I've come to a realization/epiphany regarding my bow making

[Eric Krewson]

I can't believe you guys are boasting about STEALING wood off someone's property. It is obvious none of you own any property and have "0" respect for anyone who does.

I own a little patch of woods and would give you plenty of bow wood, all you would have to do is ask. Steal my trees and we would be going to court.

I wouldn't share a campfire with any of you thieves!

[twisted hickory]

This doesn't surprise me. I have a couple of neighbors that are like this.
Stay away from my 80 acres 

[StickMan47]

I don't feel that I have stolen anything Eric. My most recent wood was obtained from a logging patch that was going to be pushed into a pile to be burned! Why let good wood go to waste? And I did ask the logging crew boss for permission before taking the wood I got! Another trip I found a mulberry tree growing wild on public land. I only harvested one branch from the tree so that the tree would not be killed! My other staves have come from either logging brush piles or public hunting land.

I appreciate your moral values and have great respect for you for them, but please don't accuse me of being a thief because of how I obtain my staves. I have never gone onto private property without the owners permission and cut their trees. And I never will. But will I go onto public land and take a sapling growing among many of that species? The answer is yes. I'm not clearing the woods of a species, I'm not taking old growth trees, and I usually will only cut a limb so that the tree may continue to live! But if I'm camping out on public land and find a nice looking sapling then it will prolly wind up going home with me.

I ain't mad at you Eric, I just don't like being accused of something that I'm not. I don't like thieves either. I think our views are derived from our individual perspectives, and we are all gonna have differences in that regard.

[Eric Krewson]

It takes very little work to find bow wood no matter where you live. Put an ad in the paper that you want to buy standing hickory or osage for $100 a tree. I guarantee your phone will be ringing off the wall.  You may have to drive a few miles to cut wood but the opportunities are there.

For your $100 bucks you can usually get between 20 and 30 staves from a 12" to 14" hickory tree or less than $5 each. Osage, it depends on the tree, even if you only pick up 5 staves from and average osage tree you are way ahead of the game. After you cut a tree , clean up the top cut it into firewood and make a good impression on the land owner

I contacted landowners when were clearing lots in town to see if I could cut the osage, the answer was always a resounding YES.  Before I quit acquiring osage I was turning down trees that friends relatives were removing from their property, I had more wood than I could handle in a lifetime.

Bottom line, get off your rears and start establishing a wood supplier network and stop stealing the stuff.

[blackhawk]

I can't believe you guys are boasting about STEALING wood off someone's property. It is obvious none of you own any property and have "0" respect for anyone who does.

I own a little patch of woods and would give you plenty of bow wood, all you would have to do is ask. Steal my trees and we would be going to court.

I wouldn't share a campfire with any of you thieves!

If I was anyone else coming into this conversation I'd ignore this post and skirt around it....this is how fights and arguments are started online....anytime namecalling and pointing fingers hiding behind a screen no good becomes of it....jus saying is all

[Eric Krewson]

Let me get this straight stickman, sometime you steal wood without permission and sometimes you get permission and obtain wood in the proper manner.

Looks to me you just confessed to what I was alluding to.

There are no gray areas where honor is concerned and that is the last comment I will make on this post.

One more thing, Blackhawk posted just before I did. I am an old guy, just turned 66 and have made some significant contributions to the bow making public over the years.  I believe traditional archers and bow makers are, as a whole, head and shoulders above the general population as far as ability, honor, honesty and responsibility goes, I want to keep it that way. We have to have standards and maintain them. You do something less than honorable and I will call you on it, it's called maintaining the standard. No hiding behind the computer screen for me, I will tell you the same thing to your face and have a bunch of times to guys I meet who brag about questionable activities. Finger pointing, hogwash, read some of the above posts about obtaining wood, these guys are pointing a finger at themselves.

Now, all of you less than honorable men, go ahead and send me nasty PMs, call me obscene names and accuse me of singling you out for ridicule  like you have every time I stood up for what is right, I will not respond.

[Joec123able]

ADB,

I live in Chicago, Illinois. Cutting my own wood is pretty much out of the question. All the wooded areas are pretty much part of Forest Preserve District of Cook County. They seriously look down on people "removing" items from the preserves. A couple friends got busted by rangers for digging ramps. I can only imagine the load of trouble I'd be in if I tried to cut staves and carry them out. Unfortunately, I'm stuck buying staves that someone else has cut.

That is not true I guarantee you there is people tht own property somewhere around you you may have to drive out of your city to look for wood gotta do what ya gotta do and ask property owners if they will let you harvest some wood I've never been turned down one guy even cut it for me and asked for nothing in return

[PEARL DRUMS]

If Im gonna steal it? It better be peeled and sealed already! Watch your piles at the summer shoot's fella's!

[blackhawk]

If Im gonna steal it? It better be peeled and sealed already! Watch your piles at the summer shoot's fella's!

Go ahead and take it...I got too much already and it would be helping me out...and I won't flip out and say I'm taking you to court if I caught ya....lmao   

[PatM]

Wasn't  suggesting that he cut from a woodlot in a back yard. However every piece of land up here is festering with Buckthorn that is supposed to be eradicated if possible and yet there are areas where it is illegal to remove material.
  All the conservation areas here have some sort of vague warning to watch out for Buckthorn as if it might attack but no reference as to what is supposed to be done about it. I know there are none of the conservation authorities actually out there doing anything about it except putting up signs.
 The forest preserves around here are filled with managed pine forests and it is also illegal to remove material yet the log skidders go through and crush and mangle the understory of HHB etc.
 Am I removing material in these cases without being the equivalent of a petty thief? You bet.
 Consider it us exercising our inner Robin Hood.
 To this I would add new building developments or road expansion. If you saw huge piles of prime Maple being fed through a shredder, you'd become a low life thief just like us.

[paulsemp]

Alright ladies, I looked where he is from and it is chee-cago. So am I and I have access to more wood than I could ever want. All you have to do is get away from the burbs. Meet a farmer and they have row after row of osage. I going out in a month or so to rebuild my stash. Pm me and I'll hook you up

[DuBois]

I went last year to the carlos avery wildlife preserve here and asked the ranger if I could cut some wood. He asked what kinds and I named a few. When I hit Black Locust, he said "Oh sure, that is an invasive species up here". He showed me where a stand of trees was, gave me a day pass, and said it was due to be cleared by a crew in about a week so I showed up just in time  Accross the street from me is tons of common buckthorn and the land owner up the road was delighted to have me kill some. I did accidentally damage one litle ERC tree and had to put it out of its misery though 

[scp]

Even though I have enough white oak trees to cut in my yard, I wanted to get some hickory staves. So I ran a wanted ad in Craigslist. No luck there. Then I saw several ads for hickory lumber by local mill owners. I contacted a couple of them and eventually managed to buy several logs for around $100. I got about 20 staves out of them.

[dwardo]

Apologies if my post came across as go steal wood from anywhere. It was not my intention.
There are lots of places I can find wood that is in wasteland or overgrown woodland. I am also aware of places where taking the odd sapling would never be missed and if anything would help thin out and create a more healthy bio-diversity.
I am not talking about cutting down the lovely fruit tree from someone's garden, parkland or plantation.

One end of the scale is taking out a daughter trunk from a neglected piece of wasteland and the other is cutting down a rare tree from a place of special scientific interest (SSSI) or from someone's front lawn!

With the way things are today with insurance and liability you will find the default answer to be no, no matter if the timber would be missed or not, that's just the way things are now.
But to be responsible you have to know what you are doing and take an interest in the whole picture and consequences of your actions, not just legally but morally and environmentally.

"its sometimes easier to seek forgiveness than permission"

[NeolithicMan]

One post and it all goes ugly... dont come in my yard, otherwise start hacking. if your fast enough, and quiet enough you deserve the wood! Its when people start stalking my woods with guns I get a little cautious. but I dont think anyone needs to get on a high horse and rain down judgement on someone for typing out a possible misdemeanor. if you dont like it say just that "i dont like that idea" other than that skip over the post or give some helpful tips instead of attacks. I myself would not have anywhere near the experiences I have had if it were not for scandalis little adventures. you grow, you learn, you do what you can. lets lay this beast to rest and get on with the real info!