My son's Renissance festival kit

[Detroitpete]

I really appreciate your leatherwork skills. Good job...but you had me at..."Long Bow"

If your son learns to shoot with one of these at his age, he'll have life-long pleasure at something old, nuanced, difficult and rewarding.

[Nighthawk]

I really appreciate your leatherwork skills. Good job...but you had me at..."Long Bow"

If your son learns to shoot with one of these at his age, he'll have life-long pleasure at something old, nuanced, difficult and rewarding.

He shoots a 55 pound, 28 inch draw, and is fairly good at it. The guy at the shop who measured his draw length was impressed that he was able to pull that much poundage without any instruction on stance. What he didn't know is that my boy is an accomplished martial artist and an apprentice blacksmith... so he's got a bit of upper body strength and coordination!

[MacHenderson]

Excellent job! As far as footwear goes, have you ever looked at moccasins? Not exactly period-correct, but they look good enough with medieval outfits.

On a side note, and this is the archer in me: Does he shoot with his elbow as high as it is in the first picture? If he does, try having him lower his arm more in line with his shoulders. It'll let you shoot more steadily, and for longer periods of time.

[Nighthawk]

Excellent job! As far as footwear goes, have you ever looked at moccasins? Not exactly period-correct, but they look good enough with medieval outfits.

On a side note, and this is the archer in me: Does he shoot with his elbow as high as it is in the first picture? If he does, try having him lower his arm more in line with his shoulders. It'll let you shoot more steadily, and for longer periods of time.

No, he shoots level. I had him put his arm up so that the belt would ride a little higher.

[MacHenderson]

Got it. Very cool.

[Bugbear]

Plus you can boil and eat the moccasins when hard times come, Nighthawk.

Anyone ever tried using a bow as a fishing rod? Just wondering if that is a myth...

[Nighthawk]

Plus you can boil and eat the moccasins when hard times come, Nighthawk.

Anyone ever tried using a bow as a fishing rod? Just wondering if that is a myth...

Well, if you mean spear fishing with arrows, yes. It almost worked. If you mean hanging your bow string in the water... Dunno! Never tried! But I see no reason why not, since it would be essentially the same as using a bamboo pole, like this:

http://jas-townsend.com/product_info...roducts_id=943

[Bugbear]

Well, if you mean spear fishing with arrows, yes. It almost worked. If you mean hanging your bow string in the water... Dunno! Never tried! But I see no reason why not, since it would be essentially the same as using a bamboo pole, like this:

http://jas-townsend.com/product_info...roducts_id=943

Ya, I was talking about angling with the bow.

My grandmother had a bamboo pole that might be a little like that.

I wonder what those fish hooks are made of.

Grandma talked about using "turned up" sewing needles for fishing, and that would have been about a hundred years ago in the rural Southwest.

I've read of using the rib bones of field mice as both sewing needles and fish hooks going back at least a couple hundred years.

I have a fish hook cactus growing in my front yard, it's difficult to pull the weeds around it, and I have read here and there that the needles were used as fish hooks. I believe it from personal experience, though I've never gone fishing with them...

So here is the question. What did the Scots historically use as fishing hooks?

[Nighthawk]

Ya, I was talking about angling with the bow.

My grandmother had a bamboo pole that might be a little like that.

I wonder what those fish hooks are made of.

Grandma talked about using "turned up" sewing needles for fishing, and that would have been about a hundred years ago in the rural Southwest.

I've read of using the rib bones of field mice as both sewing needles and fish hooks going back at least a couple hundred years.

I have a fish hook cactus growing in my front yard, it's difficult to pull the weeds around it, and I have read here and there that the needles were used as fish hooks. I believe it from personal experience, though I've never gone fishing with them...

So here is the question. What did the Scots historically use as fishing hooks?

Well, I do believe that in the period that my living history represents, iron fish hooks would have been used. A smithy could have made them easily enough. But that is a good question!

[Bugbear]

Well, I do believe that in the period that my living history represents, iron fish hooks would have been used. A smithy could have made them easily enough. But that is a good question!

All right, here is a link to, The Project Gutenberg eBook, Angling Sketches, by Andrew Lang, (eBook #2022).

It's pretty amusing. Lang does talk about iron hooks with eyes, and perhaps more interesting, gut line. Looks like Lang lived from 1844 to 1912, so it covers the era of my great grandparents from which my grandmother would have learned her fishing skills. Whole different region of the world, though.

There's more though. Lang goes into a great deal of history in, The Project Gutenberg eBook, Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler, (eBook #2422)
Under the section, "FISHING THEN AND NOW," for example, he writes:

[/quote]Since Maui, the Maori hero, invented barbs for hooks, angling has been essentially one and the same thing. South Sea islanders spin for fish with a mother-of-pearl
lure which is also a hook, and answers to our spoon. We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze hook, found in Ireland, has the familiar
Limerick bend. What Homer meant by making anglers throw ‘the horn of an ox of the stall’ into the sea, we can only guess; perhaps a horn minnow is meant,
or a little sheath of horn to protect the line. Dead bait, live bait, and imitations of bait have all been employed, and Ælian mentions artificial Mayflies
used, with a very short line, by the Illyrians.

But, while the same in essence, angling has been improved by human ingenuity. The Waltonian angler, and still more his English predecessors, dealt much
in the home-made. The Treatise of the fifteenth century bids you make your ‘Rodde’ of a fair staff even of a six foot long or more, as ye list, of hazel,
willow, or ‘aspe’ (ash?), and ‘beke hym in an ovyn when ye bake, and let him cool and dry a four weeks or more.’ The pith is taken out of him with a hot
iron, and a yard of white hazel is similarly treated, also a fair shoot of blackthorn or crabtree for a top. The butt is bound with hoops of iron, the
top is accommodated with a noose, a hair line is looped in the noose, and the angler is equipped. Splicing is not used, but the joints have holes to receive
each other, and with this instrument ‘ye may walk, and there is no man shall wit whereabout ye go.’ Recipes are given for colouring and plaiting hair
lines, and directions for forging hooks. ‘The smallest quarell needles’ are used for the tiniest hooks.[/quote]

And he goes on and on with a whole lot more history of fishing. It's pretty neat, though, I'm not really into fishing.
Look forward to what others might have to add, assuming the topic doesn't go SPLAT!