Over the past 30 years of shooting archery I've seen and been around some of the very best selfbow, longbow, and recurve shooters.
There's many stories to tell but one of the finest was the one that Dan McMahon shared with me while we were shooting 3D.
In the early 90's Easton Archery held a competition to promote their X7 shafts. At this event most of the shooters were shooting compound bows. Dan entered the competition with a longbow and wood arrows. Dan competed against the compound shooters with his longbow and wood arrows, and at the end of the day he won the entire event! Easton awarded Dan with one of those BIG checks, and as part of his winnings, he was to do advertising/commercials. Following the event, Dan approached the women in charge of the event and asked about the advertising/commercials. The women told Dan that a longbow shooter with wood arrows was what they were expecting to win the event and how could they have him promote their X7 shafts when he used wood arrows to win the event. So, Dan decided he would start the "The McMahon Eagle Eye Challenge", a head to head shoot off. Today, the event continues and is held every year at ETAR.
How's Dan doing these days? I hope he's well, can still recall some of the shoot-offs he had with Jacques Bonin up this way...those were fun shoots, and fun times.
I have a friend who witnessed that. Knowing that I shoot traditional he couldn't wait to tell me about it. As my buddy told the story, after hitting the orange dot to win the shoot-off, someone in the crowd yelled that they bet he couldn't do it again. Danny never looked back but drew another arrow from his quiver and repeated the shot, and just for good measure he did it again, then turned to the scoffer and smiled. Priceless!😁
Darren...maybe add "not" before "what they were expecting". Do you know....what DID he do to promote the X7 shafts ? Use them in the shoot offs ?
Great story and history Darren.
Deno