I love talking about personal development and growing and expanding yourself. It’s a fun topic that I like to read and learn about on my own time. So every now and then, I’m going to force you to read about it. It’s just a fun hobby and I feel that it’s helped me out so I thought I’d take a bit and help you to learn about archery etiquette that you might like to be aware of and then practice it. It won’t do any good if you don’t practice it.
What on earth am I talking about. Simple really, how to deal with other people at the archery course or range when you’re there. Most of them are basic and make sense, but it always surprises me who doesn’t think before they start talking or acting.
Be polite
My number one rule is to be polite to others and be considerate of what’s going on. Most people are there to relax, have fun, and enjoy their shooting time. Don’t try to ruin their time and they won’t try to ruin your time.
Always ask first
Part of hanging out with other archers is going to involve talking about gear. It’s all good to share and enjoy, but be sure to ask someone before you ever touch their equipment. It’s special to them and you wouldn’t want people grabbing and messing with your gear unless they asked first, so be sure to ask before you touch.
Practice course safety
The worst thing is to be behind a target looking for an arrow that missed when someone decides to step up and start shooting at the target with you behind it. It’s not cool at all. Be sure to leave your bow or something so people know there’s someone around and do not shoot until you are absolutely certain that there isn’t anybody back there.
Clean up your trash
It’s not that difficult to clean up your own trash. There’s probably at least one or more trash cans out on the course that you can use. So use them. One piece of trash doesn’t sound bad, but when you get a hundred pieces of trash, then it really starts looking like a dump. Don’t be the guy everyone hates because he’s a lazy slob and won’t clean up his own mess.
Pets
You might love your pets, but most others think their vicious terrorizing psychos. I love my dogs, and I take them to the range with me when there’s nobody there. If someone shows up, I put them on leashes. Every now and then others bring their dogs and we’ll let them all hang out together. Don’t think your pet is the greatest in the world just because he’s yours. Eating arrows might sound cute to you, but it is horribly rude and downright evil to the other person. Back to rule one. Be polite and considerate of others.
I didn’t really mean to rant today, but there’s some times that people just seem to skip out on thinking and it really bugs me. I hope that you’ve never done this and that you’re the picture of archery etiquette perfection and politeness. Have fun shooting and enjoy meeting all the neat people out there who shoot too.
It’s always great to find out that there’s a community of people who all love archery. It’s also really cool that I’ve found these free archery tutorials on The Youtubes. The reason that I want to share this with you is that I’ve got this belief that people learn differently. Some people learn really well one way and others learn better another way. This also goes for teachers. For some reason, I connect really well and understand one teacher, but I might not understand or connect really well with another.
With the spirit of helping you find the right information, I’m going to share the videos that I’ve found. There are more videos available once you get on the youtubes, but I’m just giving you the opener video for each that I’ve found.
This guy is at Alan’s Archery Channel and is focusing on traditional or olympic style archery. Whichever you wish to call it at this point. It’s really good information for any beginner and he has several videos that will get you lots of really good information on getting started with good technique. I recommend watching a few of them to help you improve your own skills.
I couldn’t put the second video here, but it’s a series of videos that’s been put together by the Archery Great Britain group. The videos are a bit more focused on helping out a coach to be a better coach, but if you’re learning, then you’re going to be your own coach a fair amount of time.
They’ve done a good job and the focus is on Olympic style archery. If you’re ever wondering why I focus on this type of archery a lot, it’s quite simple. You’ll find the most coaches, help, information, and best practices for Olympic archery. Everything you learn there can be carried over into another style of shooting. Instinctive shooting will have a lot in common even though you’re not using bow sights.
I hope you take some time and watch through all the videos on each channel. You’ll find that you learn something that will make you a better archer and that’s the point of this website. So go take a look and see if it helps because I’m sure it will.
I’m pretty self-sufficient when it comes to taking care of my equipment, but sometimes you don’t have the right tools or even know where to go. Here are a few archery tools that you need to have to make sure that you can take care of your bow yourself. Any of these will help a bit, but all of them together will give you the ability to take complete care of your own equipment and fine tune it to your needs.
I’m not mentioning all the little parts that you might need with these tools. I’m focusing on the main tool that will do most of the work. For example, you’ll need to get glue and vanes to fix your arrow, but it will be a waste of money if you don’t make sure to buy the fletching jig to install them.
The archery tools
Please click on the pictures to see the reviews of them at Amazon.
The Real Avid Bowsmith Multi-tool is an excellent all in one that takes care of a majority of your gear needs. It has 28 different functions built-in that will take care of prepping arrows to be fixed, installing nocks, to sharpening broadheads. You’ll find that you can do a lot with this one tool. Priced around $40, it’s worth every penny for its usefulness.
The Martin Bowmaster bow press is the tool that you use to make any and all string, cam, or tension adjustments on your bow. This is a really handy version that you can take with you if you need to make a repair while your out in the field. Priced around $47 to 55, it’s a super value for all your needs.
The Arizona Rim Country arrow fletching jig is a very easy to use and works great for fletching all the vanes on your arrow at one time. This makes fixing an arrow extremely easy and eliminates most problems involved with fixing your own arrows. Be sure to get the fletching jig that matches what you want on your arrows. There is right helical, left helical, and straight. Priced around $50, you’ll save tons of money fixing your own arrows.
This Carbon Express pro bow square helps you to line up your arrows on the bowstring. You can then place a nock in the right spot and you’ll consistently get higher quality shots than you would by just placing the arrow in a random spot each time. A very simple and extremely useful tool. Priced around $12, it makes life easier for a low price.
The BCY Bearpaw serving tool makes installing a serving on your bowstring very easy. It’s much better than the Bohning red tool in my opinion. The rollers and adjustable tension make it easy to have a secure serving protecting your bowstring from wear and tear. Priced around $29, it will save you lots of money on replacing bowstrings.
All of these tools are very important in taking care of your own equipment. Each one will need to be used in conjunction with the right parts so be sure to pay attention to that. For example, if you buy the serving tool, then you will also need to buy serving thread to use on the serving tool. I hope this helps you figure out what archery tools you’ll need to take care of your equipment.
I wish you the best of luck and hope you get to go shoot more often.
This Diamond Atomic Bow Review is for the youth model only. That being said, this is a great bow for beginners. Especially younger children who have a short draw length and will need a smaller weight. This is the ideal type of bow for that. You can read the rest of the review below.
This bow is filled with lots of good things going for it. It’s taken the youth model and scaled it down just a bit more for the younger and smaller crowd. This means that you’ll have a well-balanced and real bow for when your child is ready to have the real thing. The construction quality is good.
This is a sturdy bow that’s easy to change weight with. I’d easily recommend this to anyone who is looking for quality in a bow. It’s mostly setup on arrival with just the quick easy adjustments needed to make sure everything is attached right and the bow is set to the draw length and weight that you want. That all takes about 10-20 minutes and then you’re ready to go.
The cons
This is a more expensive bow and it does have better parts. The biggest con that I’ve found is the bow sight. You can be gentle with it and it should do fine for a while. I’d also mention that this bow is pretty high quality so you need to make sure that this is something your child is interested in before you go spending the money. If they like archery, then this bow is a great choice. If it’s a passing fad, you might want to try something a little cheaper to see if they’re actually interested or not.
The maximum draw length is 24″ which will probably be the limiting factor in how long you can use the bow. I’d recommend taking a bit to find out your child’s draw length and making sure that there is a little room to grow before getting this bow. The length is all relative to the size of your child so I can’t give you an exact number on anything.
It’s priced around $195-220 on Amazon. As always, I recommend reading all the reviews there and any other websites you find to make sure that you are getting the best item for you.
I’d like to think that I’m pretty good on helping people out when they need to figure out what’s going to be the best thing for them. For most beginners I always recommend getting a bow that has already been made for you. I think it’s just a better and faster and way to get started. I also made my own longbow after I got started in archery and I’m sure that you’ll be interested in finding out where to go to find out more on how to make a longbow.
The first thing to know is that you can take this process as far as you want it to go. What I mean is that you can start from a tree trunk or you can start from a bow that’s 80% done and finish it yourself. There is almost every version in between that you can get to start from. This is really helpful to know depending on the time, effort, and equipment available to you.
The second thing to know is that there is more than one kind of “traditional longbow” out there. The most basic is made from a single piece of wood and then you also have laminate bows which are made from multiple strips of wood and other material glued together. These bows are then pressed and shaped to make them more effective. You can start with plans for any of these and don’t forget that you’ll also have to make some of the specialty equipment, or buy it, just to make the bow. I’m not trying to stop you, but educate you so you don’t get frustrated because you didn’t know going in.
Get educated on how to make a longbow
Please check out any or all of these to get you the right starting points to making your own bow. I thought it was super awesome when I made my first longbow. It was a 62″ red oak D shaped longbow that pulled 40 lbs at 28″ and man it was awesome to see it completed and shooting arrows down the range.
The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible Volume 1 is filled with lots of very useful information on archery and building bows. It will cover lots of different topics that get you all the information you need to make your own bow. You’ll also find that lots of other people reference this book so it helps to be able to see what they’re talking about as well. This is the first book in the set and if you’re getting started, then I’d say to check out getting this book first and adding the others as you progress in your bow building.
Poor Folk Bows Bow Building – This is the website that I used to make my first red oak board bow. It has been kept going for quite a while and has tons of useful information and more so that you can follow right along and make your very own bow. I like that it has options for those in apartments because I built my bow while living in an apartment. There are several bow build alongs that will get you all sorts of information on how to make the bow, how to make the strings, and how to make arrows. You could get almost everything you need to get started just from this site.
Long Bow Build Along – This is a really long in-depth version of the laminated longbow build along that you can go through to get a lot of detail and information on how to build your own bow. The laminated style takes a lot more work and forethought on getting things together, but you can make some amazing and beautiful bows this way. The current bow I’m shooting is a laminated bow and I love it.
Build a bamboo backed bow – This site has a pretty detailed guide on getting a bamboo backed bow together. You’ll have to deal with getting all the equipment and parts together before you can make the bow so there is plenty of prep work. This is a pretty good guide to get you going with this style of bow.
I hope that these four resources will get you pointed in the right direction. It’s not a perfect list of everything, but it will get you thinking and help you figure out what you want to do. Knowing how to make a longbow and actually doing it are two different things. I hope that this helps you go from wanting to do it to actually having your own longbow that you made. I’d love to see any pics on a bow you built.
