[David Petersen]

in reply to: Oklahoma Selfbow Jamboree #7859

Thanks for this alert, Dennis. I’d sure attend if I lived within striking range. Good timing to build your first selfbow and use it for spring turkey. Good fun, dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Tusker Broadheads… #59836

I have long praised the Concord as “the best inexpensive single-bevel.” On the positive side they come a bit sharper than the Grizzly, and the steel isn’t quite so hard though it’s darn hard. And if you want to change the bevel you’ll still have to use a file. More and more I’m coming to feel that the Abowyer Brown Bear is the “best single-bevel for the money.” They come fairly sharp and are sharpenable but still good and hard. And the MA is right on the money. Lots of great two-blades out there so personal experimentation is a good idea and fun. dp

[David Petersen]

in reply to: ID Traditional Day — come if you can! #58887

ledrich — welcome to Tradbow and I hope you stick around as we need all the humor we can get. We used to have Patrick to rely on, but then he got the big head and started charging for his autograph. After having just spent a lot of time in a tree for the first time in my life, I love your tree stand joke and wish I could think of good ones like that.

Looking forward to visiting with old friends and meeting new from I already feel I know from here. Indeed, a lot rides on the success and growth of this event, as it’s the only one of its kind in the West these days.

dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Tradbows and Moose DVD? #58878

I agree with Frank about Lost Antlers. Compared to the average “whack and stack and yack” hunting video, it’s heads above. However, it’s also heavily staged for the camera and the hunter makes a lot of basic errors over and over, like wearing the only color all deer are known to be able to see, bright blue, and walking across or glassing from open areas instead of cover and thus getting busted. Bottom line, IMHO, is that you won’t learn much about the technique of moose hunting from this film, but you will enjoy it and be inspired. Primal Dreams (which has moose segments) it is not. But it’s far better than most. dp

[David Petersen]

in reply to: atv riding #58873

What an excellent, level-headed, informed and polite discussion of one of the meanest topics in hunting today. I agree with most everything most everyone says, on both sides. Here are a few points for further consideration, drawn from many years of personally, publicly, and professionally being deeply involved in ORV issues in the West:
Most folks who like and defend ATV use are not from the West and have not experienced the outragous problems on our public, Forest Service and BLM lands. I too think an ATV would beat the heck out of horse for ranch and farm work, and I say do what you like on your own private property. This is overwhelmingly a western public lands issue and like Vietnam vets often find themselves saying, “You’d just have to of been there to understand.”
Granted there are many great wonderful folks who love to ride ATVs. But it’s not merely an Abuse problem; it’s also an over-use problem and your personal ethics and riding habits don’t keep you from being a statistic, another motorized vehicle where there already are far too many.
I am 64 and full of age-related aches and pains but still hunt on foot and pack my meat on my back and find that a large part of the fun, though it doesn’t always seem so at the time. When I get too old to trad bowhunt the way I always have and the only way I want to, I won’t switch to training wheels either on a bow or an ORV. If a person is relatively young and seriously disabled, say from a war wound, car accident, birth defect, etc., they should be allow to ride an ATV off-road within reason, but still not to the point that it disturbs wildlife, destroys habitat or disrupts enjoyment for nonmotorized users. But I don’t buy the argument that we all are entitled to get into the backcountry on wheels and motors simply because we’ve become too old, or prematurely out of shape. As another poster said, this “entitlement” concept that’s so dear to motorized users is out of control and not a good sign for the collective American spirit.

So long as ORVs are allowed to operate off established system roads on public lands, esp. during big game seasons, the problems will only continue to grow.

Thanks again for such a dignified discussion and I hope I haven’t poisoned it in any way. Dave p

Thanks

[David Petersen]

in reply to: short longbow recommendation #48784

jj — I talked to Gregg and he says they will have 13 new Shrews at K-zoo for immediate sale. This is a tradition and the only way you can get a new one instantly. There will be a variety of models, weights, etc. If you can’t make it, maybe you can designate a surrogate to check ’em out for you.

David — Thanks for the kind words. Anyone who is interested enough in why we are who and how we are as humans to suffer through the exacting beauty and revelations of Paul Shepard’s difficult prose, rates high on my list.:D I just released a 20th anniversary edition of Racks, heavily infused with Val Geist. No more books currently in the works as I’m too busy hunting. 😀

[David Petersen]

in reply to: short longbow recommendation #47797

Well it’s good to finally have some discussion of Shrews here. If you read down through these posts it’s clear that the Shrew is widely accepted as the standard for great short longbows. I have two Classic Hunters, both at 54″ and plan to be buried with them. I also had a Li’l Favorite recurve and it too was superb, but at this point in my archery career, after owning countless excellent bows, I’m a Shrew CH guy forever. To each his own. And I share the growing frustration with the long wait, as I’ve suffered through it twice myself. The reason is that one man builds every Shrew from start to finish. IMHO Gregg Coffey is the finest bowyer working today, and that says a lot since we have so many art-level bowyers out there today, a blessing. Thus, Shrew is a two-man operation: Gregg builds the bows and Ron, the founder and owner, handles the business end. Their fix is whether to stay in an elite “ma and pa” status with a waiting list growing ever longer, or hire some bowyer helpers and grow it into a production-oriented business. That’s not likely, as Ron is semi-retired and likes it that way, and Gregg has a full-time job on top of building 80 or so bows a year. So it’s good that other makers are following the Shrew lead and producing good short bows you don’t have to wait more than a year to get into your hands. Yet Shrew is the original and will remain the standard. If you can work it, I suggest getting on the Shrew list (at under $700 for a standard bow, last I checked, they remain a major bargain), and go ahead and get one of the other short bows for the meanwhile. Once you get used to a really good short bow for hunting, shooting anything longer just no longer makes sense. I am a serious Shrew-head, but didn’t become one without good reason! I personally hope Shrew never gets any bigger, as the limited number of bows they are making today will only go up in value in future. If you buy a used Shrew, look for the GC on the limb indicating it was made by Gregg Coffey. I don’t pretend to be objective here, as I am happily spoiled. dave p

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Bow Quivers #47785

All the bow quivers I’ve owned will hold skinny carbon shafts tightly … until/unless you carry some thicker wood shafts in them for a while, at which points the rubber grippers expand and take a “set” and no longer hold carbons tightly enough to prevent some noise on release. If you shoot woods and carbons interchangeably, you may need two quivers. Or take your quiver off when on stand, which is what I know do. This is hard-won knowledge for me, having recently cost me two misses on lightning-fast Coues deer that had time to look up, turn and duck before the arrow reached them at 20 yards after a slight rattle in the remaining 3 carbon shafts in Kenati quiver previously used for 11/32 woodies. Not a big issue, but worth considering.

[David Petersen]

in reply to: ID Traditional Day — come if you can! #47783

Ninja — ’bout time you showed up here! I’ms till getting good use from your armguard. See you there.

Idabow — I’d like to oblige, but asking to shoot one of my Shrews is equivalent to asking for a date with my wife! 😛 Rots of ruck on either!

See you all there, dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Heavy broadheads #47781

Fletcher Rick — do you know the steel hardness of that Ace head? STOS is an excellent head and was planning long ago to come out with a whole new line of 200+ glue-ons. Wonder what happened there.

I too wish the market offered more heavier single-blade broadheads in glue-on. I am currently shooting the new El Grandes but admit to ongoing frustration re getting and keeping them sharp. Regarding a few of the heads mentioned above, I would personally not sacrifice Ashby’s “high mechanical advantage” for more weight. That is, I would not shoot a really wide head, which design has been shown to more than cancel any penetration gain from the extra weight. So, we’re not just needing more heavy single-blade heads, but more long, narrow, straight-edged, heavy heads. Whether single or double bevel is another choice. My 2scents, dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: "Auf wiedersehen, baby." #47767

Beautifully stated. I have always felt a great sense of freedom from avoiding “stuff” both in hunting and in life (which two are getting ever harder to distinguish). Why buy, maintain, and haul useless junk around with us when it slows us down and the net gain is marginal at best. Bowhunting is full of such albatross-junk, far beyond wheelie bows themselves. While we traditionalists are hardly free of the tendencey to bog ourselves down with stuff, we definitely go lighter, and thus with more freedom, than the typical techno-junk addict. I don’t feel superior to them so much as I feel sorry for them. dave p

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Grunting 101 #32487

Thanks for the ongoing great advice, Mike and other brothers. I’m leaving at 5:30 tomorrow (low forecast at -20 here in CO) for another 12-hour one-day drive to the Mexican border and another 10 days or so of hunt desert whitetails, and for the first time ever, javalina. I’ll be thinking of and experimenting with all your advice. But frankly the biggest problem I see is that Coues hunting has caught on and suddenly formerly remote places are swarming with “bow” hunters. And worst of all AZ allows baiting, so alfalfa bales are popping up in several of my formerly favorite places. That means that evenw hen the “owner” of the bait isn’t there, I can’t hunt there or else I’m hunting over bait. Of course, a bale of hay can disappear really fast, under mysterious conditions, and it can be almost as much fun as hunting. Then, when I return, it’s time to stand up and be heard beside the AZ game wardens who want to get rid of baiting there. About time! “We need more hunters”? Ho-no-no! We need more REAL hunters. See you in 10 days or so. dave p

[David Petersen]

in reply to: New to the Trad Scene #31291

Jon/Cottonwood — no doubt the wee hours of your posting accounts for the brevity of your post, above. 😛 Only times I’ve been up at 3:45 were in the old days of turkey hunting, and when I was working graveyard 6 nights a week putting myself through college (pre-military). I hope you’re having more fun than I did. 😀 dp

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Question for Dave Petersen re: Wildcat Canyon #28710

Tim — sorry to say, Milt Beens has retired from the trad archery business. He sold his inventory to someone in nearby Cortez, and there’s also a trad shop at Mancos, midway between Durango and Cortez. It’s a big loss for trad archery and bowhunting in this area. Can’t count the shooters Milt mentored and coached over the years, a natural teacher. These days he’s concentrating on his pottery business and also back to painting (art, not houses). Two knee replacements kind of knocked the wind out of him. dave

[David Petersen]

in reply to: Predators and A Hunter's Conscience #27713

Mike — good to see you here again, amigo. Indeed, different locations and conditions often dictate different hunting ethics, just as they do tactics. I try to make clear that my opinions are my own and I’m not leading a movement to have everyone else join me. This thread has had mostly voices like mine that don’t choose to hunt predators. Your opinion of course is welcome and valid, and other threads on the same topic have been dominated by those who do hunt predators. Here at tradbow we work hard at not having arguments, but rather enjoying open polite discussions. Thanks for adding your voice of experience to the topic. dave p

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