Dale Storey leans into the shot with his Jerry Hill longbow. Dale anchors at the corner of his mouth. He is a fluid longbow shooter who can whip an arrow out of his back quiver and have it launched on target in seconds. Note Dale's grip on the bow. Not a choke hold, but not loose, either.

Traditional Technique
While today's traditional bowhunter may not want to shoot an English-type longbow exclusively, having one in the bow rack is never a bad idea. Part of the fun is in learning how to get the most from that bow. First, there's shooting style. It's entirely possible to shoot old-style bow "straight up." Howard didn't do it that way, but others did and still do. One of my sons can shoot a longbow straight up. His arrows have no problem with the archer's paradox (warping around the riser of the bow, then back on track). Shafts fly straight and true, although my son shoots the bow with limbs vertical to the earth.

The usual stance for longbow mastery is relaxed, bent into it, knees unhinged, bow canted off to make a V-shaped shelf that launches an arrow cleanly toward the target. Instead of standing tall, the bowman crouches a little. Rather than the bow arm out straight, the arm is cocked a little at the elbow. Anchor point is normally at or near the corner of the mouth, which is not the way Will and Maurice did it, or for that matter Pope or Young, but it was Howard Hill's style.

Hill picked a tooth to touch with a finger each time to ensure a constant anchor point. Others used an ear, which would badly overdraw my bows. Multiple anchor points are also possible. I switch to a higher anchor point for extra-close shots, which works for me when a cottontail is five yards away, or even closer. Arrows are shot off the shelf. A stick-on rug or leather arrow rest is coupled with a strike plate, which may also be of various materials. Some longbow shelves are narrow, in which case one stick-on rug or piece of leather folds into the corner and serves as combined rest and strike plate. Keep it simple. That's the longbow rule, although anyone who wants to mount an arrow rest on a longbow is free to do so. It works. The longbow shooter generally goes with glove or tab. A glove is more visually appealing I suppose, but in recent years I've switched to a tab. Shooting is instinctive. If that term bothers you, let's just say the archer shoots his longbow without sights. Exactly how he directs his arrow to the target is open to question. There are many theories.

Sights have been mounted on longbows successfully, but I feel that a sight on a longbow takes away from the natural flow of things. How nice it is to direct an arrow wherever your eye is looking, without thinking about it. In fact, when I think about it, I tend to miss. Stay on autopilot--that's the way to handle a longbow. Let your brain do the work at the unconscious level. Of course, my friends and I tried sights. It was part of the evolution we had to go through while shooting a bow. We used a straight pin with a tiny plastic ball on the end, the pin taped to the riser of the bow. The sight was zeroed for 30 yards, as I recall. It was also off at every other range. I got rid of mine as fast as I could, going back to burning a hole in the target with my eyes, drawing, anchoring and releasing cleanly, without dropping the bow arm in the process.

Dale Storey demonstrates good hand placement on this Jerry Hill longbow. The fingers of the glove hand are curled just enough around the string to hold it; the bow hand takes a full grip, but without choking the handle.

Pros And Cons
As with everything else on the planet, longbows have their good and bad points. First the good point. The man who masters a longbow can shoot from just about any position, even lying on his stomach. The bow can be canted a little bit, or severely; the arrow still flies to the mark. Longbows can be very quiet. I use spider legs to get the hum out of the bowstring, cutting each rubber section in half so there are four shorter silencers rather than two longer ones. All four are run through the center of the bowstring, stretched out, then tied into place with nylon serving thread, plus a drop of Super Glue to secure the knot. I've also run a longbow without silencers, quite successfully. In short, longbows are quiet, efficient bows. And one more thing--they are light. You aren't carrying a chunk of telephone pole into the woods when you pack a longbow. Now the negative side: The traditional longbow, as mentioned earlier, demands getting used to; at least for most of us. I'm sure there are archers who pick one up and feel that they were born shooting it, but most bowmen have to gain a feel for the straightened bow and how it casts an arrow. Also, there may be hand shock.

If you think hand shock causes inaccuracy, watch a great archer shoot an old-time longbow. Don't be surprised if he can whack coins out of the air with it. Finally, newer longbow designs definitely shoot a faster arrow than Robin Hood's bow of lore. Just don't tell anybody that the big buck you got was harvested with an arrow that had maxed-out at only 170 feet per second and everything will be fine.

One look at the riser of this longbow tells you that the bow is not of the old school. It is Herb Meland's Three Piece Takedown Pronghorn, this one belonging to the author. It has a maple riser impregnated with an epoxy substance under high pressure for added strength, and little additional ballast in the hand. Note leather strike plate and rug rest.

Arrow Selection
Now we come to arrows. Longbows shoot anything spined to suit the draw weight of the bow. Those great aluminum shafts from Easton shoot extremely well in longbows. So do wood arrows of different types. An excellent wood shaft I tried recently is slow-growth pine from Blue Mountain Arrow Shafts, Ltd. of Vanderhood, British Columbia. These shafts proved tough and resilient. Of course, tapered cedars from Wapiti Archery in Lakewood, Colorado, are always good, too. A big surprise came my way when I tried a recent graphite arrow. Fast and true. That's how graphite arrows release from my longbows. It if offends an archer's sense of history to shoot carbon or aluminum arrows from a bow designed before knights were bold, then wooden shafts are the way to go. That is a glance at the classic longbow, different from modern longbow designs by quite a margin, but historical, interesting, and in the hands of an archer willing to practice, still a formidable hunting instrument.