Starting to seriously wonder if we are even going to get Summer in Alberta this year. It snowed yesterday, tried again today, and we are expecting a low of -16 degrees Celsius tonight. This is unreal—we are 20 degrees below our average temp for this time of year. Anyways, I was finally able to get into the garage and do a staining and cresting run. You know just testing colours, the paint brushes, and rigged up a super hick cresting machine that works decent enough. The stain I got is more on the greyer side than I was hoping but it will do. The wine red colour I got is a little off, but after adding a bit of black I was able to achieve the proper tone. I’m interested to check them in the morning to see final colours. I forgot to take a picture to share—not that it’s picture worthy in the slightest 🤣 I’m glad I did the test because I had to trouble shoot a bit—the paint was bleeding into the grain. Learned/remembered that I should use a thin layer of my polycrylic before cresting. If anyone has any tips, anything at all, put them below. I’m all ears at this point. Oh, I did film how I “poor man” splice my feathers. I’ll get that up hopefully soon.

Confidence? Belief in the bow as a hunting tool? How to shoot it even? Arrow tuning? Comment below! ⬇️ 🏹

Tonight I came up with my own version of a smoked duck breast poutine using the breast meat from a couple of wood ducks I got last fall. Using russet potatoes I cut them to French fry size and soaked in a ice bath for an hour. I then seasoned them with some buffalo wing seasoning and put them in the smoker for an hour at 180F just to give them some flavour. I would finish them in the oven at 400F to get them crispy. I cooked down 4 red onions in a cast iron pan until they were caramelized. Once the potatoes were finished in the smoker I took the duck breast and hit them with a bit of steak spice and then smoked them at 225F until about 140F internal. In another pan I sauteed mushrooms and garlic. I got my girlfriend to make the gravy as that's her specialty Combine in a bowl and hit them with the cheese curd and smother with gravy and some green onion on top.

So when I built these arrows, I specifically said the grain wasn't good enough to hunt stumps. I need to correct that statement. Yes the grain was absolutely terrible on some of them, but the toughness is incredible. Once I had them trained to stay straight and my painting was done, I figured stumping was the only logical use for what would be a short lived experiment. I was wrong. They bareshafted a bit weak but I can't cut them shorter so I ran five inch feathers. They fly awesome out of my montana, I can switch between the montana and my hunting bow without missing a beat. I put judos on and I've hit some incredibly hard stumps so far, glanced off a rock, and shot three trees while trying to do "thread the needle" shots. There is 0% damage to any of them. I am shooting these recklessly and with no care but I think they may just continue to blow my mind. I know @Ken Borst you were thinking of trying them, id say if you want to, do it. Make sure to weigh and spine them yourself, but they're tough. Even just cutting a quarter inch of the point taper with my knife was a huge chore, they're hard. My only complaint left, was I had no weight choice so they're very heavy. They're 730 grains all done so I only get 148fps with them but they're sure performing well.

My wife and I along with a handful of volunteers hosted an Easter Fun Shoot at our local club today. 45 people participated. What was very interesting was all but 7 were new to archery. Very exciting to see new faces enjoying the sport for the first time. I had to dive into the clubs new bow and arrow stache to make sure everyone had equipment for the day. I know, good problem to have. What I also liked was just how many people wanted to shoot the trad bows over the Genesis compounds. We have a variety of recurves from 18-45lbs draw weight. In both left and right hand. I’ve worked hard to get our equipment modernized and see more and more wanting to shoot the recurves. Warms my heart. We even had a couple of our regulars who shoot compounds try and really enjoy traditional bows. Win win for all of us. Lots of smiles, lots of laughs and many memories were made today.