Hickory is one of those woods that gets all giggly and happy when moisture presents itself, it will soak it up like a cowboy at an open bar! But then it becomes a scrooge-faced miser and doesn't want to give it up when you want to cure that same moisture out.
Fortunately it works pretty easy with a drawknife when it is wet. Once you have the bark off, trace out the shape of the limbs and drawknife it down close to dimension and get your belly down to bit more than half an inch. Since you now have much less mass, the moisture will cure out more quickly. Seal the back and ends.
At this point, it might want to warp and twist on you, so you can use some light rope to bind it down to a 2x4 to try to reduce that problem. It may still want to twist up pretty bad, but a little use of a heat gun and a pipewrench will fix it's little red wagon!
In the meanwhile, go check out Jawge's pages on making board bows. Blow $7.00 on a good hickory board, back it with carpenters glue (heck, even Elmer's school glue) and some strips you cut from a brown paper bag and go to town! Don't even think of it as a bow, it's just wood that you are learning on, practice for your tools. It will even help build some of the fine motor skills that your hands are going to need when you go after that stave. If it tillers out well and shoots you are ahead of the game!
