Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Tractor on May 11, 2010, 04:55:46 pm
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So, a year ago, I had no idea what a primitive archer was other than possibly some prehistoric bow carrying cave-man.
I thought all bows made in the last couple decades came with wheels
I thought that bow hunting was quaint but really who would do something that nutty when you could pick up a used rifle and some cartridges for less than the cost of a new bow. I mean really??
But then one thing led to another and I end up on this site and I can't stop reading. I become stunned by the things I see being made and done. I still have a hard time believing that guys sit around and make arrowheads and spear points like it was still 10,000 BC. Heck if I hadn't seen the pile at Pappy's I might still not believe it and just figure that the things I see from Sawfiler were photoshopped or something.
But then I go to Pappy's and see all there is to see there. And I am stunned and taken by how bad I want to tan some hides with brains. And with some email help from George T., I make a Maple Board bow that pulls 42 lbs at 29". I almost think about making arrows but realize I just don't have the time so now I actually have to buy some arrows cause I don't even know if my Bow shoots yet or not.
But what I have done or want to do is not why I write this it is because of the odd change in me. First, I am a tool junky and yet the overwhelming case around here seems to be to make it with what you have or what the animal gives you. I feel like I owe a letter of explanation to the big box stores for why I don't buy any tools anymore.
And then how I look at the environment. I literally cannot look at a tree without wondering if I could make a bow out of it. I see a big patch of Red Ossier in the creek bed and I think what about Arrows? I think about last year's elk hunt. I was surrounded by Juniper trees and scrub oak. You can bet some of them are going to come home this year.
And of course there is the elk itself. I am actually embarrassed to say that when we had three elk on the ground, all we took was the hides and the meat. I mean not a single tendon for sinew, no leg bones for skinning tools. No hooves for glue, and of course the brains weren't even considered. What a waster I was. If we get one this year the guys are going to think I am nuts when I start taking all the stuff we normally left for the scavengers. And you can bet none of them are going to get next to that hide with a knife.
I think what really pointed out the change in me was when last weekend I was on the way home and I saw a roadkill bull snake on the shoulder of the road. I screamed at my buddy who promptly turned around and we went back for it. Came home and skinned and mounted the skin to a board. Later on I get a call from my wife and she asks what I have been doing. I excitedly tell her all about the snake and she is dead silent for a full minute. Finally she says, "Why can't you just sit at home and watch Golf or Baseball like a normal guy.
Thanks guys. Primitive Rocks!
Mike
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He has got it BAD. ;D ;D Already picking up road kill. ;D ;D
We seem to have missed each other at the Tn. Classic. ???
David
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He has got it BAD. ;D ;D Already picking up road kill. ;D ;D
We seem to have missed each other at the Tn. Classic. ???
David
Ah well you see I was both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky in that I would have loved to attend the Classic and seen the guys in action making bows and knapping. Lucky in that I was actually at Pappy's about three weeks before the Classic. Had perfectly awesome weather, dry and maybe 80 degrees. Came home and told my wife we were moving to Tennessee. But I am already trying to get there for the Classic next year.
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wow sounds alot like me, especially the roadkill part... I got some strange looks when I went dumpster diving for deer hides and legs behind the deer processor place up the road from me. He gave me permission and when he saw I was serious about it he started saving the legs for me instead. :) I also can't look at a tree without wondering what kind of bow is hiding inside. ;)
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Yep, once you get the the harvesting roadkill stage the script is pretty much set ;D
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Tractor it's to late for most of us but you can still save yourself get on up to the gun shop and buy some thing that goes boom right away before its to late. hurry up
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Sounds familiar. Wife and I have an iron clad agreement- no roadkill when she's with me ;)
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Dang Jeff....mine helps spot it.....load it....and skin or process it....I guess I am a Lucky Man...... ;D
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Tractor, i too have been to Pappy's. but not for the classic
the wife and i plan on being there next year.cant wait to meet ya and everyone else.
Mike, my wife will help spot it.but thats it,well she has put up with me taking over the 4 cubic ft freezer that i keep it all in too.
but thats it no help processing.she makes fun of me while i chew sinew :P
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yeah, this last rifle season i was up to my shoulders in the dumpster behind the local butcher shop, which just happens to be right behind the cop shop. not that i was doing anything wrong but i was sure that i was going to get questioned with bloody hands and all, but i sure got a lot of good sinew ;D
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Tim...my Wife came Home and was going to put some Meat in My Freezer....and She siad...I bet there ai enough room in the Venison Freezer for these Steaks....and I told Her....well there probably was...till I stuck them 2 dead Beaver in there... >:D
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You're OK Tractor. You are singing in the choir now, with the rest of us.
Just gotta laugh....I think we all go through that phase where you can't drive past a wooded forty without slowing down and looking for THE PERFECT TREE.
piper
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Road Kill,yep you are done,I have my own freezer now,Miss Joanie use to go to ours and come back
and say what kind of dead critter do you have in there now,I would just smile. It was a pleasure meeting you and your buddy,I knew you was done for right off the bat. Good luck in your quest,it is a life changing adventure for sure. :) :) :)
Pappy
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The ghosts of Pope, Young, Ishi, Fred Bear and the like are all collectively rubbing their hands together and quietly laughing, "mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha".
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Yup. Along the country club golf course, they have a row of Osage trees and then down the road, Osage tree's on each side of the road. Keep telling myself I'll go ask the city mait. dept. (right across the road from work) if they are going to cut any of them, please let me know. You don't think anyone would notice if I fell one or two do ya? >:D Aint worked up the nerve to ask my wife if I could put some road kill in the freezer :-[ ::)
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I haven't dumpster dived yet for the offings of butchering a deer. But I have scoped out the two best places to do it. There is a processor over NW of Denver who does a ton of wild game processing and I have been thinking I needed to try and arrange with him for some deer and possibly antelope hides.
Island piper and Hillbilly61, your comments about other peoples trees and the perfect tree made me laugh. There is a couple stands of scrub oak or post oak that I pass by every morning while taking my boy to preschool. There are a couple trees in there that are near perfect, no limbs so hopefully no knots, in the middle so probably not wind twisted and with an ever so gently arched curve that I can't help but feel the staves would come ready reflexed. I have actually thought about taking pictures and posting them here but then thought maybe I was just looney.
But JWHalverson, your comment brought the biggest smile to my face. The reason is kind of long but I'll write it out anyway. I read Saxton Pope's book "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow) last fall. I was both envious of his first hand contact with Ishi and saddened by the way and how Ishi came into his life. I guess that was how it was supposed to read, or at least I hope so. Anyway, prior to that I did not know Ishi from Itchy and Scratchy. But, I had been introduced to him without my knowledge.
I am one of those weird dudes who reads many of the post apocalyptic novels. I like the stories of how humanity may or may not persevere after an extinction event. Now I never actually think I am going to be able to relate to the survivors. I can't win a cake walk or a bingo game so the idea that I will be lucky enough to survive when 99 percent of the population dies off is virtually nil...unless you are like me and think that the lucky ones are the ones who die early.
Regardless. One of the best books from this genre that I have read was actually written in 1949 by George Stewart. It is called "Earth Abides". Without talking too much about the book other than to note that since it was written before the Nuclear Fear, the author had to use a different method of extinction. Now, the main character is a man named Isherwood Williams. And one of the last things he does is give to his little community the knowledge of how to build a primitive bow and arrow. And all through the book, everyone refers to this character by his nickname "Ish"
It wasn't until after reading Saxton Pope's book that I was able to know or see the parallels The author was drawing.
Sorry for the ramble, I hope this was appropriate campfire fare and not too far afield.
Mike
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It sounds like I could have been me looking in a mirror but maybe 25 -35 years ago..lol
I'm rooting for you!
God bless,Mudd
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And the sad thing, for those of you who have not read the aforementioned book by Dr. Saxton Pope, or may have forgotten the details...Ishi was not the man's name. Ishi was his tribe's name for "a man". You see, there were no adult men left from his tribe when he reached his majority and never received a name. "What's in a name" you quote from the Englishman, Shakes-his-spear. To the Yani people, the bestowing of a name on a young boy becoming a man is the bestowing of his SOUL. Ishi died believing he never became a man, never had a soul, never really was. That is a kind of horrible fate I could not imagine.
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Congrats Tractor, you've become what being a human was meant to be. Now if we could just reach all the other lost spirits.
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Yep, y'all hooked him good. Welcome to what, I have come to call the sweet addiction. I was recently skinning a fox, when the neighbors daughter walked over to visit with my Grandson. She went running off screaming, neighbor comes over to see what that was all about. Turns out she thought I was skinning out my new Yellow Lab puppy, that she has come to adore. It is amazing how the addiction effects everyone around me, even unintentionally.