I called up Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows. Funny, he remembers building the bow and all the details from twenty years ago. Had a nice conversation about the bow, arrows and everything else in general. Great guy. He’s now down in Raemer Alabama for any of you guys down that way he builds beautiful longbows. At any rate he told me (like many of you) to go with surewood arrows and get some heavy spines Doug fir shafts. Avoid ash unless you know what you’re looking for and can hand sort them yourself. He shoots some pretty heavy stuff and his daily driver is an #86 longbow and he makes his own arrows using Doug fir shafts. I told him that I had picked up the bow again and was getting back into it after a little hiatus. I shot the heck out of it when I first bought it and hunted almost exclusively with it. Life got busy and as you all know, if you can’t dedicate the time shooting a trad bow or any bow you shouldn’t take it afield shooting animals. Currently I’m getting close to retirement and my time has become more available for shooting and relearning all the tuning and tweaking that goes along with it. I’ve always appreciated the traditional aspect of archery and as Steve said “carbon arrows are great from all angles but, they have no soul.” That’s pretty much where I’m at with them. So, now with a little extra time I’m going to get a Bitzenberger, and all the fun gear and start working on some arrows. Thanks for the input.
