Latest / Salish Wolf / #70 Caleb Flies on Project Quiver

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#70 Caleb Flies on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

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Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
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world's finest traditional bow carvers.
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I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
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Together we're on a mission to create a stunning coffee table
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book that profiles more than a dozen master bow years and their
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unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
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the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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photograph his woodcraft in detail, and share his story here
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on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver the
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Art of Life. Through Bowcraft and this
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journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
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How are you doing, man? Good.
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How are you? Good, thanks for doing this.
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Yeah, sorry about the the last one.
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No worries, that happens. How are the holidays?
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Good. Over now, thankfully.
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Busy. Yeah, it's hectic.
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We got some. I think we had six or seven
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different family Christmas things.
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Wow. Extended family, small family
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for every side it seems like. Wow, so you're in Oklahoma,
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right? Yeah, where are you all out of?
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Split between Vancouver Island and British Columbia and Costa
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Rica. OK.
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So you're up there right by Jamie and all those guys.
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Yeah, Jamie is. Jamie's a couple hours away.
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Pete's just down the road. Pete's walking distance.
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I'm going over to Pete's in a little bit after this, but then
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I'm off to Costa Rica tomorrow, so.
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Nice, do you so you work both places or like from home or?
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Yeah. And most of what I'm doing is is
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on my computer for the book and this project Quiver and
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podcasting, so I can do that wherever.
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Yeah. Cool.
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Yeah, we actually came back because we were photographing
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all of our bows. So we made 14 bows during
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Project Quiver and I had them all shipped here or to Canada
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because I figured they would have a better chance of making
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it. And so we were doing photographs
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in the studio for the book. So that was our final
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photography obligations for the book.
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Cool and it's a book being like sourced by anyone or is it just
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y'all's project or what? It's being published by a
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publisher in Chicago called Trope.
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They specialize in beautiful coffee table books.
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So we're working with them and they're doing all the everything
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that a publisher does for it. Yeah, It was an idea that I I
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came up with on my own and then my daughter came on board with
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it and we were planning on putting the book together
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regardless of how that meant, even if we had to self publish.
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But we ended up getting a few publishing offers, so.
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We make double sense, Al. October is the target.
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However, we're ahead of schedule on our end.
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So the publisher depends on them.
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Actually it largely depends on the printer, because the printer
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takes anywhere from three to four, maybe even longer months,
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that is three to four months, so.
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Yeah, I'll have to get one when it comes out.
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That'll be cool. Yeah, it's going to be
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beautiful. We're really excited for it.
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Nice. And it's been an amazing
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experience too, to learn about all the different Bowers.
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Like when I started out with this idea, I, I knew very few
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Bowers out there. I'd worked with Pete of Heritage
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Bows and Jamie of Ravenbeak. And outside of that, I didn't, I
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didn't know anyone. And so it was just kind of an
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idea to start working with other Bowers.
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And we slowly started to find more and more.
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And then as we started on our journey, after we had already
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committed to our Bowers for this version of the project or this
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iteration, then we started learning about so many more like
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yourself, so. Well, you have a sort of a good
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two locally between you and Jeremy.
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You're fortunate to have. Well, and and there's also Ryan
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Gautier, known as Wizard Goat and he's two hours drive, so
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he's. I sent him some staves and he
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sent me some this year. Yeah.
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So having three of them right here or within driving distance
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has been really cool. Yeah, bona fide buggers, all of
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them. Yeah, definitely.
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Yeah. So how long have you been at it?
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Let's see, I think, I think I've got 7 or 8 years of building,
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but I've been shooting them my whole life.
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Yeah, long bows and recurves, laminates, not primitive, but
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yeah, right. Building 7 or 8 years now.
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What are you mostly building? Primitives or laminates?
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No, I came from the target side of stuff.
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So I shoot 3D tournaments and I'd shoot Longbow and how I got
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into self bows was self bows are pretty big in Oklahoma
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competitively. And so I just, I wanted to self
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bow to shoot in these tournaments.
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And I was just going to buy one and then my friends talked me
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into going to OJM. It's like one of the biggest bow
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building festivals in the country and it's an hour for me.
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So I went up there with intention to build a bow to
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compete with and then I fell in love with the building process.
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And so that's kind of how I got into it.
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But coming from the target side of stuff, I want my bow to be as
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forgiving and easy to shoot as possible.
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And I want to do that while building it out of a single
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piece of wood. But for me, that's pretty modern
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risers. I want to a locator grip, a
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radius shelf, a radius strike plate, so all things that make
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it really easy to tune and shoot.
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And so I don't care a ton about the primitive side of stuff.
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The longer I shoot, kind of the more primitive my setups get.
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Like a couple years ago I did stone points, linen string.
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I wanted everything to be natural.
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I don't, I mean, it still wouldn't technically be a
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primitive bow because I had a small shelf cut in.
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But I'm not building like historic replicas like someone
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like Corey Hawk would be doing, You know?
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To me, I just want to build the best shooting, best looking bow
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I can out of a piece of wood. Nice.
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So archery, would you say archery is kind of the first
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passion and then making bows comes after that?
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Yeah, yeah. I mean, hunting was like being
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an outdoors hunting. Fishing was my huge passion.
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That's what my older brother, dad and grandpa did.
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And so archery was, you know, this great tool to have for our
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hunting season. Archery season's three months,
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but gun season's two weeks. So if you want to hunt deer and
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it makes sense to, you know, bow hunt, you get a lot more time in
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the woods. And then I don't know why that
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I've kind of leaned towards the traditional stuff.
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No one else in my family does anything traditional.
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They all shoot compounds and stuff.
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So I don't know if I just thought it was cool and like
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medieval books or movies or what.
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But yeah, I have like a distinct love for the outdoors.
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And then traditional archery specifically.
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Yeah. Are you finding that your bow
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designs are getting more and more primitive or are you
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staying closer to the traditional for the competitions
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My. Personal Designs did when I
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wanted to shoot in Oklahoma, we just got a bear season back in
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2009. They've been wiped out before
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that. Arkansas reintroduced them in
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the 50s and then we started getting bears from that Arkansas
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population. And so I wanted to build a
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primitive style bow and arrow because I knew that no one had
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killed one with primitive archery equipment since Native
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Americans. So that year I I went as close
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to primitive as I probably will with the all natural string
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material and stuff like that. The Flint points I learned how
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to Flint nap. And then this year I I went back
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to more of a tournament stall riser on my recurve and I was
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using metal broadhead somewhat arrows this year.
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And what year was it that you did the more?
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Permanent 323. Did you get a bear?
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I got 2 that year, one in Arkansas, one in Oklahoma.
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Wow. And so that was you're back now
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to more of the traditional approach.
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Yeah, I am still building like this year I shot two different U
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recurves I made. So they have a rawhide backing
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and then snakeskin on top of that.
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So it's still natural materials, but more of a traditional design
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on the the recurve as a primitive.
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Why 2 backings? Why rawhide and snakeskin?
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Rawhide just because talking to people locally here and I don't
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know if it's a climate difference, like it seems like
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the the guys in BC, like they don't seem afraid to back their
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bows. EU here when you when you deal
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with Osage, you're chasing a perfect ring to cross the back
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every time. And so 1 is probably just extra
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insurance. It probably would be fine if I
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didn't back it, but the rawhide is an extra, you know, extra
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piece of insurance on the back of that bow.
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And Corey Hawk talks about sacked Saxton Pope's books and
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they were occasionally breaking U bows.
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And then when they started backing them with rawhide, they
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stopped breaking bows. And so when I'm paying 350 bucks
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for a piece of you from British Columbia, you know, and putting
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all that time into it, I don't want to take any chances.
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And I'm going to put snakeskin on the back anyways.
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And so to me, you never even see the rawhide, but it is there
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protecting. And then the snake sends over
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the top right for aesthetics, so.
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Yeah. How long have you been hunting?
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Your whole life. Whole life, yeah.
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Yeah. How old are you?
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28? OK, so you started boat building
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pretty young? Yeah, I think it was maybe 20.
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Yeah, around 2021. Yeah.
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And is that a full time thing for you?
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No, I'm a firefighter. That's what I do full time.
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So I work 10 days a month, I have 20 days off a month.
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So I get a lot of time in the shop, or I did until we had a
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baby last year and then we've got another one on the way.
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So now shop times a little more limited, but I mean, I stayed
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pretty busy with the orders. Like I, I just released like a
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couple orders a year. And so I'm fortunate enough that
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those fill up instantly. And I, I feel bad that I have a
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waiting list, but I'm not going to open my orders and then have
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like 50 or 100 orders and have like 10 years worth of building.
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So I just released two or three spots here and there and then
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list stock bows occasionally. Yeah.
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Where, where are you putting when you say you're releasing
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your orders? Is that through like a private
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mailing list? Or it's through my website,
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soravencallarchery.com. And then what I do is on
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Facebook, on my Instagram and Facebook for my Raven Claw
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archery account. I'll post like, hey, Saturday
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next week at 6:00 PM Central time, there's going to be 3 bows
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in stock custom order. And so you pay the $200 deposit
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and it's first come first serve. Those go live at 6:00 PM.
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Then those people just snatch them up.
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So I, I don't have a, a good way to filter through Instagram,
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Facebook messages, calls, emails and keep track of who requested
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those and what orders. So that's just the most fairway
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I've found. Yeah, that's cool that you're
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getting enough orders to keep you busy and you could do more
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if you if you had the time. The bows that you are making to
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sell, are they similar to what you're making for your own self,
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or are they more primitive or a variety of?
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Things they're they're very much more the target stall.
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A meteorizer I'm typically doing instead of like a four inch
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handle, I'm typically doing like a 8 inch handle and I, I can
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offer a smaller one. I can make a four inch handle
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someone wants, but if you want, you know, a deep cut and shelf
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like I can cut my bows to center, but they have to have
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that tournament style riser. So that way there's no flex and
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any chance was split out. I've never had a bow split out
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at the shelf even with some being cut to center, but that's
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because I have so much mass in the riser.
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And you look at these Olympic Archers and compound Archers,
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What do you see on their bows when they're shooting, you know,
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70 meters, stabilizers and weights everywhere.
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A light bow for me is really hard to hold steady and it's not
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forgiving of your bow hand. So I put a bow quiver on, I've
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got a heavy riser. And when you're holding that,
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that mass is a lot more stable both when you're holding a aim
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and on the shot. So it's a more forgiving setup.
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And so I think a lot of people go from shooting Longbow Class A
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recurve class. They want to shoot a self bow
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and then they get a primitive self bow and then they shoot
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that and then they end up hanging on their wall because
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it's so much tougher to shoot, which is, you know, kudos to
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people that are shooting primitive bows very accurately
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because they're tough to shoot. But I and there's not very many
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people because when I refer people, if they're wanting to
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order a bow for me and I can't take an order.
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I don't know very many people that are building modern
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tournament style risers, like like a traditional bear grizzly
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style riser on a self bow. Like I see a lot of people do
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that personally, but of the bow years that are, you know,
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selling bows for a living, there's not hardly any of that
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do. And so I feel like that's part
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of why I've had so much success in keeping orders is it's a
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pretty, it's pretty open market in that area.
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I know the Arvin Weaver builds a really good tournament style
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Longbow or self bow. He's out of Texas and he's just
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word of mouth like you don't have a website or anything, but
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you'll see more of his bows than any other self bow at the IBO
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worlds and all these big 3D tournaments.
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OK. So you're creating bows that are
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kind of filling that niche for the the tournaments, whereas
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most bowyers that I know are doing primitive S balls.
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Yeah, exactly. OK, where did the name Ravenclaw
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come from? I was looking for Ravenbeak and
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I think I'd maybe seen Jamie's stuff before and I saw that that
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name was taken. I'm like, what am I going to do?
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And then I just start thinking other parts on a Raven.
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I was like Raven Claw. And then I started doing that.
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Then my sister was like, oh, like Harry Potter.
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And I was like, I made the logo, the Instagram, everything.
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I was like, yeah, I didn't think.
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I didn't think about that. She's she's a big Harry Potter
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fan and we watch it now. I like it.
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But I was like, yeah, I didn't think that through.
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So it wasn't after Harry Potter. But yeah, it's honestly Jamie
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kind of forced me into that name.
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Right. And why Raven?
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Where did the passion for that come from?
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No. No clue, I don't even think we
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have Ravens here. That's probably just my inner
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nerd. So.
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When did you start it? See, I built, I think I built a
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couple bows for myself and then I, I made that and I wasn't
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selling bows yet. I was actually selling tabs and
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that's what I was originally selling, what the Ravenclaw
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archery was, wood plate, finger tabs with the cordovan.
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And so that was probably six years ago, probably a year after
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I made my first beau. And then I started really
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enjoying the beau building process.
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And then I was like, man, I got to justify.
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I spent all this money on tools and all this time out my shop
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because my other side job was lawn care.
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All my days off in the fire department was like, I want to
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quit mowing and doing flower beds and stuff.
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If I can make money like doing this as a side job, then I could
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just invest all that money, sold my mowing equipment and build a
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nice shop. So that's what I did.
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Nice. What kind of woods do you
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typically work with? 90% Osage now I've got a good
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stock pile of U. For me personally, I've sold a
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few U bows. I'm kind of on AU kick so I've
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probably got 30, 35 really nice used Abes, but everything else
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is Osage because I can harvest it locally and I just I don't
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see why I wouldn't use you or Osage if I can get it and I'm
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going to put that much time into a bow I want.
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What in my mind is the best bow woods?
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And are you harvesting all of your own Osage?
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Most of it, so a lot of it. I have a couple contacts and
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I'll pay people to cut it and then I go get it.
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I pre market they cut it and then I harvest some myself.
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I've harvested everything where I live so any anything worth
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cutting But when I get it from them I get it in log formed and
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so I do all the splitting, processing, all that.
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Right. And how many bows are you making
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a year on average? So this year I'll be right
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around 15. And so I don't pump out, I'm
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quality over quantity is more yeah, my mindset and it seems
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like every order I get now somebody wants just about every
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option Ioffer added on to it. OK.
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And then for your risers and the handle and whatnot, is that all
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you and Osage are using other woods for that?
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Ideally almost every bow that I build.
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Like when I harvest my Osage I leave my staves really big.
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I really like it all to be one piece, not I don't like putting
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laminates on the handles. I've done a few that way, but
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typically it will just all be out of you or all be out of
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Osage. All right, OK, well, that's
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cool. So they're are they called self
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bows Then it's still a. Self bow as long now a rawhide
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vacuum bow would typically or technically not be a self bow.
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It'd still be legal in the primitive class at most
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tournaments. But yeah, and that's that's kind
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of my theory on it is mine doesn't have anything more or
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less than say a primitive bow other than the shape of it.
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Right. So except if I've got raw hide
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on it. Nice.
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Yeah, I'm just looking at your Raven call on Instagram now.
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Definitely have looked at it before.
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I just didn't study the the handles as much.
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Was it cool? And then you normally put a grip
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on them? Like a leather grip.
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Yeah, yeah. Depending on what the customer
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requests, I always put one on mine.
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I like that my hands sweat a ton and Beaver tail handles that
18:09
really well. It's got good texture.
18:11
Your hands not going to slip or slide.
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I mean, that's a huge thing in tournament archery is getting
18:16
the same exact grip every time. So if it's slipping and sliding
18:19
around, I mean, it's it's amazing how much I can throw it
18:22
off. Whether you're torquing the bow
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or not. Where do you get Beaver tail
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from? There's several people locally
18:31
that trap and harvest and then they send it off and have it tan
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most of them, and then you can find it online, eBay, at sea.
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I just got three in the mail the other day from Canada.
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There's a guy in Canada, I don't know which province he's in, but
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he's got really good quality stuff.
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That's cool. Yeah, it's beautiful looking.
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I love the texture I have. I've only used it on my bow that
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I made with Wayland Swiftwood bows and that was just in the
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arrow passes, the grip is The grip is not Beaver tail, but the
19:02
arrow passes. Yeah, and Beaver, Beaver tail is
19:08
probably one of the tougher ones with how rigid it is to form to
19:11
those contoured grips. So I it's what everyone wants,
19:16
but it's probably the biggest pain to get on there.
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It's fine if you got like a broom handle round grip or just
19:24
a flat grip. But when they've got a valley
19:26
and they're coming in to to get that Beaver, tell the mold to
19:29
that, it's pretty tough, honestly.
19:32
Yeah. Do you then make the quivers
19:35
that attach to your bows? No, those are made by Donnie
19:39
Wilkerson at Creek Walker. So Clay Hayes, I think it's the
19:43
first person I saw using one of those and turn me on to Donnie's
19:46
stuff. So what's the benefit to those
19:49
you mentioned the mass? I think that's.
19:52
I mean primarily. Yeah.
19:54
So the 2023, the first bear I shot in Arkansas, it was my
20:00
first time shooting a bear. I've been hunting for a while
20:03
and I'd seen quite a few, but I didn't realize anatomy
20:06
difference vertically on bear is so much different than deer.
20:10
I knew that horizontally their lungs sit further back, but
20:14
their spine sits much lower than their hairline.
20:17
And So what I thought was a good shot on that bear, I ended up
20:20
spinning it and it still had rear leg drive.
20:23
It got up to run off and I was able to get another arrow in the
20:26
bear as it was running off. That's on my YouTube and stuff.
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But I couldn't have done that with the back quiver or side
20:32
quiver that was hanging in the tree next to me.
20:34
Like to have it right there is really handy and hunting
20:38
situation. And then, yeah, the mass weight,
20:40
like the more mass I have on a bow, the better I shoot it.
20:45
That's why, you know, people like the Black Widow recurves.
20:48
Everyone says they shoot good. Well, they're like a four by
20:51
four with limbs. They're a massive meteorizer and
20:53
they hold really steady. So why is that?
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Like what's the physics behind that?
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So I mean, when you're at full draw, so like if you're just
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trying to hold like a straw, like trying to hold a straw out
21:08
and the wind, you know, like that thing's going to be
21:10
flopping all over the place as opposed to like, you know,
21:14
holding the, we'll say holding a brick, it's just going to hold
21:18
steadier. And then you're not, you are
21:20
holding the weight of the the bow, But at the same time, when
21:24
you're drawing, you know, you're pulling that weight back.
21:27
So it's not like you're just out here holding it without any
21:29
help. But when you're under tension,
21:33
well, shakes or vibrations aren't going to be magnified
21:36
like they are in a little bitty light bow.
21:39
So and then on the shot, the bow is going to stay more dead in
21:42
hand than a real light bow. It's much easier to to jerk
21:47
around a light bow. And that's why though, I mean,
21:49
those tournament, even the tournament guns that these guys
21:52
are shooting, they weigh a ton because mass, I mean, it doesn't
21:55
want to be moved. So it's going to stay steady.
21:59
Got it. Yeah, that makes sense.
22:02
Yeah, I guess it's never been something that I've worried
22:04
about because I'm mostly just doing target shooting.
22:06
So it's and I'm just used to shooting primitive bows with.
22:10
So some are lighter, some are heavier, but.
22:12
Yeah, yeah. And like you shoot a tournament
22:15
and you, I mean, you miss the podium by like 2 or 4 points.
22:19
You're like, how could I shave that off?
22:23
And then, you know, it's, it's everything like lighter arrows
22:26
to close your gaps, smaller feathers to cut down on wind
22:30
drift. I mean, everything you can
22:31
squeeze out of that bow. I mean, you know, you're, you're
22:36
trying to find a way to get points anywhere you can.
22:39
How do you get into the tournament shooting?
22:42
I'm I'm not really trying to move my first tournament.
22:47
My dad or grandpa signed us up for one locally.
22:50
It's pretty big in Oklahoma. And so it's just kind of like a
22:53
big offseason thing, like tournament season is the
22:56
offseason and deer season. And it's what a lot of people do
22:59
for for fun. I mean, it is pretty
23:01
competitive. Some guys even make a living
23:03
doing it. Really.
23:04
It's just that, yeah, it's, it's super fun and it's a good way to
23:07
say, you know, sharp throughout the offseason.
23:11
So what's a setup like? Is it 3D shooting mostly?
23:14
Or 3D is what's big here. Field isn't very big.
23:18
I don't know of any field organizations that we have
23:21
locally, but yeah, so for most traditional stuff, depending on
23:26
if it's a organization or a club, like some of these places
23:29
are just a club and so they can put whatever rules they want,
23:33
shoot however many targets at whatever distance and they'll
23:35
have a stake. I'd say recurve is typically a
23:38
30 yard Max. Every now and then they might
23:40
put like a moose out at 40 yards or something.
23:43
But yeah, you shoot 1 arrow, you're shooting 30 targets to
23:46
center rings 12, then you've got 10/8 and then hit the body
23:50
outside the rings as a 5 and so you'll shoot.
23:55
You can shoot recurve. Most of these places have a
23:57
recurve, A Longbow and then a self bow class.
24:00
Self bow has to be shot with wood arrows.
24:03
So you get one shot each of the 30 targets.
24:07
Let's go on. Is it one round or do you do
24:09
multiple rounds? Is 1 round and then some
24:11
tournaments. The top five scores will shoot
24:14
for the top three places they'll have a shoot off.
24:17
And then is there any pre tournament access so you can
24:22
practice on the course? Is that the idea that you're not
24:25
supposed to like a? Practice range, like you can't
24:27
shoot the actual course that you're going to be shooting
24:29
beforehand. But what guys would do like if
24:33
self bow was my strong class, I would go to the practice range,
24:37
I'd shoot my recurve through the course if it was the same course
24:41
and then I kind of have an idea of what I'm going to be shooting
24:44
when I go back through for myself Bow class.
24:47
OK. So, but that's the only way you
24:49
could really see the course before is if you shot a
24:52
legitimate score around. And then you said guys are
24:55
making living. Is that prize money?
24:58
Yeah, that and that's really just a compound.
25:00
I don't know of the traditional guys.
25:02
Now Shiloh Butts is in Oklahoma. He's a several time over world
25:08
champion Longbow shooter. They have the, it's a World
25:13
Archery is organization. They have a huge 3D tournament
25:17
every two years and one year it was in Italy.
25:21
I can't remember where it was this last time, but Shiloh went
25:24
to that and was meeting shooters from other countries.
25:28
And some of those shooters, that is their profession in their
25:31
country. So they are paid by their
25:33
country and that's what they do year round.
25:35
They shoot competitively and those are those are Longbow,
25:39
bare bow and in the instinctive class which is recurve, I don't
25:44
believe they can string walk. They might be able to, I'm not
25:47
I'm not sure, but those are the three main classes and they have
25:50
full time shooters. And then you said here mostly
25:54
it's people shooting the compound and the compound
25:56
category that are making money. There's a lot of guys making a
25:59
living in compound. And why is that possible in that
26:02
category? The archery companies like Hoyt
26:05
and Matthews, I mean, they make so much money.
26:08
I mean every year, like I used to work at archery shop, every
26:12
year they will come out with new models and every year guys will
26:16
sell their previous year's model and very, very little changes
26:20
and they will come drop $1500 on a new bow.
26:23
And so a lot of those guys, they shoot 3D competitively but not
26:27
professionally. And so they follow these big
26:30
name guys that are shooting for these companies and they get
26:32
contracts to shoot with them. And then there is some prize
26:35
money in it too. OK.
26:36
So it's largely sponsorship and then some prize money.
26:40
Wow crazy. So there must be a ton of
26:43
tournaments then in your area. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot all
26:46
throughout the States, you know. And what's OGM like?
26:51
OGM is, it's a big, just really good group of people that are
26:57
donating their time, their tools.
27:01
So you get there, I think they, they really start on Thursday
27:06
officially, but guys are getting out there like Monday.
27:09
And so the Oklahoma Self Self Post Society is who runs OGM.
27:17
They, I mean they take $25.00 for you to sign up and sign
27:21
their waiver and that's all it cost other than you need to buy
27:25
a piece of wood or bring a piece of wood.
27:27
There's plenty of vendors there selling wood.
27:30
But after you pay that, that all goes towards the nonprofit.
27:33
They use that for bandsaws and they use that for belt Sanders
27:38
and they use that for wood to make kids bows because they give
27:40
away hundreds of kids bows every year.
27:43
And so they take all that money and just make sure that they
27:47
reinvest it to grow the sport of archery and primitive archery.
27:50
And so they'll be, I don't know, 30 or 40 guys that are part of
27:55
the organization. And so starting Thursday
27:57
morning, they'll sign everyone, everyone that signed up, they'll
28:00
sign you to a camp. And so there might be 15
28:04
students in one camp and they'll assign two or three instructors.
28:08
And so from the, the time that it starts in the morning at
28:12
8:00, you're in that camp all day helping people from the
28:16
start to finish on Sunday mornings when it breaks down.
28:20
But I mean, it's basically 3 or 4 days and you having a free
28:25
instructor. Now if you got 15 people and
28:27
three instructors, you know, you're kind of sharing.
28:29
But yeah, it's it's basically a a bow building class for 25
28:35
bucks. Wow, so is that the the premise
28:40
of OGM then? It's mostly a place to come and
28:42
make a bow with. More experienced?
28:44
People. OK.
28:45
So we want to keep that tradition alive.
28:47
That's where I learned. Yeah, that's a great goal is
28:50
getting kids into it and keeping the tradition alive.
28:53
So there's not a tournament or anything like that associated
28:55
with it. They did have, they used to have
28:58
a really big tournament was the state self bow championship and
29:01
then I think it was COVID that that kind of fell off and now
29:04
they're they're bringing it back.
29:06
And then anything else that they have vendors or?
29:10
Yeah, there's vendors there, camping usually probably 5 to 10
29:15
vendors I would guess. And then yeah, it's it's at a
29:18
lake with a campground around it and you can reserve camping
29:21
spots. Cool.
29:23
How many people were there when you were there, you think?
29:27
I don't know, I guess around 500 maybe.
29:31
Wow, that's significant. Yeah, yeah.
29:37
OK, kids all the way up to most instructors or a lot of those
29:42
guys are retired. And then there's a wealth of
29:45
knowledge in those instructors. And then, yeah, there's like
29:49
Corey Hawk was there, Bear Newcomb was there a lot of just
29:54
different guys that are big into that stuff?
29:57
And you said all primitive southpaws.
30:02
Oh, it's really cool. I'll have to look more into
30:04
that. I've I've heard of it and I just
30:06
wasn't. I'm not bad to any of the the
30:09
archery rendezvous or jamborees but and the states, but they all
30:12
sound intriguing. Yeah.
30:15
So that like I went to the Classic for the first time this
30:17
year in Tennessee and that is a small group of I'd say at least
30:25
half of those guys are very well seasoned boaters that just kind
30:30
of hang out in the small circle. And then the classic is this big
30:34
massive tournament gathering where there's vendors and then
30:38
there's a lot of people shooting, you know, Longbow and
30:40
recurve showing up. And that's probably 90% of the
30:43
people that make up the classic. And then you have the small
30:46
little sub sect of core guys that are building self bows in
30:49
one area. And so whereas OJM is 100% a
30:55
self bow building class with other little things to do.
30:59
That's cool. It's so, it's so amazing how
31:01
much tradition there still is for primitive archery.
31:06
It's something I didn't even know about 10 years ago really,
31:08
or maybe a little bit longer ago than that.
31:10
That's a pretty incredible world.
31:13
Yeah, I'd say it's, I mean, it's doing.
31:15
It's alive and well. It's healthy, yeah.
31:19
What are your plans in it? Are you happy with where you are
31:22
and what you're doing, or do you have other ideas that you're
31:26
considering? I didn't hear the first part of
31:29
that. What was that my?
31:31
Just your plans with with plans as a lawyer in archery world in
31:35
general. I feel like over probably the
31:38
last two years, I would say I felt like I really kind of hit
31:42
my stride of identity of what kind of bows I like to build the
31:46
profiles, the designs. And so I really like where I'm
31:52
at now. My time is very limited, but I'm
31:57
raising little kids like it's the best part of life.
32:01
Like I don't want to look back 20 years from now and think
32:04
like, oh, I should have been in Cyborg, not out in the shop, you
32:06
know? So I'm soaking that up, enjoying
32:09
that. They're only going to be little
32:10
for so long. And so like in five years you're
32:12
going to be going to school and I'm going to have all day when
32:14
I'm off work at the fire department at home that I can go
32:17
to the shop. So I know I'll get my time back
32:19
in my shop. But yeah, I mean, I, I harvest
32:24
wood in the winter and then spend 3 months doing that.
32:28
And then I ramp up build building and I do that till
32:31
hunting season. And then I just, I stop until
32:33
I'm done hunting. So I like that.
32:35
It's not like this full time job.
32:37
Like I when I go out to the bow shop, I'm excited to go out to
32:40
the bow shop. I love going out there.
32:42
I, I don't want it to turn into like, oh, I have 50 orders and I
32:45
feel obligated to be out there because that's when it goes from
32:47
fun to work. For sure, yeah, yeah, a lot of
32:52
bow yours who I've interviewed have talked about that and that
32:56
when that happens, how it's it can ruin the passion, ruin the
33:00
hobby and turn it into a profession.
33:03
So. Yeah, and kudos to those guys
33:05
that do it for a living. Like I'm friends with Wayland.
33:09
Anytime I have a question, Wayland is more than kind enough
33:13
to answer it to me. And it's so nice to have a
33:15
resource of a guy that does it every single day for a living
33:18
that's faced all these problems, and he's willing to help me, you
33:23
know? And then whenever I'm full,
33:25
which is like all the time, it seems like now I'm always
33:28
sending guys to Wayland. Yeah.
33:29
So, you know, he's doing it for a living.
33:31
I couldn't imagine the stress of doing that, you know, like, as
33:35
the market comes and goes and like, you know, whether people
33:38
have spare money to spend on bows, like that would stress me
33:41
out to no end. That's why we got to take care
33:44
of the guys that are doing it for a living and promote them.
33:46
And yeah, I'm just, I'm thankful that that we do have guys like
33:50
Jamie and Waylon and those kind of guys, you know?
33:54
Yeah, it's amazing. Waylon's such an incredible
33:57
Bowyer and all of them are so generous with our knowledge.
34:00
And I think for someone like Waylon, having had a life before
34:06
being a bow your and having had a career and having had the
34:10
stress of the career and trying to squeeze in time to carve bow
34:13
as I know when he shifted into full time bow carvering, it was
34:17
the opposite of what a lot of people like you experience where
34:19
you're kind of building up a career into it.
34:21
For him, it was like such a blessing to be able to shed all
34:24
those other responsibilities and just be a family man and a bow
34:27
your. And so, yeah, there's sacrifices
34:31
of course, to that. But that's, yeah, he's done
34:35
incredible things, that's for sure.
34:37
And he gets to know carve. His son's out there carving with
34:39
him sometimes, or at least he was when I was there carving.
34:42
Yeah. So you'll get that in about 10
34:44
years, probably 10 or 15. Yeah, I've got a boy doing
34:48
March, so yeah, I'll have hopefully, hopefully my daughter
34:52
is into it too, but we'll see. Yeah, yeah, my son's 12.
34:56
He's been helping me on and off ever really since I started, so
35:01
probably for the last eight years or so.
35:04
He's still not interested in carving his own bow from start
35:07
to finish, but he definitely likes to be out there and help
35:10
helping me with various things. And first time I backed a bow
35:13
with Rawhide, he was there with me and we made a big mess of it.
35:17
But it's just fun to be able to do these things with their kids.
35:21
It's a lot of patience for, you know, a young kid to, to make a
35:26
bow because I made bows all the time in my backyard, but they
35:30
weren't proper self bows. Like if you had told me at 12
35:33
years old, I got to cut a piece of wood, split it, let it dry
35:36
for a year and then spend, you know, four or five hours chasing
35:41
a ring. Like I'd be like, no, I'm just
35:43
going to go bend this Willow sapling over and tie a paracord
35:46
on it. And then I'm shooting today.
35:49
Yeah, it's a commitment and it's how long does it take you to
35:51
make a bow? 30 hours.
35:54
Yeah, I kind of figured with if someone wants everything done
35:58
like snake skins, Beaver tail flip tips, tip overlays, I kind
36:04
of figured maybe close to 40 hours.
36:07
But that's, that's, let's say not a perfect state that I might
36:11
have to do some heat alignment because that's one of the most
36:13
time, you know, draining things is like, OK, heat it up, get in
36:17
these clamps, get it to where I think I'm going to have a good
36:19
string alignment, let it sit down, sit and cool.
36:23
You know which it takes a couple hours in Oklahoma if it's hot,
36:26
even with my AC running, I don't want to string that bow while
36:29
it's warm. And then you string it up and
36:31
it's off like an eighth an inch. You're like, now I spent another
36:35
30 minutes heated up, you know, so that over and over can take a
36:38
lot of time. Like I could get a bow shooting
36:41
in the day pretty easily. If it's, if it's a clean stave,
36:44
you know, get the ring chase in 30 minutes or an hour.
36:46
And then it's pretty quick after that.
36:49
But it's a finish work, especially if you're doing these
36:51
big meaty risers with mines. You have to sand all that stuff
36:56
down and then on the shelf, it takes forever to get your file
37:01
and saw marks out of cutting the shelf out.
37:04
So it's hard to get that perfect even I've used, I started using
37:07
a chisel so I don't have saw marks on the the strike plate
37:13
side of the shelf. But that filing to get all those
37:16
gouges and everything out. But hand sanding and not using
37:20
power tools and tearing it up, yeah, that takes a lot of time.
37:23
The finish work is, is exhaustingly slow.
37:25
It feels like it is. Oh, and it's also something to
37:28
the entire process, especially when you're doing self bows from
37:31
unique staves. No matter how good you get at
37:34
it, you still have to be extremely patient and it's it's
37:37
not like other crafts where you can kind of turn it almost into
37:40
an assembly line and get more and more and more efficient with
37:43
it. Really like bow building, like
37:45
getting faster almost means you're going to make more
37:47
mistakes. And there's so much of just
37:51
slowing down and waiting. And I was just talking with, I
37:54
was just writing the chapter for Ryan Gautier with Stormcrow
37:59
Archery here in British Columbia.
38:01
And he takes these beautiful photo collages of his till of
38:04
his entire tiller process from kind of like 50% tailored up to
38:08
like 95% tailored. And he takes photos every step.
38:12
And then he puts him into a collage.
38:13
And then he says he likes to step away from it for like 2
38:16
days and just look at the photos from time to time and let his
38:20
eyes readjust. And he says typically after like
38:22
2 days, he'll go back to Lucky that collage and he'll start to
38:25
see things that he didn't see before.
38:27
So it's just like this extreme patience and allowing the
38:30
process to unfold to create these beautiful, effective works
38:36
of art that are also weapons. But yeah, rushing it is.
38:40
I think it's kind of the it's a hard lesson for for a lot of bow
38:45
years there to learn. I think most people, they learn
38:49
that when they miss weight on a bow, yeah, they go too fast in
38:53
the tiller, but that's definitely the biggest problem
38:56
that I see like all these new bow years at O Jam.
38:58
Like they're just rushing so fast and like the older I get,
39:04
the more staves I harvest and split and see how much time goes
39:08
into, you know, getting a good stave and how few trees there
39:12
are out there that are producing these good staves.
39:14
You like, I don't want to blow through and just build 100, you
39:17
know, cruddy bows just so I can say I built 100 bows.
39:20
Like you got to make this stuff count.
39:23
Like it's not going to be around forever.
39:25
I mean, the, the Europeans know EU problem all too well.
39:29
I mean, they're flying from BC and now, you know, my contacts
39:33
up there saying it's getting, you know, harder.
39:37
I've I've talked about the deforestation before on here
39:40
like it's, it's insane. The clear cutting that's
39:43
happening all throughout BC and the yew trees are destroyed in
39:46
the clear cut. They're not used as timber wood.
39:48
They're just seen as nuisances that are in the way of getting
39:50
to the fur and the cedar. Yeah, and the.
39:52
Spruce and the hemlock and the other timber woods.
39:56
So yeah, Jamie. And McDonald, when I was there
39:59
in August, he's got tons of logging roads like.
40:05
Dozens and dozens and dozens of kilometers of logging roads
40:08
behind his place. And I always just thought a
40:11
logging Rd. was like a little primitive dirt road.
40:15
Now these things are like, they're dirt, but they're like
40:18
highway size. It's an it's insane.
40:21
And so he was going to take me to see one of his favorite U
40:24
spots. And we pulled up and he's like,
40:26
Oh no. And sure enough, they had just
40:29
taken it all down. Like the whole mountainside
40:31
where his favorite yew trees were, was in logs on the side of
40:34
the road, and the yew trees were just destroyed.
40:38
And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how much longer
40:41
things like you can last. And of course, it happened to
40:44
lemon wood in Central America. And so a lot of people who used
40:49
to work with lemon wood aren't able to get that anymore.
40:51
And it's, yeah, it's, it's a sad thing.
40:55
Yeah, and you is not a quick recovering tree.
40:59
No. And that's when you're in the
41:01
forest where there's the fur and the cedar and the yew.
41:04
Like Jamie was telling me they're all about the same age.
41:07
And the yew trees were tiny, a tenth of the size, maybe even
41:12
less than that. Yeah, the yew trees are like 10
41:16
inches in diameter. The fur trees are like 3-4 feet
41:20
in diameter. Cedar is potentially even more
41:23
so. Yeah, they're.
41:25
They do not grow fast and. Then when you do find you only
41:28
one in, you know, 100 maybe are good for a bow.
41:32
Of course, Osage is the same way.
41:35
It wants to grow like a Bush and doesn't want to grow straight.
41:38
You have to find it in a Creek bottom.
41:39
It has to be second growth, all the primary growth.
41:42
If it was growing without a canopy around it, it's just
41:45
grows out. I mean, so it's the two best
41:49
Beau woods on Earth. Don't like growing straight like
41:53
I wish they're like Hickory. All our Hickory just grows
41:56
straight as a pipe. You don't like working with
42:00
Hickory? It's so humid here that the
42:03
Hickory and the combos have made.
42:05
I made one out of black locust. I've tried to mess with other
42:07
woods but I'm kind of just dissatisfied every time I do.
42:12
They take much, way more set. The White Woods take so much
42:14
more set in Oklahoma than Osage so.
42:19
What other woods have you tried working with outside of you and
42:21
Osage? And so pecan black locust.
42:27
Oh, we have it Hackberry. Yeah.
42:33
And then I've done a a couple. No, I've done one Bamboo back
42:37
though. Yeah, what do you think about
42:38
working with Hackberry? It just, I probably didn't know
42:42
enough. I just treat it like any other
42:44
white wood. I didn't follow a ring or
42:46
anything and I thought it was pretty similar to Hickory, but I
42:49
I was pretty new at the time. Oh, and then I made one out of
42:52
ash when I was pretty new. So I probably didn't know, you
42:56
know, the distinct details and differences.
42:59
Like Corey's got a really good analysis of all the bow woods
43:03
and he does a lot with white woods.
43:06
Corey Sackberry bows are probably the best in the world.
43:09
Yeah, and he's, I mean, I think that's his favorite if you ask
43:14
him. That's his thing.
43:15
Yeah. Yeah.
43:16
Well, it's it's invasive in so many places.
43:19
And so he's got a lot of connections where he can go in
43:21
and cut it down. And that's part of the the Land
43:24
Management. We've got a a ton of it here
43:27
too. Yeah.
43:30
Do you collaborate with many other Bowers?
43:32
On. Michael Whelan.
43:35
So I I am really good friends with a lot of the guys in
43:38
Oklahoma and then I'm friends with pretty much that whole
43:44
group now. Like as far as collaborate, I
43:47
see him at O Jam or I'll see him at the classic.
43:49
And I mean, that's pretty much, pretty much it, I'd say.
43:57
Yeah, Tony tall. I'm good friends with Tony.
43:59
Me and Tony have the Primitive Archery podcast, which is just
44:02
kind of when we get to it, we get to it.
44:04
We'll make a an episode here there with boggers that we, you
44:08
know, would love to learn something from.
44:13
But yeah, that those are Waylon, Tony.
44:16
And then we have some really good guys locally in Oklahoma
44:20
that probably aren't super well known.
44:23
Jodon Jones. He has a pinnacle bow making
44:26
group on Facebook. Jodon did it for a living for a
44:28
while in the 90s. He's made thousands of bows and
44:32
his stuff is top notch. And then Mike Antsy in Arkansas.
44:37
OK, tell me more about the podcast.
44:41
I mean, it's literally just me and Tony calling old bow years
44:44
and then just picking their brain for an hour or two.
44:47
It's, it's a way that we can, you know, selfishly restart the
44:51
podcast. Hey, you want to come on our
44:53
podcast? And it's this guy we really look
44:55
up to and then we get 2 hours of information from him for
44:58
ourselves and then we'll record it and share that with everyone
45:00
else. So, but it's fun.
45:03
And like guys like Clay Hayes, Corey, see Mike Yancey, Mike's
45:11
got a lot of really good hunting stories too, because a lot of
45:14
these bowyers and that's all they do.
45:16
Like they are engulfed in their craft and they're just
45:19
phenomenal bow years. And then you have like these
45:21
other guys that are like they build a few bows here and there,
45:25
but they're really just hunters and they just build a bow when
45:27
they need to. So try and kind of like
45:29
diversify and get like building self bows and then guys that are
45:34
hardcore hunting with self bows because I'd say me and Tony are
45:38
half and half. Yeah.
45:43
And as far as hunting goes, how are you hunting all three months
45:46
during hunting season? Every chance I get, yeah, I
45:49
before I had a kid, let's see, I would take off 3 weeks, but this
45:56
is only work 10 days a month. So I'd work like two days a
45:59
month and I'd have 20 days in a row and I would pretty much hunt
46:03
every single day. So maybe not morning and evening
46:07
every day, but at least once a day covering lots of ground,
46:10
different places. And then had the baby.
46:14
So, you know, probably maybe half the day is I'm awful.
46:17
I'll sneak out for the evening or morning.
46:20
So that's something you can do fairly locally.
46:22
Yeah, I I live on 80 acres and I try and spread out my hunting so
46:28
I'm not pressuring one place and scaring animals off by hunting
46:31
the same place every day. I've got another place 30
46:33
minutes away and then I just recently got a connection from a
46:38
property. It's a small 10 acre tract, but
46:40
it's in a really ideal location. And two nights ago I just shot
46:43
my biggest buck ever with a self bow on that property.
46:46
And I I just got permission on it two weeks back.
46:48
So. Cool.
46:50
And then what do you do with the kills?
46:53
So the if it's like these are deer, so the deer typically I'll
46:59
process myself. So I'll do everything in house.
47:03
If it's a work night, I got to be up at 5:00 AM to get to work
47:07
like this one was, I take it to a processor.
47:10
I hate doing that, but I don't, I'm not going to call in sick to
47:14
work the next day. And then if it's a bear, I don't
47:19
know if anyone that will take a bear for processing.
47:22
I mean, it's more like pork. They can have trichinosis.
47:24
So you can process those with the same equipment you're doing
47:27
with deer without having to clean everything.
47:29
So always do those. Myself, the one I shot this year
47:32
and I was on public grounds. So you're not baiting or
47:35
anything, you're literally just hunting National Forest in the
47:38
mountains looking for bear sign covering a lot of ground till
47:42
you find 1. So I shot that bear and I think
47:44
it was 8080 something degrees and I shot it at noon.
47:50
And so I quartered that one up, spent the next 8 hours making
47:54
trips up and down the mountain getting it all packed out.
47:57
And I'll take that. I have the whole hide made it.
48:08
Hey Kayla, can you hear me? It says it says you have an
48:12
incoming call, so I lost audio with you.
48:17
OK, can you hear me? Yeah, if you can, just if you
48:20
can back up, you are packing out the quarters.
48:24
Yeah, so I I shoot that bear, I've got game bags.
48:27
I process that into four quarters.
48:30
I basically scan it while it's laying on its back and then pull
48:34
that hide off of it and so it's basically laying on its own hide
48:37
as a tart that keeps the meat cleaned.
48:39
A place to work on. I get those bones exposed at the
48:43
joints that way that heat starts coming out.
48:46
Bear will start to the meat will start to go bad pretty quick
48:50
because they have a higher bacteria count than something
48:52
like deer. So you got to get it cut out,
48:54
quartered out quick, and then get air to circulate around the
48:58
meat and cool it down. So you put those in game bags
49:00
that can ventilate real well. Hike that down off the mountain,
49:04
bring that home. And then I process it all at
49:06
home. I grind some of it.
49:08
I cut some at the steak, some roast and then save all that
49:11
bare fat. Rendered that bare fat down into
49:14
a grease and then I use that to seal my bows.
49:20
I use I use that on my personal bows.
49:22
I have enough to seal all my customer bows with that.
49:25
But it works really good for heating up the wood too.
49:28
I'll put that on there to keep it from scorching.
49:32
Pretty much everything is going to get used except the bones and
49:35
guts. And then what do you do with the
49:37
skin? I just turned that into a rug.
49:41
I have a couple pieces. I did a shoulder mount of one.
49:43
I've got a couple pretty good sized pieces and I probably need
49:47
one more bear and then I'll I'll make a a quiver and a vest out
49:50
of those cut offs. That's so cool, you must have a
49:54
ton of food then. We're pretty stacked that last
49:58
year I shot. I'm giving half the meat to the
50:01
landowner that let me hunt and it worked out pretty good
50:04
because I don't think I can fit the whole thing in my downstairs
50:06
freezer starting to get full, but we eat a lot of it.
50:11
We're at home all the time now. My wife works from home and
50:13
we're about to have two kids, so it's kind of nice just have meat
50:16
in the the garage that we can go out and start thawing whenever
50:19
we need it. Yeah, it's so good.
50:21
Do you have any hunting trips plant?
50:24
This year I'm pretty much done. I did the bear hunting thing
50:27
that's five hours away in the southeastern part of Oklahoma.
50:31
Then my brother, older brother and I went to New Mexico for
50:34
mule deer, saw a whole bunch of people in the antelope and what
50:41
is the other? I can't remember if it's kudu or
50:45
it's some African game animal that they introduced in the the
50:49
deserts of New Mexico. And for whatever reason.
50:52
Yeah, so they did it, I think it was in the 1960s just to have
50:57
another game animal to hunt. And they thrived there.
50:59
It's they originally transplanted up in the White
51:03
Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, southern New Mexico.
51:06
And yeah, they're, for whatever reason, it's a orcs.
51:11
That's what they are. They're orcs, this huge black
51:14
and white African plains animal with these huge spikes.
51:18
We saw Big O herds of those, but the mule deer population is
51:21
really bad so. Yeah, yeah, It was just in South
51:24
Africa a couple months ago, looking at the orcs in the wild.
51:27
But how's that working out? I mean, typically those types of
51:31
transplants don't go so well for.
51:34
For whatever reason, I don't know if it's similar, you know,
51:37
landscape that they're doing really well and then.
51:40
What about the other critters and plants and whatnot that they
51:44
might be eating or displacing? Mule deer were already in
51:47
decline and mule deer it it's a problem across all the states.
51:51
Mule deer aren't doing well. They don't they don't do well at
51:54
all with habitat change and people infringing on their
51:58
habitats, whereas whitetail thrive.
52:00
Whitetail can live in your backyard.
52:01
Like we're out in the country, but we're also, you know, 15
52:06
minutes from the city and you see deer all throughout.
52:10
And so they can they can really adapt well, for whatever reason,
52:15
mule deer can't. So I think they were already
52:19
having decreasing numbers of mule deer.
52:21
And you have this big open landscape with people that want
52:25
to hunt and they don't have, you know, very many animals to hunt.
52:28
And so that was kind of their goal was to, you know, bring in
52:33
more game animals to hunt. And, and the southern
52:37
southwestern Texas nilgai or nilgai, I'm not sure how to
52:41
pronounce it. It's another African animal with
52:44
little bitty horns. They're all throughout that part
52:48
of Texas. And supposedly they're doing
52:50
really well too. And.
52:51
That's crazy. Yeah, that's weird.
52:55
Access deer access deer popping up all over southern Oklahoma
52:59
and Texas. They originally escaped from
53:01
high fence hunting operations. And yeah, they're doing well
53:04
too. Where are they from originally?
53:07
I think they're from. I thought they were from Africa
53:12
axis, I'm not sure. Yeah, I have no clue.
53:17
Crazy. I didn't know you could hunt.
53:18
Works in the wild in the US. Yeah, I think that is a draw.
53:22
Hunt through the government. I don't think you can just go
53:25
hunt public land works, but yeah, they're out there.
53:27
We sold a ton of them. Yeah, cool.
53:33
Well, dude, thank you for taking the time to do this.
53:35
Can you let the listeners know where they can find out more
53:38
about you? Like your podcast and your
53:41
various sites? Yeah, so I'm most active on my
53:46
personal Facebook and Instagram, which is just Caleb Fleece,
53:50
spelled Caleb and last name FL i.e.
53:53
S like flies. And then I do have the Ravenclaw
53:57
Archery Facebook and Instagram. And then Tony and I will
54:01
probably put out a few more podcasts this offseason.
54:04
And that's just the primitive archery podcast.
54:06
I think it's on. I know it's on Spotify and Apple
54:11
and I think our whoever our host is posted some other places as
54:15
well. Awesome.
54:18
Well, thank you for taking the time today and educating
54:21
everyone. It's been really nice to get to
54:23
know you. Yeah, nice to know you too.
54:25
Thanks for having me on. My pleasure.
54:36
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