BELPRE, OHIO (WOWK) — As archery season begins this weekend in Ohio and West Virginia, local archery shop owners say they’re as busy as ever, even with more online sales.
At HP Archery in Belpre, Ohio they’re hitting the bullseye this season with sales.
HP Archery owner Larry Hendershot says they normally start to see a rush before bow season starts 3-4 weeks beforehand. This year it’s been more like six months.
“We’ve seen our business probably triple this year,” said his son Larry Hendershot Jr.
The archery shop near the border of Ohio and West Virginia sees customers from both states, and they’ve been coming in for the last six months looking for everything from new bows, arrows, and services.
“I’ve probably restringed 80 bows this year between crossbows to vertical bows and we take care of the traditional people as well,” said Hendershot.
The hunters 13 News spoke with inside the shop Tuesday say it’s not the fact that there is an ammunition shortage nationwide that’s pushing them to try archery instead.
Mark Miller has been a bowhunter for 30 years.
He says he prefers getting up close to the animals, and hunting them while they’re less pressured as opposed to during gun season.
“Ohio’s got some really good quality whitetail deer and West Virginia’s actually getting more and more pretty good deer,” said Miller.
Larry Hendershot, says “archery men will always be archery men,” and the wet year has led to some very enticing pictures of bucks and whitetail deer taken by trail cameras.
Hendershot Jr. thinks the rush could be something else.
“I think people are just ready to go out and do something this year, they’ve been cooped up all last year, we’re kind of post-covid, and people are just ready to get ou and do something,” he said.
Archery season starts September 25th in Ohio and West Virginia.
Archery season began on the 4th in Kentucky.