used to make pianos! They still might, I'm not sure. They are a Korean company.
Good for you. My Dad used to have a bow--I seem to recall it being from Sears, circa 1955. Looked like it was osage orange with a green fiberglass back. 65-70# draw. I got it and shot the string off it. For whatever reason the replacement string was too short and the bow got a hairline crack when I tried to string it. There were some very nice longbows online--for around $800. I was like "fuck that. I can get a nice M1911, maybe even an AR-15 for that. I'm not paying 800 dollars for a stick." Now the $800 bow may well shoot like an $800 bow, but I wasn't making that kind of money, so I found something for around $110 (IIRC) that looked like it was birch with some other wood laminated as a back. It came unfinished. I finished it and added a grip. It shot like a $110 bow. Later I got to shoot some yew and Osage orange bows. They are very nice. A similar draw weight is a LOT quicker than my bow. But I'm not complaining. The only problem is, I refuse to shoot metal or synthetic arrows from it--wood only. Anything else somehow seems...wrong. The problem is, you go through wood arrows. And wood arrows are increasingly hard to find unless you fletch them yourself. And as it is, just finishing and marking arrows is a pain in the ass. I'm not fucking building them from scratch.
Cedar arrows (which I shoot - NOTHING is more quiet than wood out of a longbow) are impossible to get around here. Everything is compounds and crossbows. Bass Pro Shops is over two hours away in Savannah, the nearest source for traditional archery. So, I ordered online, the bow from Lancaster Archery in Pennsylvania, the arrows from Red Mountain Archery in Utah. The arrows are 50 dollars for a half-dozen, fletched with 5" helical natural feathers and field tips mounted. That is a great price, cheaper than I could get carbon arrows locally, if I chose to use carbon. Yeah, I couldn't afford a big money custom bow, so I got something affordable. Generally the only difference is superficial anyway - accuracy is really the same. For 200 dollars I have a bow that has only positive reviews online. This is an "entry level" bow that you end up replacing with a better one...except many people can't find a reason to replace it! I will be one of those, no doubt. When a bow works for you and is quiet as a rat pissing on cotton, why change? Like I said, if every experienced compound bow hunter who shoots it can adapt within minutes (and feel very confident in it's deer killing ability at only 45 pounds draw) it must be fully capable. The fun part about a longbow is the different shooting positions....on your knees, on your ass, from a squat, etc. etc. Basically if I get "caught with my pants down" on the way to my stand location, I can drop down/freeze and wait them out and shoot from less than ideal positioning. Very tough to do with a tricked out compound. And that "instinctive shooting" is lightning fast. As fast as you can point your finger at a target, you can fire an arrow. I'd rather shoot into a 6" circle in two seconds than shoot a 2" circle in six seconds.
Before moving to Portland, when I'd show up at an archery range people would be like "How do you aim that?" How do you aim a dart? How do you aim a baseball? You just do. And when you don't have that 50% letoff at full draw, you don't stand around with the bow drawn, you get that arrow in the air and get another one on the bow.
No kidding! Now that I'm really getting into "the groove" of longbow shooting, I'm finding out that the faster I shoot, the better I shoot. One smooth motion of drawing back and releasing keeps tighter patterns than holding at full draw, going thru a mental checklist of anchor, smooth release, etc. etc. The human eye can only focus on one thing at a time - the sights or the target. Thus with no sights (or aiming) my focus is on exactly where that target is at all times, and where that arrow flies. My eye doesn't have to switch between sight pins and deer, confounding my adrenaline crazed brain. Oh and 50 percent let-off on compounds is old school. The compounds my peers shoot are 80 percent - meaning a 60 pound pull only feels like 12 pounds. Wrap your mind around that. So basically as soon as a deer is headed their way, they draw back and just wait and hold at full draw until they get a clear shot. Sorry, not my style. I don't care who you are, a full minute of watching the deer you are going to shoot will drive you crazy. That is one minute to second-guess yourself, feel your knees shake, etc. "Think long, think wrong" as they say. Long bow (or recurve if you shoot instinctive) you time it so once the deer's vision is blocked or their attention is directed otherwise, you take your shot. You know exactly where that arrow hits instantly. BTW I changed my string silencers to sixths instead of fourths (harmonics that is). I have four rubber bands instead of two. Every harmonic is cancelled - the bow went from very quiet to absolutely silent. From the deer's point of view all they hear is the feathers spinning on the arrows. And that's a natural sound, nothing that will alarm them. Now I see why deer don't often jump the string with a longbow, and if you miss you often get a second shot. They really have no idea they were shot at.
Not to get all zen on you, but the idea with archery is just what you describe - motion without thought. You nock, draw, sight, and release in one fluid act. Or at least that's what I tried to do back when I was shooting regularly. Which, I must admit, was a very long time ago.
Oh I agree Zen totally meshes with archery, and with bow-hunting in particular. In bow-hunting you are totally part of your universe, not the center of it. Wearing modern 3-D camo (like Realtree or Mossy Oak) you are for all intents and purposes literally invisible. Keep the wind in your face, and other than within your own mind you do not exist. Thus, you do not exist to the deer, unless they can conceive of your existence. This also reflects my theory of hunting blinds. If you "overbuild" your blind, it looks like a well hidden yet still visible structure. It looks like "something" disguised as nothing, and deer will try to figure it out. They might accept it, but still be on edge, and likely to "jump the string." If you hide in what nature provides, the deer will never even look in your direction to see whether things are kosher or not, because in their eyes nothing exists. Less is more, in other words.
