Traditional Bowhunter Magazine

06/08/2025

Check out this week's tip!

I am always struggling to keep my arrow on the shelf while hunting, so I came up with this nice looking arrow holder. Cut a piece of feather about 1"-1.75" long and glue it upright to your arrow shelf as shown in the photos. You may need to

23/07/2025

Check out this week's tip on an easy DIY arm band!

About once a year, I spend an hour sewing a dozen elastic bands for sleeve protection. These are very simple to make: just snug the elastic around your arm while wearing a heavy coat, then mark it with a sharpie marker or pin it with a safety pin. Use that measurement as a pattern,

18/07/2025

Check out these tips on elk hunting!

The wide-racked herd bull stood facing me at six yards, moaning, drooling, and mooing like an Angus. A string of slobber nearly reached the ground as he rocked back and forth. I knelt behind a three-foot spruce with my longbow, hoping for a shot opportunity on this last morning of a long season. I.....

16/07/2025

Check out this week's tip on the advantages of using trekking poles!

Nowadays, I don’t leave home without them. Years ago, I was several miles into a tough cougar chase when things went from bad to worse. Bright sun had caused evaporating scent conditions on the snow, and only one of our three hounds was still on the lion track when I started a long, steep pull

15/07/2025

You’ve heard it likely thousands of times throughout your life: “The early bird gets the worm.” I suppose that it’s true; especially with elk hunting. I recall one September, being frustrated that “my mountain” suddenly hosted triple the amount of pickup trucks, and therefor triple the a...

09/07/2025

Check out this week's tip on making sure you have a proper fit in your arrow nock.

When Dacron was the only bowstring material used, almost every nock commercially available would fit snugly on a bowstring. Today many bowyers are building bows that can shoot Fast Flight or other non-stretch string material. These new materials are much stronger and much thinner than Dacron, so a s...

08/07/2025

Do you shoot with a glove or tab? In this article, we discuss the pros and cons of both!

While a few of us still shoot with bare fingers, most traditional bowhunters soon learn that archery is a lot more accurate and comfortable with something between the fingers of your dominant arm and the bowstring. The choices are pretty simple: tab or glove? Once that decision is made, not many cha...

02/07/2025

Check this week's tip on a DIY rest!

The brush rest, in my opinion, is the most durable and aesthetically pleasing method I have seen for shooting a traditional bow with an elevated rest. I used to shoot my recurve off the shelf, but after experimenting with the brush rest and settling on a style/method of attaching it to my bow, I

27/06/2025

Sheyk-doun; verb A shakedown is a period of testing or a trial journey undergone by a ship, aircraft or other craft and its crew before being declared operational. Statistically, a proportion of the components will fail after a relatively short period of use, and those that survive this period can b...

25/06/2025

Check out this week's tip!

From The Traditional Bowhunter's Handbook If you want to take high quality, life-like images of your trophy in the field, you ought to keep a set of taxidermy glass eyes in your hunting pack. When you get ready to shoot your photos, simply slip the glass eyes over the animal's eyes and under the eye...

20/06/2025

I could hear the screaming of bull elk so loud in my ear it almost hurt. I crept in slowly, with the wind in my face and my bow at my side. I could smell the elk before I could see them. The bedding area was thick juniper and had many rubs on the small

18/06/2025

Check out this week's tip on fixing a 3-D target on a budget!

My local archery range had replaced all its 3-D targets, and left the old shot up targets in the parking area. I chose a pig target that had a 10" hole blown through the center; it looked as though it had been blasted with a shotgun…numerous times. Rather