Dan Campbell, of Dover, PA, carried a traditional wooden bow carved from osage orange wood through the entrance of the Pennslvania Bowhunters Festival this past weekend in Forksville, PA. The recurve was veneered on the front side with the skin of a western rattlesnake. It was hand made by Michael LaBrake in Stanwood, WA, who runs the website itsyourbow.com. Campbell is a traditional bow enthusiast. Campbell and virtually everyone else walked the fairgrounds proudly with their bows, modern-day Apollos disguised in blue-jean denim, Mossy Oak and Realtree.

John Stoughton, 73, of Franklin County, shot at the timed clay pigeon shoot with his recurve bow. From ten yards away, Stoughton was shooting the centers out of clay birds. He wore a short-brimmed hat with the brim curled up that matched the angle of his bowstring at full-draw. He started coming to the festival as a kid with his parents.

“My mother was Pennsylvania Bow Queen in 64’ was it,” Stoughton said.

Stoughton said his father encouraged his mother to take up archery.

“At first he was always ribbing her because she was missing. So she would go up to the range by herself, and then she started beating him, so he wouldn’t shoot with her anymore,” Stoughton said.

According to Stoughton, passing on the annual tradition of coming to the festival to his nephews is what he really enjoys.

“I don’t know how many bows I’ve bought them. As they keep growing I keep buying them bigger and better bows,” Stoughton said.

Last year Stoughton won a yellow pin for his performance at the timed clay pigeon shoot. He had over 8 seconds left after shooting each of the required clay birds.

“This year I missed that one and it slowed me down,” Stoughton said.

Michael Hickey, 36, of Watsontown, is the acting treasurer of the festival. According to Hickey, the festival is a 67 year tradition, which started in 1957.

Hickey was excited to talk about new developments in mobile hunting, and the creative ways to employ the lightweight technology that continues to develop in archery gear.

“It’s changed so much,” Hickey said. 

Hickey said he has combined concepts of climbing-stand hunting and mobile saddle hunting methods into a hybrid system that works for him.

At the top of the hill of the fairground, 3 separate 3-D target courses were laid out for archers to test their skills on. Course 3 consisted of a long forest road terminating in a loop that offered 17 targets oriented both uphill and downhill. Shots ranged from 20 to 50-yards. Havalena, boar, coyote, black bear, wild turkey and white-tailed deer varied the shot at each station. Families, friends and pets walked along the path. Groups of people chatted with each other between targets, exchanging small talk about archery. Over the hum of conversation and good-natured heckling, the crack of bow strings and the thud of arrows driving into the foam targets carried through the woodland canopy.

From lower down the hill, a bell rang at equal intervals, letting archers know at the stationary target ranges that it was all clear to retrieve their arrows.

At the kids range, targets included a multi-colored T-Rex, a white hoarse, Piccachu and Bluey. Most of the vital areas were well worn from well-placed shots.

Victor Sellers, 33, of Philadelphia, completed course 3 of the 3D target range on Friday of the festival. Sellers was introduced to the event during his childhood as well. Some years, other responsibilities have kept him away, he said. This year he traveled solo to the event to reconnect with the old tradition.

Sellers is a saddle hunter that hunts a variety of public and private property. He said he enjoys the challenge of public land archery hunting and harvested his first buck out of the saddle last archery season on a public tract of land. He has an affinity for streamlining gear and shaving ounces, a habit he said he developed on his thru-hikes of the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail.

Sellers said he enjoys coming out to the festival to check things out and see what’s new.

“I like having the time to shoot and dedicate all day doing something I enjoy,” Sellers said.

Sellers tried to get the old band back together for this year’s festival, but his dad and older brothers all had prior commitments. That didn’t deter Sellers.

“I said ‘O.K., I guess I’m going by myself’,” Sellers said.

Sellers was staying at his grandparents property on Bear Mountain, nearby the fairgrounds.

On Friday afternoon, Steve Sherk of Sherk’s Guide Service presented in the Grandstand. Sherk is revered in the hunting community for his whitetail scouting regimens. He patterns and hunts whitetails in the mountainous Allegheny National Forest. He is anything but complacent.

“I’m never satisfied with staying at the same level, that goes for anything I do in life,” Sherk said.

Sherk said the tradition of hunting is an important pastime in his family, whose hunting camp in Western Pennsylvania is going on 50 years.

“A lot of my passion has been sparked by them,” Sherk said.

“I came from a family with a strong, long lasting outdoor tradition. We’re talking decades of passionate hunters that I’ve been very fortunate to learn from.”

Although Sherk’s family are not bowhunters, he said he’s learned lessons and gained mentorship through a lot of talented archery hunters over the years. 

 “Throughout my life and still today, I enjoy all the other parts of hunting besides the shooting,” Sherk said. “Especially the scouting and all the prep work. That’s a lot of fun.”

According to Sherk, the year-round scouting and preparation process that leads to successful hunts is a great opportunity to pass on our own passion to the younger generation of hunters.

Every picnic table at the festival food stand had a unique feature: a gear hanger lagged to the end of the table where hungry archers hung their bows and packs as they ate from a variety of foods off the grill.

I texted a picture home, to which my wife responded promptly, “don’t get any ideas.”