The Birth of a Bowhunter

[Rancid Crabtree]

On Friday June 15th 2007, My son Josh and I loaded up our gear and headed to Michigan. We made the 220 mile trip to attend the Compton Traditional archery shoot. I had heard about this event in the past and since I am getting back into the traditional side of archery, we decided to attend. We strapped the Tipi poles to the roof of the van and we were on our way.

After going through 4 states and 1 time zone we made to the Compton grounds. This years event was expecting 800 shooters and 400 campers. We were going to be setting up in an area with other primitive campers in a great shady spot about 30 feet from a trout pond.





We had some great neighbors who were staying in a wigwam.



Not only were these two guys great neighbors in camp. We got a lot of great tips from them on how to shot. They were very experienced.



Our camp site was nice and close to all the activities. While we set up camp, The Compton folks were getting ready our supper. Chili and hotdogs and chips.







While they were preparing to feed us, there was also a chili cook off going on. Some of the Compton Board members were entered into the competition. The guy in the green shirt is Dale Karch, head of Three Rivers Archery. (nice guy) Their group camped right along side our primitive area.



Then it was time to get in line and enjoy supper. (thats Dale again serving chili)



After supper we tried to walk on of the 4 3D archery courses that were set up for this event but found it a bit too dark due to all the leaves on the trees. We shot a few targets and then walked back to camp.



My son has only shown a small amount of interest in archery but wanted to come along on this trip. I don't have a proper bow for him since he won't quit growing so he used my old Ben Pearson recurve. The first bow I ever hunted with over 30 years ago. Josh has only shot about 100 arrows in his whole life so I knew he was going to get a little frustrated with his skill set but he kept on like a real trooper. We spent a lot of time looking for lost arrows and talking about form.

We got back to camp in time to sit in on a seminar being done by Roger Rothhaar who is one of the living legends of bowhunting.