Table of Contents
Introduction 7
What Is It about Archery? 7
Bending Spoons with Your Mind 8
Is It All Relative, Really? 11
Naked, Cloned, and Stuck in the Middle 12
Get Out of Jail Free? 14
All Kidding Aside 19
Chapter 1 Archery for the Ages 21
Maybe We're Special … Maybe We're Not 21
Cutting Out Hearts, Smashing Heads 23
Harnessing the Power of the Gods 29
It Wasn't All Fun and Games 31
You've Been Served 35
A Man Called Ishi and the Rise of Modern Bowhunting 37
Hungry Games 40
Chapter 2 Bows of the World 45
Archery Foreplay 46
Longbows-Meet the Self Bow: "Straight" but Not Simple 47
The Recurve Bow-Traditional to Modern 65
Understanding the X-Bow 78
The Compound Bow: Our Story … and We're Sticking with It 86
Chapter 3 The Traditional Arrow 93
In the Beginning, a Feather 93
Fletching 95
An Arrow Called Flu-Flu 99
Holding On 100
Getting the Shaft 102
About Port Orford Cedar 104
The Footed Shaft 105
Ain't All Just "Rubba" 106
Issue: 'Archers Paradox" 107
Issue: Forward of Center Balance 108
Carbon 109
Carbon Technical 110
About Aluminum-Arrows That Is 111
Measuring and Fitting Arrows 113
Sexy Bow Tuning-Naked Arrows 115
The Worst Subject of All 117
The Best Subject of All 119
Chapter 4 The Arrowhead 121
Early Arrowheads, Early Archers 121
Lithic Reduction: Everything Is Possible 124
The Spectacular Stones 126
About FOC 128
Practice Points 130
Blunts-Not the Cigars 131
Cutting to the Chase-Broadheads 132
Options 135
So, What Is Traditional? 137
A Straight-Shooting Note 139
Chapter 5 The Mechanics of Shooting 141
Your Dominant Eye 141
Steps in Learning to Shoot 143
Should You Use a Bow Sling? 146
Drawing the String 147
Protecting the Draw 150
Target Panic and Snap Shooting 150
The Force-Draw Curve 153
About Kinetic Energy and Momentum 155
Sights and Aiming Techniques 158
String Walking 163
Gap Shooting and Distance Estimation 164
Chapter 6 A Dozen things to Know … and Buy (or not) 167
The Quiver 167
String Silencers 171
Kisser Button 172
The Bow Case 173
Arrow Rests and Cushion Plungers 175
The Stabilizer 177
Targets 178
Chapter 7 Big Game-The Traditional Challenge 181
Your Guide, Should You Choose to Accept 183
The 15 Percent: About Tipping 186
But What If…? 187
The Biggest and Best 192
Black Bears 199
Pronghorn 201
Elk 203
Caribou 207
Other Hunting Challenges 208
Africa 210
The PH: The IUCN and You 213
Chapter 8 So, Now What? Competition 217
Archery Shooter's Association (ASA; asaarchery.com) 219
International Bowhunting Organization (IBO; ibo.net) 223
National Field Archery Association (NFAA; nfaa-archery.org) 226
A Note about the IFAA 230
Glossary 233
Index 245
