hello from Canada

[calgarychef]

Hello all, I'm a traditiona bowhunter from Canada. I'm a member of the Alberta Tratitional Bowhunters Association I've been trying to see how other organizations run their websites so that we might copy some successful ones. It looks like you guys have a nice site!

A bit about myself. I've been using trad equipment for 5 years and a rifle before that, sorry I've never had training wheels on my bow! I find myself using a gun less and less to hunt, as you know it's quite a rush to hunt with stick and string.

In Alberta we hunt:

Deer- whitetails, and mule deer or mulies as we call them
Bear- Black bear, Grizzly hunting has been closed for a few years
Moose
Elk

I've shot 6 deer with my bow and had a nice miss on a moose at 15 yards-my most famous miss, because my buddy saw it and wondered how i could miss a moose. I wonder that too.

I'll try and post a couple photos so you can see how we do it in Canada, and hopefully I can learn a bit about what you guys hunt while I'm poking around here.

The chef

[longbow steve]

Welcome Calgarychef, I look forward to seeing some scenery and hearing about your hunting exploits.
What? you missed a moose?

Are you a Chef? can you give us some nice game recipes aswell?
Steve

[Gringa Bows]

welcome to the site chef,bring on the hunting photo's mate ...........Rod

[Nephew]

Nice to make your acquaintance. I look forward to seeing some pics of the magnificent wilderness you blokes are privileged with, and the game you hunt!

[calgarychef]

[calgarychef]

Well it seems I need to learn how to post pics on your site, I'll poke around a bit and figure it out. Anyhow these pics are from last fall (2007) we use yurts for camping and they are darned comfy, the ram was in a no hunting area and they get truly big in that area.

Cheers

[piggy]

Great photo's mate, I love the camp set up.

Cheers

[Mick Smith]

Welcome to the site calgarychef.

Nice photos!

I like the yurt. Is it a homemade job? You wouldn't shoot a horsebow by any chance?

MS

[calgarychef]

The yurt is homemade, it's my buddies. I have one too that I made but mine has some modern materials in it. Mick I don't shoot a horsebow although I have taken a couple shots with them. I don't think I'm man enough to use one consistently. I have a pse recurve, a nice little custom r/d longbow and an a&h longbow.

Interesting site you blokes have here, I think you have a lot of trad hunters in your part of the world. In Alberta our membership is only around 60. What do you guys do to recruit your members?

the chef

[longbow steve]

Hi Calgarychef, I believe our biggest dedicated trad club would have about 120 members. Most people are impressed by the easy going feeling at Trad shoots rather than the pressure and seriousness of archery tournaments in general.
The club I belong to gets out there in the community at a local festival with demonstrations and a chance to have a shot or two, it is a good fundraiser and brings new members to our club. Steve

[calgarychef]

Longbow Steve how do you use the festival as a fundraiser? Do you charge people to shoot? We have local clubs that shoot trad and one dedicated to longbow. Some of these members are hunters but not all, obviously our group is for hunters. We have a shoot every summer and it's great fun, and the kids are treated well too.

cheers

[longbow steve]

Hi CC, Yes we charge 50 c per shot and have a 20 meter line up for the whole weekend, we use light weight recurves and childs bows with about 300 arrows in circulation. We have to collect arrows every 15-20 minutes or so so you can do the math at how successful it is.
We set up 3 122cm target faces at 10 meters aswell as 3d's and animal paper targets at further distances, it is great fun for us aswell as the general public. Steve

[jape]

Good to hear from you and see the pics. The trad community world-wide is very friendly and helpful and seems to be the one best involved in opening up the sport because it caters to all kinds, from makers and hunters to re-enactment buffs and competition shooters, there is always something in common. Good luck with your efforts over there. Maybe a public event over a weekend would indeed be a good vehicle for you and recruiting, not necessarily medieval style re-enactment, just a basic hunting camp setup with market stalls and BBQ's and an exhibition shoot and a fun shoot and 3D. Should attract lots of folk of all kinds especially if you have a folk or country band for an evening. Have a look at the posts about shooting at shields, such as:
http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.p ... ard#p55866
or do a site search on 'battle clout' and 'boogie boards'!

The yurts are amazing, similar to what we used to call teepees when some of us had them in Wales back in the hippy days! They were usually trellis or hurdle-walled at the bottom with either a yurt style or wigwam roof. Very warm, even in snowy weather as long as you dug a ditch round them to carry away the rain! We used to have the stove pipe hole open like a wigwam to work with the wind or out through the wall through a tin sheet or leather. How ever do you guys work that stove pipe through the roof without the canvas catching fire?

[gundy]

Welcome mate!

Truly a great part of the world you live...

[calgarychef]

My buddy had a "thimble" made of space age material that sews right to the roof. I'm not so organized and I put a piece of plywood over roof hole. The plywood had a piece of tim screwed onto it and the pipe goes through there.

Brilliant idea to charge per shot for arrows. We have a free table at the outdoorsmens show here in
Calgary every year and thousands of folks come by. I think we really need to investigate a shooting lane further.

Oh by the way the temp. here this morning was -35C...... it's starting to get chilly out

thanks again

[Jeff]

welcome buddy nice pics. jeff

[calgarychef]

I'm not from B.C so I don't know much about their regualtions. However every jurisdiction in Canada has seasons and when that season is over the liscence is......garbage! I have many unused tags because I buy one of everything each fall, just in case the right animal should cross my path.

I'm on my way to South Africa in a month or so, I've never hunted overseas and really looking foreward to it. If it wuoldn't have been africa it would have been Australia. Hopefully someday I'll get to your neck of the woods. I'm interested in hearing how you blokes hunt and what techniques you use. We of course use treestands, but I like the less mainstream stuff like pit blinds, decoys, calling (my specialty) etc. I'd love to hear some of your ideas even a little trick can turn into a powerful technique if done correctly.

The chef

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Yes, good luck to you in Africa! I hope you have a blast (well, a happy and successful "twang!").

Tony certainly likes his walking and stalking, and he usually dislikes waiting in ambush. However, when hunting wild dogs, he likes to wait over bait - the bait is himself. While he waits over this bait (which is himself), he likes to snooze - but it doesn't matter, because as soon as the wild dog is close enough, it will either trigger Tony's sixth sense with its evil eye, or else it will give a spine-chilling howl, thus alerting Tony and causing him to spring into "action stations"!

[TradlongbowV]

Hello Chef. Welcome to our site. I have not been online for some time, as my work tends to pile up all at once for some reason. Anyway, while I am based in Australia now, I am actually from the Philippines. I have some good friends from your part of the world, however, and they're living in Williams Lake, BC. I also have some relatives who've migrated there years ago. One of these days, as soon as things settle down for me, I would consider it a life's dream fulfilled if I could hunt Canada's wonderful game and take in your magnificent scenery. Don't worry about missing your moose. I once missed an Asian Water Buffalo in Samar (that's in the eastern Philippines) at 50 yards, and I was using a rifle, for crying out loud! Talk about target panic.

You know, Canadians and Filipinos share at least one thing in common; it is that we both have this ambivalent relationship with the United States.

I hope you stay with us here at Ozbow. Nice pictures, by the way.

Regards,
TradlongbowV