So as a solution I jumped on to the Woomera longbow site thinking I would get a glued up stave and go from there.....and they happen to be selling off all their glued, tillered and weighed staves that didn't go on to become bows.....
.....as it turned out I bought one, my mate bought one, and so did his daughter and his daughter-in-law.....
A couple of weekends were spent shaping and finishing the bows, until we finally went for a four-day hunt on the weekend with my mate and I.
We wanted to keep the bows as light as possible so we got out hip quivers out and off we went - and for both of us it was a fantastic four-day journey of falling in love with the longbow.
The only game we came across was a pig on the first evening....and my mate put an arrow straight through the sow at 5m, and therefore named his bow "Miss Piggy".
After that we hunted high and low, far and wide covering the whole property without seeing anything else - but we did fall in love with our longbows.
Light and easy to carry, low maintenance in the bush, great for stabilising the binoculars on and heaps of fun having shooting competitions with judo heads.....
So, I guess the compound bow is likely to be relegated to the back-up bow. The simplicity, ease and fun of the longbow is something that grew on us so quickly over the weekend that traditional will be the bow of choice for a whole yet.
I'm sure I'll still use the compound when I haven't had the chance to practice properly and lack the confidence of an ethical harvest, but I'll be trying my hardest to get time on the range with the longbow.....
We have both been enchanted - not really sure when it happened or how, but it just clicked.....
I hope my wife understands....
