When Ron Roettger fired an arrow at a black bear some years ago, the animal never knew what hit him. That’s because Roettger was downwind from his unsuspecting quarry when he drew back his longbow and loosed a homemade arrow.
Distance from archer to bruin: 3 yards.
Roettger, 64, of Star Prairie, Wis., about an hour northeast of the Twin Cities, has been shooting traditional style bows since his 12th birthday, when his dad took him to a J.C. Penney outlet and for $20 bought the youngster a Ben Pearson Colt with a 45-pound draw weight.
“As a kid I had a little fiberglass bow that I shot in our backyard,” Roettger said. “I’ve always been fascinated with archery.”
Not just any archery, as it turns out. But what generally is called traditional-style archery, or the use of bows and arrows that resemble the kinds Native Americans used, and before them Indigenous people dating back thousands of years.
No longer in widespread use, recurves and longbows — the two styles generally included in the definition of “traditional” bows — gave way beginning in the 1960s to the far more popular compound bows.
Not only are compound bows easier for relatively inexperienced archers to shoot accurately at fairly long distances, the bows’ pulley systems enable hunters to hold compound bows at full draw for long moments while waiting for unobstructed shots at game.
Traditional bows, by contrast, are shot “instinctively,” meaning bowstrings are drawn back and released almost in one motion. Additionally, unlike compound bows, traditional bows have no sights.