Born in 1949 and schooled during the 50’s and 60’s, the year 2010 seemed a million miles away to me during those formative years. But now that it is here, not only does 2010 denote the passing of the first decade of this century, but for me, it marks another important milestone in my life as a hunter. This is my fiftieth year of hunting big game animals in the wild. Tacking on another four years or so for small game hunting is required to complete the report, but it was half a century ago that I shot my very first whitetail deer along the edge of a thick, willowed swamp after a long, cold day of hanging in the limbs of a small poplar tree (without a stand of any kind). I still remember it as if it occurred just yesterday. What a triumph it was for that twelve year old farm boy that was nearly frozen stiff by the time he pulled the trigger of the old Stevens 30-30 dropping his very first whitetail deer...

Read the rest of this article...

The GT Flex crossbow is made by U.S. Crossbowyer TenPoint, but they label it “SixPoint” a logo type reserved for bows marketed within the lower end of their price range. Interesting as that may seem, anyone who reads my reviews will know that I recognize and applaud high quality; what is less well known is that I warn companies to take care over what they send me. If they want a good review it had better be a good product. And there, on my doorstep, I see an inexpensive bow from a company famed as the marketer of the Cadillac of crossbows. Inexpensive is a relative term, but the GT Flex is around a third of the price of some.

The box felt light. In it was a crossbow in two main parts, a recurve prod and a mainframe with stock attached, and some bits and pieces...

Read the rest of this article...

I can remember like yesterday the first time I came to the end of a standing cornfield as a driver and witnessed what seemed like hundreds of pheasants take flight. Some today would trade sighting a dozen whitetail does for that experience. And obviously I remember the fall of my 11th year when I graduated to toter, and was presented with an Iver Johnson 16 Ga., single shot shotgun. But the learning process went on from there. We could hunt until 5 p.m. each day, and I was allowed to hunt alone with my beagle, so I’d jump off the school bus about 3 p.m., run in the house to change, grab the shotgun and my five shotgun shells, and dash across the street into the standing corn. If, when I needed more shells, I hadn’t added a combination of rabbits and pheasants adding up to three to the family table, I got a lecture. “Boy”—I’m sure if he were alive today at 65, I’d still be called Boy – “Those shells cost good money. Stop wasting them.”

Read the rest of this article...

It was the eve of the 2009 firearms season and as was their nature the hunters in our family deer camp were bantering around the campfire.  Their normally jovial mood was slightly tempered, however, and I knew why.  The lack of deer sign had subdued their usually high expectations. 

Read the rest of this article...

2009 has been a very “interesting” year for all crossbow manufacturers. “Interesting” in the Chinese sense, as in “may you live in interesting times” that is. Sure, it’s great to see the new opportunities opening and welcome all those new potential crossbow hunters into the fold, and yes, it’s great to see our sales figures soar in these uncertain economic times. That said, it’s been a madhouse here at Excalibur with new building expansion, new machinery, and lots of new crossbows to build, ship, and service. Personally, I was more than ready for the sales season to trail off and I have really welcomed the peace and relaxation that deer hunting near my home has brought to me recently.

Read the rest of this article...

The New York Bowhunters and New York Muzzleloaders Association are jointly floating a proposal which would radically change the N.Y. State hunting season structure. Everyone will benefit, except for vast majority of hunters who hunt the regular firearms hunting season.

The NYB is seeking an October 1 opener in the Southern Zone for the bowhunters, and they also want to run the bow outing late into the year. The plan will essentially “gut” the regular firearms season and move the majority of the hunting days into December.

Read the rest of this article...

This past year has been a banner year for the expansion of the crossbow hunting seasons. The first state to add the crossbow to their bowhunting season was North Carolina. For some unexplainable reason, the southern states have marched at the very front of the movement to include crossbows into the archery seasons. Wyoming has always (since the very first day of its archery season) considered the crossbow to be just another piece of archery equipment. The South answered back in 1973 when the second state to include the crossbow in its archery season was Arkansas. In 1976, Ohio was the next state to jump on the “bandwagon of common sense” making the crossbow just one more choice for its bowhunters.

Read the rest of this article...

One cold Winter’s afternoon a few years ago, I was over at Bow-Plus, the pro-shop that imports crossbows to Britain for my reviews, talking over a coffee with owner Dave Horder about crossbow that might be interesting to review, and he told me about the reverse-draw concept bow mad by Jim Kempf, whom he had met at one of the international shows. Essentially, the reverse-draw concept involved mounting the prod of what was a compound crossbow with the string on the target side of the riser, implying that the string was, as it were, pushed towards the riser instead of pulled away from it as one does when drawing a conventional bow. Dave reported that, on the prototype, the standard of engineering was high, the design radical and the performance seemed good. He also advised that Jim Kempf was a very pleasant man and I should get in touch with him.

Read the rest of this article...

The old hunter quietly sat in his makeshift ground blind; his trusty old recurve laid gingerly across his lap.  As he watched over the trail crossing the creek bed as it led from the big woods to the adjacent farmers’ field he hoped tonight would be his lucky night because the first of three long firearms seasons started tomorrow.  He could be off the ground if earlier this fall he had not procrastinated and fixed the wooden platform in the tree behind him.  Instead, he had planned to buy a metal ladder stand before the two-week bow season had begun.  Unfortunately the firearm hunters had snatched up the few stands the stores in his area carried.  The longer his vigil went, the more his thoughts wandered.

Read the rest of this article...

It’s been less than one year since the Game Commission legalized crossbows here in Pennsylvania. Since that time the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation has been rallying and leading an unstoppable movement throughout the commonwealth. For the first time crossbow hunters in Pennsylvania have a united voice to represent them at the state capitol. Since its inception the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation has sent delegates to every Board of Commissioners meeting to testify on behalf of the grass roots crossbow hunters in the state.

Read the rest of this article...

Born in 1949 and schooled during the 50’s and 60’s, the year 2010 seemed a million miles away to me during those formative years. But now that it is here, not only does 2010 denote the passing of the first decade of this century, but for me, it marks another important milestone in my life as a hunter. This is my fiftieth year of hunting big game animals in the wild. Tacking on another four years or so for small game hunting is required to complete the report, but it was half a century ago that I shot my very first whitetail deer along the edge of a thick, willowed swamp after a long, cold day of hanging in the limbs of a small poplar tree (without a stand of any kind). I still remember it as if it occurred just yesterday. What a triumph it was for that twelve year old farm boy that was nearly frozen stiff by the time he pulled the trigger of the old Stevens 30-30 dropping his very first whitetail deer...

Read the rest of this article...

The GT Flex crossbow is made by U.S. Crossbowyer TenPoint, but they label it “SixPoint” a logo type reserved for bows marketed within the lower end of their price range. Interesting as that may seem, anyone who reads my reviews will know that I recognize and applaud high quality; what is less well known is that I warn companies to take care over what they send me. If they want a good review it had better be a good product. And there, on my doorstep, I see an inexpensive bow from a company famed as the marketer of the Cadillac of crossbows. Inexpensive is a relative term, but the GT Flex is around a third of the price of some.

The box felt light. In it was a crossbow in two main parts, a recurve prod and a mainframe with stock attached, and some bits and pieces...

Read the rest of this article...

I can remember like yesterday the first time I came to the end of a standing cornfield as a driver and witnessed what seemed like hundreds of pheasants take flight. Some today would trade sighting a dozen whitetail does for that experience. And obviously I remember the fall of my 11th year when I graduated to toter, and was presented with an Iver Johnson 16 Ga., single shot shotgun. But the learning process went on from there. We could hunt until 5 p.m. each day, and I was allowed to hunt alone with my beagle, so I’d jump off the school bus about 3 p.m., run in the house to change, grab the shotgun and my five shotgun shells, and dash across the street into the standing corn. If, when I needed more shells, I hadn’t added a combination of rabbits and pheasants adding up to three to the family table, I got a lecture. “Boy”—I’m sure if he were alive today at 65, I’d still be called Boy – “Those shells cost good money. Stop wasting them.”

Read the rest of this article...

It was the eve of the 2009 firearms season and as was their nature the hunters in our family deer camp were bantering around the campfire.  Their normally jovial mood was slightly tempered, however, and I knew why.  The lack of deer sign had subdued their usually high expectations. 

Read the rest of this article...

2009 has been a very “interesting” year for all crossbow manufacturers. “Interesting” in the Chinese sense, as in “may you live in interesting times” that is. Sure, it’s great to see the new opportunities opening and welcome all those new potential crossbow hunters into the fold, and yes, it’s great to see our sales figures soar in these uncertain economic times. That said, it’s been a madhouse here at Excalibur with new building expansion, new machinery, and lots of new crossbows to build, ship, and service. Personally, I was more than ready for the sales season to trail off and I have really welcomed the peace and relaxation that deer hunting near my home has brought to me recently.

Read the rest of this article...

The New York Bowhunters and New York Muzzleloaders Association are jointly floating a proposal which would radically change the N.Y. State hunting season structure. Everyone will benefit, except for vast majority of hunters who hunt the regular firearms hunting season.

The NYB is seeking an October 1 opener in the Southern Zone for the bowhunters, and they also want to run the bow outing late into the year. The plan will essentially “gut” the regular firearms season and move the majority of the hunting days into December.

Read the rest of this article...

This past year has been a banner year for the expansion of the crossbow hunting seasons. The first state to add the crossbow to their bowhunting season was North Carolina. For some unexplainable reason, the southern states have marched at the very front of the movement to include crossbows into the archery seasons. Wyoming has always (since the very first day of its archery season) considered the crossbow to be just another piece of archery equipment. The South answered back in 1973 when the second state to include the crossbow in its archery season was Arkansas. In 1976, Ohio was the next state to jump on the “bandwagon of common sense” making the crossbow just one more choice for its bowhunters.

Read the rest of this article...

One cold Winter’s afternoon a few years ago, I was over at Bow-Plus, the pro-shop that imports crossbows to Britain for my reviews, talking over a coffee with owner Dave Horder about crossbow that might be interesting to review, and he told me about the reverse-draw concept bow mad by Jim Kempf, whom he had met at one of the international shows. Essentially, the reverse-draw concept involved mounting the prod of what was a compound crossbow with the string on the target side of the riser, implying that the string was, as it were, pushed towards the riser instead of pulled away from it as one does when drawing a conventional bow. Dave reported that, on the prototype, the standard of engineering was high, the design radical and the performance seemed good. He also advised that Jim Kempf was a very pleasant man and I should get in touch with him.

Read the rest of this article...

The old hunter quietly sat in his makeshift ground blind; his trusty old recurve laid gingerly across his lap.  As he watched over the trail crossing the creek bed as it led from the big woods to the adjacent farmers’ field he hoped tonight would be his lucky night because the first of three long firearms seasons started tomorrow.  He could be off the ground if earlier this fall he had not procrastinated and fixed the wooden platform in the tree behind him.  Instead, he had planned to buy a metal ladder stand before the two-week bow season had begun.  Unfortunately the firearm hunters had snatched up the few stands the stores in his area carried.  The longer his vigil went, the more his thoughts wandered.

Read the rest of this article...

It’s been less than one year since the Game Commission legalized crossbows here in Pennsylvania. Since that time the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation has been rallying and leading an unstoppable movement throughout the commonwealth. For the first time crossbow hunters in Pennsylvania have a united voice to represent them at the state capitol. Since its inception the Pennsylvania Crossbow Federation has sent delegates to every Board of Commissioners meeting to testify on behalf of the grass roots crossbow hunters in the state.

Read the rest of this article...