THE LITTLE DELTA BOW

 
The Little Delta Bow (LDB) is a nondescript 1957 Kodiak Special,64" 59# RH.  What makes the bow special is its history and the people who have used it over the years.

Bill Brown from Seattle, WA was one of the founding members of the Pope & Young club as was Glenn St. Charles.  Glenn was the first bear Archery dealer with his Northwest Archery shop in Seattle which became an archery mecca over the years in its own right.

I should back up and say that if you want the real story of the famous Little Delta bow hunts you should read Fred Bears field notes, or Bob Mungers book "trailing a Bear" or the Kroll biography of Fred Bear.  BUT the best story is "Bows on the Little Delta" by Glenn St. Charles-if you love traditional archery and archery history you will love this book.
Glenn St. Charles was the pioneer who found the famous Little Delta river area in Alaska and hunted it first-before Fred Bear-in 1957.  While flying to the Delta region they flew over the head waters of the Woods River where Art Young shot a dall sheep in 1923.  After Fred heard about the area he promptly asked to be a part of the 1958 bow hunt that Fred made famous in his films and books.

Bill Brown was an avid bow hunter.  After hearing of Glenn's hunt of 1957 he planned his own hunt in 1958.Bill ordered THIS bow from Glenn at his NWA shop for this hunt.This is a rare hunting weight for

a KSpec which was widely considered a target bow-a top of the line bow.  Bill's hunt included Dr. F. H. Kenagy of Rupert, Idaho-who was well known at the time for his articles in Ye Sylvan Archer and Archery magazine in the 30's and 40's.  Also on the hunt was Dr. Russell Congdon who took the world record Dall sheep on this hunt-running at 65 yards!

Bill carried this bow for 14 days on his Little Delta hunt and shot a black bear with this bow.  Bill also shot a moose with almost 72" antlers which barely is mentioned in his story of the hunt!  On this hunt Bill shot the world record barren ground caribou with THIS bow-at 125 yards!  Bill went on later to take the world record Roosevelt elk,#4 Alaskan moose and #10 Mountain Goat WITH THIS BOW.

Bill wrote a story for TAM about his hunt in Nov 1965 called Big Bull of Delta Creek-a copy of the original story will soon be included in this LDB forum.  Interesting to note in the article is Bill's "discovery" of the trappers cabin made famous by Fred Bear-Glenn actually found the cabin on his 1957 hunt.

When Bill brown passed away, Joe St. Charles (Glenns son) bought the bow back and I bought it from him in June of 2001.
It became obvious to me the bow had a lot of life left in it and the idea occurred to loan it out and give it a 'second life"-I defy anyone to hold this bow and not feel its Mojo.  I used it in 2001 to shoot a hog and stingrays, and loaned it out to hunt WT in South Carolina which it did successfully.  The bow was damaged in shipping and I patched it with a little hesitation but then started loaning it out again -it went to a number of shoots where 100s of people had the chance to shoot it -and it hunted mule deer, blacktails, javelina, bison, bear, whitetails-even went to Canada!  I used it in spring 2003 to shoot a Florida turkey-with plans to have others shoot the remainder of the grand slam but the bow tip finally broke for what I thought was for good.  The bow was now retired-or so I thought.  I was approached by a non-assuming guy named Ron Russell from South Carolina who thought he could repair it-AND HE DID!

The bow is now shooting again, Jerry Gowins took a blacktail with it in fall 2003 in Chet's place.  Mickey "the ferret" Lotz and family and friends used it on a special hog hunt in Florida in Jan 2004 and Ron used it to turkey hunt in Carolina this spring.

On its trip through Indiana Sand Creek Archery was fortunate enough to have the bow make at stop at our April shoot.  Below is a picture of Chris Fischvogt and Charlie St. John, Sand Creek Archery owners, with the Little Delta Bow.

To learn more about the Little Delta Bow visit the TradGang.com website.  This forum serves as a story telling place where people can relate their own stories and photos of using the bow and as a launching point for its further adventures!

 

Scipio, Indiana                               info@sandcreekarchery.com