Tag Archives: archery

Tin Cans and Wooden Dowels

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In our latest episode of the Traditional Outdoors podcast, I mentioned wanting to do something I hadn’t done in a very long time – build and hunt with wood arrows.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of this change of heart. A wooden dowel (other than a few simple sets for my daughters) hasn’t crossed my workbench in years. After taking a doe with a crudely-crested cedar in 2012, I put my tools away, gave my Young’s feather burner to a friend, and entered the soulless land of synthetic materials.

I used time, or a lack-there-of, to justify the move. My kids were young and staying busy wasn’t something I needed to work on. I was more interested in shooting and less interested in fiddling when it came time to bows and arrows. But time was only one of many excuses. I was burned out and didn’t have the hunger I had in the beginning.

I sent this Eclipse-tipped cedar shaft through a doe in 2012. It was my first harvest with a wood arrow.

My arrows were simple early on – an aluminum shaft with a 145g field point or two-blade broadhead. They were easy to assemble and they were easy to maintain. They were also more consistent shaft-to-shaft than my wood arrows and stayed straight unless glancing off a rock or concrete floor. I got by with this setup but soon learned the value of a heavy, forward-weighted, hunting arrow. There were several ways to reach the goal, but the people I shot with preferred footed carbons with weighted inserts and heavy broadheads. I went that way as well and had accumulated dozens, thinking it was the final stop in my gear-tweaking journey.

I was wrong. The carbons were an effective setup but I felt little connection to them and connection was the point of the journey. Carbons were also bland and unexciting aesthetically – even the models with wood-grained graphics. Even vinyl wraps and interesting fletching weren’t getting the job done. It felt like putting lipstick on a pig. You can dress a carbon up to look like a wood arrow but they end up feeling like cheap imitations (no matter how expensive they are).

The same can be said for the aluminum “tin cans” but opportunity and nostalgia made those my next stop. My Dad had discovered a half-dozen old aluminum shafts at an antique store and bought them for me as a gift. They were 2216s in the old school BDU camouflage finish and were tapered on both ends to allow for glue on nocks and points. My original arrows, including the one that killed my first deer, were similar and the memories came rushing back while fletching them.

(L) The 2117 with 145g Ace broadhead that killed my first deer in 2009. (R) The 2216 that killed my first buck. Note the 160g Magnus Classic on top of the 100g Woody Weight and 100g steel adapter.

The nostalgia was where the similarities ended. This batch was better tuned and much heavier. I applied my knowledge of Ashby arrow construction to the (already) heavy 2216 shafts and ended up with a hunting arrow tipping the scales at a rib-cracking 820gr with a Magnus Classic on the business end. The setup performed well, passing through a buck and a doe with short recoveries. Again, I wasn’t satisfied. The results were there but the process was lacking. Aluminum arrows were assembled not made. There was no art involved. No personalization. No romance. And some of my closest friends were shooting finely crafted works of art. My arrows were lame in comparison.

I’d also discovered fly tying and loved every second of it. Few things compared to the feeling of a hooked trout on a deer-hair caddis fresh from the vise. The cedar-shaft doe was one of the few. The writing was on the wall. I was going to add wood back to the quiver and planned on hunting for shafts at the Great Lakes Longbow Invitational.

I was looking for cedar, but as I strolled through the vendor area, noticed a stack of raw ash shafts at Emerald Archery’s booth. I had a long history with ash and had been stump-shooting with the same batch for almost a decade without a single break. Emerald had several batches in the 75-80# range at a 620-640 grain weight. While the weight grabbed my attention, the straightness kept it. Ash required heat and a lot of work to straighten. My initial batch were clearance-bin specials and as lumpy as a Michigan highway in the Spring. I spent hours working them straight and swore I would never do it again. But these were quality shafts and the majority were straight enough to shoot out of the bundle. I handed over my money, and for the first time in years, couldn’t wait to start making arrows. The hunger had returned.

The process was as gratifying as I remembered. I took my time at each stage to mind the details and squeeze out every last drop of enjoyment. This kind of patience and attention would have been impossible when I was younger and couldn’t wait to finish and start on the next batch. My process was simple then. I would straighten, taper, and stain each shaft, then wipe on several coats of polyurethane with an old sock. I didn’t own a cresting jig, so I fashioned one out of a block of wood and four casters. It wasn’t the easiest to use. I would spin the shaft with my left hand and crest it with my right. Rudimentary designs and thick, wobbling lines were the result but I was proud of my ingenuity. Fletching was my favorite part. I didn’t have the budget to be picky and often purchased whatever was on sale at a show. The length, wing, color, or brand didn’t matter.

I was in a different place for this latest batch. My budget was larger and I had more patience at 40 than I did at 27. I no longer needed arrows. I just wanted to make them. My process was similar but evolved with experience. I swapped the wipe-on polyurethane for a quart of gloss Polycrylic and a dip tube, which gave me a more consistent and durable finish. I was also gifted a motorized cresting jig and was impressed by the level of detail it allowed. It took some getting used to but the experimentation was half the fun. The paint itself was also an experiment. I’d been drawing with Posca paint markers for several years and thought they might work for this application. While it took several passes to get the thickness I wanted, I couldn’t argue with the results.

I like to use bright colors on my arrows. I track them better in the air and find them easier.

The batch produced seven target arrows, four hunting arrows, and a stumper that was too stubborn to make it into either quiver. The hunting shafts were the straightest of the bunch and came in at around 820gr each with a single-bevel Grizzly head. They fly true, hit hard, and have personality. I can’t wait to get them into the woods and have a feeling it is going to be a very special season.

The battle of arrow materials has been raging around every campfire and on every social platform for years. I was passionate enough to weigh in when I was younger but realized doing so was a bit like patting one’s own back. I’ve shot them all and discovered that an arrow in flight is an arrow in flight. The way the archer felt when they sent it is the only thing that matters. We would all be better off typing less and enjoying our own journey. Shoot straight, shoot often, and have fun doing it.

An Inspiring Weekend

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We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there too.

– Fred Bear

This quote hangs to the left of my front door so I see it when I’m ready to meet the day. I wish I could take credit for its finding but it was my wife, Jessica who brought it home from an archery banquet several years ago.

I admit it is a bit of a cliche to post it here. It is one of the first quotes you see when you Google “bowhunting quotes” and is the kind of thing someone posts on social media to show how deep a thinker they are. It is a wonderful quote nonetheless. It makes me think of my archery beginnings and how the activity and community has shaped my life.

Last weekend was a fine example. I attended the Traditional Archery Expo in Kalamazoo and was flooded with memories the moment I crossed the threshold to the vendor floor. The sites and smells of wood, wool, and leather brought me back to my first visit in 2010, when I was a budding traditionalist and craving anything bow and arrow I could get my hands on. From racks of custom bows and brightly crested cedars to bins of odds and ends, the Expo filled every need I had – and even some I didn’t.

It was the Expo, in fact, that influenced me to start Life and Longbows. I was new and starving for content and there wasn’t enough of it out there for someone in my position. “Why not be that person?” I thought. And the rest was history. To quote another budding traditionalist and friend, I was really “chasing it” back then, though the “it” varied with my progression from archer to bowhunter.

There was passion either way. Great passion.

I’ve always loved the Expo for this reason. The entire building buzzes from corner-to-corner with a deafening excitement that is difficult to describe with words. If you’re green, it will consume you. If you’ve been grayed by the indifference of experience, you will find yourself recharged. If you are blackened crispy by the stresses of leadership, you will leave rejuvenated with purpose. I’ve been all of the above but have been living in the gray for several years. I’d accomplished more with the longbow than I could have imagined and wasn’t sure there was anything left to chase.

All that changed the moment I arrived, but it wasn’t the possibility of new gear that put the spring back in my step. It was the people. Handshakes, hugs, and quality conversation were abundant from arrival to departure. My friend Steve (Angell) and I manned a booth for our podcast (Traditional Outdoors) where we had the opportunity to meet many of our listeners and recruit several new ones. The feedback we received for our efforts was very positive. It felt good to know people were enjoying the show and relating to what we were trying to accomplish. Sitting down to record with two of our listeners (Ryan Tucker and Neil Summers) made the experience all the sweeter. Both have done great work with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and discovered their passion for traditional archery in doing so. It was refreshing to hear about their journey and it made me reflect on mine.

Neil was the inspiration for this post, in fact. He’s been a passionate outdoorsman, content creator, and owner of the website Chasin’ It. He reminded me of 27 year-old-me, in this regard, but has already figured out the key ingredient to the traditional stew — the people. I didn’t understand that at his age. I was driven by the activity and grew to appreciate the community. He was driven by the community and was starting to appreciate the activity. This fascinated me. I began to think about my own journey and remembered how special everything seemed. He doubled down shortly after, citing me and my book Life and Longbows as one of his influences.

I was floored. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I think I said “thanks” or something equally dumb but being an influence wasn’t a label I was accustomed to. I’d been absorbing the work of influencers for years and the idea of being one myself felt surreal. It lent perspective and filled me with purpose. It made me hungry.

The hunger built as the weekend progressed. I would have an amazing conversation with a fellow Michigan Longbow Association member about outdoor literature and could not wait to check out his recommendations. He had collected obscure classics and turned me on to several authors I hadn’t discovered yet, including Gene Hill and Charles K. Fox. He loved consuming old books and assured me there would be plenty more where that came from in the near future. We already have plans to chat at upcoming campfires.

The broadhead that passed through my November doe, was recovered from the earth, and was delivered to me at the Expo.

John (Buchin) would further fan the flames by finding and delivering the arrow I’d sent through a doe last November. He was there to share the moment and knew how important it was to me. The doe had shattered a slump several seasons deep and John wasn’t about to let the artifact rust away beneath the leaves. He tracked it down a week later, following a morning sit. It was a wonderful gesture and the perfect gift. I’d collected the arrow from every whitetail up until that point and was grateful to have the full set.

A very special quiver hood created by Great Norther quivers and designed by my dear friend John Buchin.

John would be responsible for the final source of inspiration as well. He had designed a graphic that represented something both of us held sacred — an oath we’d made and wouldn’t abandon until it was fulfilled. We’d vowed to get a public land turkey, spot-and-stalk, with longbows.

I had already dedicated countless hours and dozens of pages to this oath. They appeared in several publications and graced the final chapter of Life and Longbows. My jaw dropped when I saw what John had designed and asked Bob (Brumm) to engrave. I needed to have a matching quiver of my own and picked up the completed product from the Great Northern booth that Friday. Carrying these into the woods that Spring would be a special story and I was eager to tell it.

The ride home was filled with reflection and excitement. I was eager to write for the first time in months and had a journal begging me to turn it’s chicken-scratched pages into stories. I smiled at the thought. It was time to get back to what I loved. It was time to get to work.

Did you attend the 2020 Traditional Archery Expo? What was your experience? Be sure to check out our latest episode of Traditional Outdoors to hear Steve’s recap of the event and stay tuned for our interview with Neil and Ryan. It will drop soon. If you haven’t picked up a signed copy of Life and Longbows, there are a few copies left in my store. Order one while I still have them in stock. I may not be ordering more for some time.