Xpedition Xcentric: Unboxing and Review

My friends tell me that bow hunting is the fly fishing of hunting. I can see the analogy, but to me bow hunting occurs at exactly the same time when B-run steelhead eat swung flies in Idaho. I've been interested in it a long time, and I like hunting, I just don't like hunting enough to let it take me off a river in the fall for any extended amount of time.

Now that I am a father, a husband, have a small manufacturing side business and have a very full time job where missing it is much worse than playing hooky- which makes my days on the river more limited. It seems like a terrible time to add archery to my list of pursuits.

However, with another baby on the way in early summer, this year I decided to throw rational thought out the window and just do whatever I can fit in to 365 24 hour windows.

I got a bow. And we got archery selections up online as well. I had no more excuses.

Unboxing the Xpedition Bow... a Christmas Present

I didn't actually get a bow, I received a bow from my Dad for Christmas. Before Christmas, I bought a new piece of property for my family to build a new house on, and with it came enough acres to make shooting a bow out my back door a possibility. My plan in motion, if I can't find more time to go on adventures, then make my home the adventure.

The new place has a small rock garden and cliff to climb on, I would now have access to the Missouri River, and a 20 acre island full of tall cottonwoods and whitetails. Dad chose an Xpedition Xcentric for me to shoot, a pretty darn nice Christmas gift, and a much nicer bow than I would have ever purchased for myself. Dad had become friends with the owner of Xpedition, and I know why. Dad loves finding the people that put their head down and make the best products, not necessarily the most glamorous companies, but the off the beaten path underdogs. After learning quite a bit about Xpedition since I got my new bow, they have most likely the most state of the art manufacturing in the business, and have been building bow components for the larger companies for a long time.

Our current selection and the newest model of Xpedition we have online.

What to do when you've never held a Bow

So, I have my new bow, it sits in a case in my garage, am I a bow hunter? No. Now begins my humbling experience towards change and enlightenment. You see, I promote to everyone I know that they should be open to new things and change, and that in my mind it makes us better. Some people like that, and some people don't. However, nothing happens without setting positive examples. People don't like to hear that what they've done in the past is not the way of the future or the now. It's hard to admit when you're wrong or when you've been overly stubborn. I also often hear the excuse that there is not time.

That's not true, you have time if you really give it effort, and you must make it a priority. Stop watching House of Cards, spending too much time on after hour affairs, and endlessly scrolling your Facebook feed. For me, I cancelled cable, I now get up between 5:30-6am, and I've found a lot of small pieces of time that I used to waste (I'm waiting for a flight right now). There's time in your day for a lot more things.

So, here I am being a laggard myself when it comes to archery, please forgive me, I'm recovering.

Getting the New Bow Set up and Tuned

I took my bow case out of my garage, put it in my truck and drove it to the store to visit Mr. Rob Patton. Rob, as well as Calvin, Tom, and others helped me with archery purchasing decisions over the years when I used to buy the sporting goods category. Yes, I even purchased the archery category at one time for North 40 Outfitters, and I am just now actually participating, so you can imagine, humbling is just the beginning of my feelings as I walk towards the back of the store to the archery range. We just added the ranges in some of our stores last year, and we have a wide range of archery supplies online and in the stores.

Just to make sure I got the full blow, I brought Jerrin. Jerrin is one of our videographers on our marketing team and an avid archery hunter. Jerrin is 18, and has been delicately jabbing me about not shooting a bow since he started with us at age 15. So there I was, with Jerrin the kid archery/video/photo stud and Rob, and about 2 minutes later, John Teini, and Zach; all people who have been preaching the archery on me for years watching me awkwardly open my bow case in the back of the store.

First words out of my mouth.  "What do I do, I know nothing, and I'm here to learn."

Rob first words, "Well, you're going to need a release." <--- And those are what I had to choose from, we will be adding more about this archery exploration as we get further on in the year.