I'm interested in picking up a bow. I have only shot a bow in "archery" (a lesson in PE in middle school) and it was just a plastic thing. It was fun though... Recently I've been thinking about picking up a bow and learning the ropes. I don't really know anyone who bow hunts that I'm close enough to, to ask about it. What are things to look for when it comes to buying a bow.

This is a new topic for me, I know nothing about bows or their manufactures, what's good an what's not, etc...

I'd rather buy a quality bow that will last me over the years instead of buying a "beginner" bow and have to buy a new one after a while or get stuck with junk and be out money.

I'm sure like firearms there are tons of different makes/models. What do I look for, what do i need to know etc.. Im sure this all effects the cost too, whats the ammount, on average i would expect to pay for a decent, long lasting setup?
Id like to get into it and eventually hunt deer with it if that helps with your selection advice.

Try to stay with a brand name manufacturer for now. Having said that, it would be pretty hard to find a bow made by a fly-by-night company. They'll come along eventually, because someone will figure out that they can outsource the manufacturing, but not so far.

Some of the better names are Hoyt (and their Reflex line which is not quite so expensive), Mathews, PSE, Bear, and a lot more. Guys with more experience than me will be along to give you some more good names. Just FYI, Mathews is usually the high priced brand. Also, Bear has been through several takeovers in the last 30 years & I haven't kept up on them. Fred used to be THE go to guy for archery products, but since he sold the company, retired, & passed away they've cut their product line. I don't know how their quality is any more.

Look for some of the archery forums. Here are a couple of them:

http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/

http://forums.bowcountry.com/forums/forum.php

There are probably a lot more out there.

Be sure to get a bow that you can handle now. Almost all of the compound bows are adjustable now so have the shop crank one down to the lowest setting & draw it & be sure that you're comfortable with the effort. The point is that you can then adjust it upwards as you get in shape. Most of them seem to have about 20 lbs. of range in the draw weight, with some maybe 15 lbs. Unless you're used to a lot of physical labor, think about something from about 40 to 60 lbs. draw weight range, or maybe 50 to 70 lbs.

The poster above is right. You should go to a pro shop to get your draw length measured. Right now, you should probably buy from a shop because they can outfit you correctly. If you really get into it you can buy piecemeal in the future. Also, if you watch for the big box store sales in the paper, a lot of the pro shops will have similar prices to Cabela's etc.

You might be able to find something cheap on Cragislist, but you never know what you're getting. If you were a sophisticated buyer you could check for frayed cables, bad arrow rest etc., but you'd be risking that you'd get a POS now & only find out about it 3 months down the road.

Probably the most important thing for you right now is to decide what you want to do with your bow. You will want to look at strictly target bows if you intend to only punch paper. If you want to hunt, there are a lot of hunting bows available, but they're usually set up a lot differently than strictly target rigs. Also, you should join the archery forums & get some feedback from the members there.

If you want more details, just post what you'd like to know because there's a lot of info out there about arrows, rests, fletching, etc.

Good luck. It's a good hobby.

Thanks for all your guys input, I'm still learning and need to save up the money for a good bow.