From Boy Scouts to Delta Arms – His love for bow hunting runs deep in Sunflower County
The Mississippi Delta was first tamed by men with bows and arrows they fashioned from the materials and elements around them. Those native Indians left behind their mark on the land by leaving their arrowheads and tools to be found by future generations. These days, a man with a bow and arrows made from elements found in the Mississippi Delta is leaving his own mark. Indianola native, Joey Buchanan learned to hunt and fish the Mississippi Delta with friends and family.
“Sonny Brocato took me deer hunting at the Moorhead Hunting Club when I was in the second grade,” Buchanan said. “They had land outside of Itta Bena and all I remember is they rode horses and flushed deer out. When they started shooting, Sonny put me in the truck because he was afraid I would get shot. That was my first deer hunt, hiding in the truck while they all shot up the woods.”
Friends introduced him to other hunting around the Delta as well.
“Charles Edward Boyer took me on my first duck hunt in the third grade,” Buchanan said. “But I’ve always hunted just by tagging along with friends. In high school my father got me in a hunting club near Enid. The first thing I did when I got out of college was to buy a Jeep so I could hunt. I love all aspects of hunting.”
The Indianola Troop 41 Eagle Scout’s introduction to archery came at Camp Tallaha in the 1970s and he procured his Archery Merit Badge. He had no idea that later in life, that bow would mean quite a bit more.
“The first bow I ever bought – I got my driver’s license and an hour later I’m driving up to Delta Arms (hunting store) and bought one from Doug Mauldin.” He said. “I used that compound for nearly a decade.”
In the late 1970s, Buchanan and Indianola almost got to be part of history and barely missed out on being the home of North American Archery. Fred Bear was looking to relocate his world-famous bow making facilities from Michigan. Indianola was one of the top locations before he decided on Florida.
“We had a parade and everything. I even wore my Boy Scout uniform in the parade,” Buchanan said.
Even without the company coming to the Delta, Buchanan still caught the fever that generations before him connected with.
“It took me over seven years to get my first turkey,” Buchanan said.
But he never gave up and has worked hard to make himself a top-notch turkey hunter. Buchanan read books about turkey hunting and started making his own calls in the early 1990s. Bow fever put Buchanan on the trail to creating, perfecting and building his own bows, arrows and even string. But his move from shooting a compound bow to strictly traditional recurve and long bows came when he needed some repair work done.
“I was living in Atlanta back in 1987 and went into a hunting store to get my bow worked on. The guy told me I needed this and that and this bow was out of date and I decided right then that I was going to make my own bow,” Buchanan said. “I’m going to control my own equipment and started reading and got a VHS tape of a guy making a bow.”
In 1990, he built his first recurve and shot his first deer with it. He moved into the three piece and would make one or two a year and give to close friends.
“I don’t sell my calls, I don’t sell my bows,” he said. “I have a romance with it. I’ve made one-piece recurves, a three-piece recurve – I’ve donated some to the National Turkey Federation for raffles and long bows. I’m not a garage bowyer to speak.”
Buchanan spends about 60 hours to create a bow from scratch. His first one was a one-piece recurve crafted from locust wood.
“I got the plans from a company called Bingham Projects in Utah. Their catch was ‘Build Your Own Bow’. So, I called them,” he said. “Now, I cut my own wood and I make them out of persimmon. I mill it, I dry it, I shape it and glue it up in my workshop and finish it all there. The learning curve is pretty steep. I was never scared of trying. The hardest part is the shaping.”
He notes most of his knowledge comes from either reading or talking to other bowyers.
“Making the bow is one thing but getting it to shoot accurately is another skill. Knowing how to tune the bow so it shoots good is not easy. I’ll shoot a bow for two months before I ever sand and finish it,” he said.
These days, he crafts bows out of osage that native Americans used, bamboo, pecan, hackberry and other woods. Buchanan doesn’t stop at the bow. He also makes his own arrows using cane and noted that Mississippi used to have one of the last wooden arrow manufacturers in Ripley. The arrows were made from magnolia wood.
“I won the World Championship and three Southeastern Traditional Tournaments with those arrows,” he said. “In 1992, I couldn’t hit the side of a car but two years later I won a championship. We enjoy practicing and tinkering with our equipment. It’s string and two pieces of wood. It’s challenging but it makes you a better hunter.”
Longbows and “self bows” – bows made from a single piece of wood are part of his arsenal and bow shop as well. Traditional bows come in many sizes but are based on an archer’s “draw.”
“A basic recurve range is probably 48-inches as the shortest and 66-inches as the longest,” Buchanan explained. “It’s based on your draw length. You can shoot anything in the spectrum but a guy with a longer draw length needs a longer bow.”
He noted a 60-inch recurve “fits about anybody and the longer the recurve, the more accurate it is.”
The technology that traditional bow hunters are enjoying is with arrows and with the broadhead attached. Carbon fiber arrows combined with higher quality steel broadheads give the hunter more power to bring down larger animals such as a Cape buffalo and large feral hogs.
“Cedar is a popular wood shaft and now we have carbon which is a superior material to make arrows out of. And now we have forged, stainless steel broadheads. Our equipment is so much stronger,” Buchanan said. “It’s the same poundage on the bow just different, heavier arrows. The average speed of an arrow is 175 feet per second while a compound arrow is 300 feet per second. That’s why we use a heavier arrow, so it’s based on momentum.”
He’s put his homemade creations to the test. In turkey hunters’ parlance, it’s called a “Royal Slam” – stalking and killing five subspecies of North American wild turkeys, including four American birds and a fifth native to Mexico. Most hunters fulfill the challenge using a gun but Buchanan decided to get it with his bow, his bow made from scratch with his own hands.
“I’m the only one who has ever accomplished a Grand and Royal Slam with my own homemade bows and my own calls,” he said. “I make my own archery bows. I make everything – my own turkey calls, my own duck calls,” he says. “And, about 1991, I started bow hunting turkeys with just the bows I’ve made. My goal was to kill the four (subspecies) of turkeys in the United States with my own homemade bow.”
“If you kill the four (subspecies) of turkeys, they (the National Wild Turkey Federation) call that a grand slam, and if you kill the fifth one that’s in Mexico, they call it a royal slam. I’m the first person that’s ever (achieved a grand slam) with traditional archery equipment.”
But it wasn’t a simple task, and it didn’t happen overnight. Buchanan’s own strict requirements – calling a turkey to within 20 yards – made the task tougher. He achieved the honor after working on it for the better part of two decades. The Grand Slam took 11 years and 12 years to get his Royal Slam.
“Not only did it make me a better hunter, but also a better caller, a better woodsman. It took me seven years to get my first turkey with a bow,” the married father of two boys recalls. “I quit counting. I missed over sixty birds with my bow, so I’ve had a big learning curve. I’ve missed them as close as four feet – and I’ve got witnesses. I could have a wall lined with turkeys if I was shotgun hunting.”
Unlike traditional gun hunting where a turkey is called down from a tree or in from afar, Buchanan has to essentially hide as his draw of the bow scares away most all turkeys. He used a ghillie suit and blinds to blend in better and hide from his prey.
“I learned if you call better, you get quicker, closer encounters,” he said. “I haven’t gun hunted since 1989 for deer or turkey. At first it was the challenge and now the desire has melted away. I love guns and hunting but my deal is to get close to that animal with simple homemade equipment that I made. That’s my adrenaline. I don’t get that with a gun.”
He also explained that with compound bows, “it doesn’t take a lot of practice to stay on top of your game. But with traditional equipment without the aid of sights, you have to keep practicing. It takes upper body strength and helps me stay fit. It’s so simple, I just put my arrow on my string draw it back and release it. With a compound there are sights and peep sights and you have to go to a bow shop and get someone to work on it. With my bows I can even make my own string.”
These days, Buchanan doesn’t spend much time in hunting stores, much to those owner’s chagrin.
“One time my bow string broke and I fixed it within an hour with dental floss. I was in Slater’s one day and I asked (second generation) owner Jimmy Slater if he had any traditional equipment,” Buchanan recalled. “He laughed and said, ‘Man, I’m not carrying any of that. Your traditional bow hunters, y’all will walk five miles in the woods to find a turkey feather to make an (arrow) fletching rather than come up here and give me twenty five cents for one.’ That is the epitome and our signature. We’re going to find a way to get by with less and use what’s available.”
Buchanan always has turkey hunting first on his priority list. But he also enjoys stalking other wildlife such as wild hogs, elk, caribou, moose, mule deer and bears.
“In Alaska, I shot a black bear at ten feet,” he says. “I’ve probably killed over 100 hogs with my bow.”
His hunting adventures have taken him across the Delta as well as Canada, Alaska and Arizona to Florida.
“I’ve hunted in Mexico once and that was for the Royal Slam,” he said.
Bow hunting has made him a better hunter Buchanan believes and given him a handy skill as well.
“I enjoy the woods and I enjoy being there. It’s not about the killing but about enjoying what God gave us. And He gave me a little bit of talent but He gave me a lot of patience and I’m grateful for that.”
