Always a Student

My friend Hawley Rhew and I shooting a round of 3Ds.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

-Socrates

A week ago I made the 3 1/2 hour trip to Cheboygan to drop the kids off at their grandparents house and popped in to say hello to my friend Hawley (Rhew) while I was there. Hawley lives across the street from my parents and happens to be a traditional bowhunter. He was integral in my catching of the stickbow virus and has always been there for questions, support, or “shootin’ the shit” over a cup of coffee.

Hawley has lead a life rich with bowhunting success and is always happy to tell a story or two if prompted, especially if it is for educational purposes. Hawley has enough bowhunting tricks and equipment modifications in his mind to write his own book. I am fortunate enough to have absorbed a few for my benefit, but my favorite part of our conversations revolve around “the way things used ta’ be”. Back when traditional bowhunting was just bowhunting and Papa Bear was a reality, not a memory.

My favorite “Hawley story” is the one about his trophy black bear; a state record standing proudly in his living room as fierce as the day he shot it. A Herters recurve and modified WASP broadhead (with razor blades welded to it) got the job done, as Hawley was able to take the monster boar on the ground from a brush blind only yards away. Hawley was interviewed about the hunt and it was published in a collection of Michigan bear hunting stories, which featured a story by Fred Bear himself.

Hawley’s bear and a sketch of another “Bear” behind him.

I’ll have to get back to you on the title of that book, but it was published in the 70s and is fairly rare as it has been out of print for some time. I was awestruck by the bear and his story when I first heard it. Who could imagine drawing on a bear that large from such a short distance? To this day, that hunt is still the opus of Hawley’s bowhunting experiences, but he’s been shooting deer with a recurve all his life and I find those stories equally interesting when he tells them.

There is always something to be learned from Hawley if you listen. And I mean really listen. Hearing and listening are two different things. Stubborn folks tend to hear and take all advice as criticism because they are insecure about the way they do things. I find this foolish, but maybe that is because I am so new to this game. In my opinion, if someone who has been doing this the majority of his life gives you advice, it would behoove you to listen to him, whether you agree or not. Frankly, its your own fault if you don’t.

Hawley and my Dad. They are neighbors and shoot together almost daily. Hawley was responsible for getting my Dad into shooting shortly after helping me.

Not that I haven’t met a couple overzealous old timers or the occasional blowhard, but most (like Hawley) have the best of intentions and either want you to avoid making the same mistakes they did, or just want to talk bowhunting. Sometimes when dealing with the latter it makes sense to start with what they know and think you may not know. Having this understanding when having a conversation with one of bowhunting’s elder statesmen will help to open the eardrums and keep the ego in check. Whether you use the information or not is your business, but I find it best to nod, absorb, and then ask questions. Think of it as receiving a Christmas gift from a family member; sometimes you get a $50 and sometimes you get a pair of socks and a really ugly sweater. A gift is a gift, whether you return it or not.

And sometimes the knowledge you absorb proves itself handy later. I’ll never forget the first time I shot with Hawley. I’d only had a bow a month and Hawley invited me over to shoot some 3Ds with him in a course he set up on his property. I was shooting an old Pearson recurve at the time and had double-nocked the string with dental floss. I’d seen a friend doing the same and aside from preventing the arrow slipping down the string, I thought it looked pretty cool.

Hawley let me go an entire round of 3Ds before saying anything, but after watching me struggle to nock the arrow on several targets, decided it was time. He asked to see my bow, drew it a few times, and then addressed the string.

“This is a nice bow, but let me tell you something about that second nock…” he said. “This isn’t going to do you any good when a deer walks by and you don’t have your wits about you. You’ll end up nocking the damn arrow beneath the wrong nock and miss the deer completely!”

Releasing on a bear target.

I hadn’t planned on hunting at the time and decided to leave the nock on, but thanked him for the advice. All continued as it was and the nock didn’t give me any problems until I became distracted and sent an arrow into my basement wall the following week. I was concentrating on drawing from a back quiver, nocked my arrow beneath the lower nock, and missed high by at least a foot at 12 yards. I haven’t double-nocked a string since.

Pride can be a funny thing. Especially the kind of pride that convinces a person it is better to make their own mistakes rather than learn from the mistakes of others. While I am a proponent of having your own experiences, some things are better off avoided. Hawley had obviously ran into the same issue years before and wanted to spare me the embarrassment. I opted to learn the hard way and that is okay, but constantly doing so makes for a bumpy road.

Sometimes it is better to listen to the old guy.

American (Hophornbeam) Horror Story

Well…I’m at it again. Actually, in the case of this particular bow, I’ve been at it for a few months. I could blame it on the kids keeping me busy, or work, but I’d rather just come clean and tell you that up until last week I haven’t been in the mood to work on a bow. I’ve been having too much fun shooting the bows I have — bought or made.

One would think I would have spent the dreary, Michigan winter months tucked away in my workshop building bows for the summer and fall. It would make sense to hiberante given the lack of suitable hunting days and the absence of game, but I do most of my roving/stumping in the winter. I find getting bundled up and having an adventure far too appealing to stay inside sweating over a hunk of wood. Plus, I use this time to see where the deer are moving on my hunting properties and scout out possible ground blind locations based on where others sat the previous  year.

I guess I’d rather stretch the legs and the spirit than make a new arrow flinger. Don’t get me wrong, working on a bow is spiritual in its own right, but I’d much rather do it on my deck, watching the kids play in the yard. There’s more room, less mess, and it has a completely different vibe than building indoors. It makes sense really; a bow is an outdoor tool. Why not build it outdoors?

Philosophy aside, I have been working on a piece of American Hophornbeam my Dad harvested from his backyard and it has been given me fits. This was my first experience building a bow from a log and this particular one contained more headaches than usable wood. The fact I knew nothing of Hophornbeam or “Iron Wood” didn’t help my situation.

Dad picked a decent tree. Hophorn hardly ever grows straight and he found a nice sapling that was about 72″ long and 4″ in diameter. The issue was the bark twisting up the trunk, which we didn’t pay much attention too. It also cracked on the ends due to the sudden release of moisture resulting from its cutting. We didn’t seal it in time. I had to lop a foot or so off each end to get a decent piece of wood.

Splitting the log revealed even more issues. The wood beneath was true to the bark, as it split with a twist, leaving me with a knotty, curvy, mess I knew would result in an asymmetrical bow no matter how I worked the wood. I was initially excited because the ends had a natural reflex, but that eventually vanished when I needed to trim the ends further to avoid bad wood.

But the bow was still coming along nicely and close to floor tiller. I do not use mechanical saws of any kind, so it took me some time to rasp the 2″ limbs enough to get them bending. I ended up a sweaty, blistered mess, but felt I was winning the battle. Unfortunately, tragedy struck when I hit a rough spot on the bottom third of the limb with my draw knife. The blade wedged itself under a ring and cracked the stave from fade-fade-to fade, leaving a weird “W” shape some refer to as a “gull wing”.

I was heartbroken. With knots on the middle thirds and a nasty twist on the end of the top limb, I wasn’t sure what to do. The bow would bend at the fades and eventually fail. Working the limbs down to match the fades would result in a 15# bow max and I don’t know anyone who would shoot a 60″ at 15#. It would be too light for an adult and too long for a child. The bow would need to be backed and I would have to patch the fades somehow.

To make matters worse, the middle third of each limb had weak spots caused by random knot clusters. I would have to address those as well. The bow seemed a lost cause, so I left it sitting in the vise for several days, contemplating breaking it over my knee more than once. But something told me to keep going. I’d already come so far, why not experiment a bit and test myself?

For starters, I made the weakest limb my top limb and left it 1.5″ longer than the bottom given its narrower profile. This seemed to alleviate the set, but to strengthen the weak spots, I knew I would have to back the bow.

A friend of mine once told me he was fond of backing with automotive fiberglass strands and the idea intrigued me. I already had a sheet of the matting to experiment with and I didn’t want to waste sinew on a bow that would most likely fail. I grabbed a jug of Tite Bond III and applied the strands of matting as I would sinew, figuring it would be good practice for the real thing. It worked extremely well, drying clear and natural. I then applied two layers to the belly of the bow near the fades and wrapped all of the weak points with processed sinew/Titebond for added strength and aesthetics. The results scared me. It reminded me of the Frankenstein monster a bit and looked very primitive!

I let everything sit a day before stringing it back up and was surprised to find that the bow took on a pleasing profile and fell into tiller quite well considering what it was. I was also surprised to find it was pulling approximately 45# at my draw without retaining more than 2″ of set. I decided to leave it as it was, add a shelf, and shoot it awhile.

I was reluctant to pull it to full draw at first. I thought it would explode in my hands at any time, but it held the tension well and actually whipped a 40/45 cedar shaft with decent speed and accuracy. I could make a pie plate size group at 18 yards within a 1/2 hour of shooting it. I realize this may not seam like much of a feat to some, but I was practically doing backflips. I had taken a bow that was destined for the fire pit and turned it into a shootable weapon. I have no way of knowing if it will last, but if it makes it a year, my effort will have been worth it.