The Bare Truth About Archery Shops, Brands, and Bullsh*t With John Winker

Ever wonder what makes archery shops survive while others fail? Or why some archers swear by traditional equipment in a high-tech world? This episode delivers answers through a candid conversation with John Winker, owner of First Flight Archery in Raleigh and elite barebow competitor.

John shares his remarkable journey from burned-out compound shooter to USA Team longbow archer almost by accident. After witnessing traditional archers having genuine fun while compound shooters complained, he picked up a longbow, made the national team within months, and later became a national champion in barebow. His perspective on what makes each discipline unique is enlightening – "On a longbow, you have to shoot the way the bow wants to be shot. On a barebow, you can make the bow do what you want."

The episode dives deep into regional archery culture differences, with Pennsylvania's thriving club scene contrasting sharply with North Carolina's evolving landscape. We explore why some archers gravitate toward 3D while others prefer target archery, with John offering this wisdom: "Paper doesn't lie. You either scored a 10 or you didn't."

Perhaps most valuable is John's straight talk about equipment maintenance and shop operations. His passionate plea for regular string replacement (three years for compounds, annually for crossbows) might save your hunting season. And his insight that modern archery shops must prioritize service over sales explains why some thrive while others disappear.

Whether you're a seasoned archer or considering your first bow purchase, John's blend of technical knowledge, competitive experience, and business acumen provides a refreshing perspective on where archery stands today and where it's heading tomorrow. Ready to see archery through new eyes? This conversation will change how you approach the sport.

🏹 Shop Extreme Outfitters for all of your archery & bowhunting needs: https://extremeoutfitters.com

✅ Watch the video podcast here!       
https://www.youtube.com/@thearcheryproject

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY:

► Facebook: http://bit.ly/44UD7Vo
► Instagram: http://bit.ly/40Q2jLf

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting John Winker of First Flight Archery
• 16:12 Archery in Pennsylvania vs. North Carolina
• 33:11 From Longbow to Barebow: John's Journey
• 53:17 Paper vs. 3D: The Target Archery Divide
• 1:08:38 Archery's Price Point and Accessibility
• 1:20:41 Running a Successful Archery Shop
• 1:31:09 Final Thoughts on Influencers and Community
• 1:33:55 Bow Brands and Market Observations

Transcript

Zakk Plocica: 0:00

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Archery Project. I'm your host, Zach Placica, and today we got Mr John Winker all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina, the owner of First Flight Archery.

John Winker: 0:11

Hey how you doing Zach.

Zakk Plocica: 0:12

Excellent man. Thanks for making the drive this morning. I know it's kind of early. I was curious. Whenever we talked about scheduling this, you were like eight in the morning.

John Winker: 0:26

I'm like, just get a headstart on it and I can get back and still do what I need to do.

Zakk Plocica: 0:30

So we won't hold you too long on this one.

John Winker: 0:33

I'm going to stop and see Corey and have lunch on the way out of here. So oh, are you? Yeah?

Zakk Plocica: 0:37

Oh, corey, good Lord, the most disgruntled guy now.

John Winker: 0:41

Yeah, but you know he disgruntled, but never stops.

Zakk Plocica: 0:45

He doesn't. Man, um, corey's good people man. I always enjoy talking to him. I enjoy watching him shoot, because it either goes really really well, uh, or we know it doesn't.

John Winker: 0:55

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, he's his own worst enemy.

Zakk Plocica: 0:58

He is, he is. Do you guys? So first flight archery. I want to kind of get back to the history of that. So you're, you have a pretty extensive background in the archery world, right? I mean, how long have you been involved in archery?

John Winker: 1:09

So I've been. I've been doing it for a living for almost 10 years. Okay, Prior to that I coached extensively in a couple of Joe ad programs for the shop owner previous to the one I bought, and then I worked as a pro staff shooter for Kenzie's Outdoors in Pennsylvania for years before that. So I've been. I've been in it for a while.

Zakk Plocica: 1:36

So did you. Are you from Pennsylvania?

John Winker: 1:38

Kind of. I lived in Pennsylvania when I started archery kind of as a, as a real hobby instead of just a hunting or whatever.

Zakk Plocica: 1:45

Yeah. So I mean, that's like when you think archery like PA, pennsylvania, it's like the hub for like bow hunters, it is.

John Winker: 1:52

Well, yeah, Archery, competitive archery, bow hunting. Uh, where I was living, which is Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, it's halfway between Lancaster and and Elizabeth town. So halfway between Lancaster and Kinsey's is like archery Mecca of the world. Yeah, it's a. It's a little unknown secret that if you want to be in a high level shooting, you go live there.

Zakk Plocica: 2:14

So so that's interesting, right. So when you look at somewhere like that versus like we, where we're at, we're both on the East coast. We're about an hour and a half from each other, two hours, two hours from each other. Um, as far as like shops per square mile, are there a lot more shop options up there versus what you see down here?

John Winker: 2:33

I think there are a few more up there now than there was when I was there, but when I was there it was essentially um, uh, lancaster archery supply obviously kinsey's outdoors, which is a, um, the retail face for kinsey's, um, kinsey's wholesale. And then there was, ironically, a little shop called extreme archery in york. Go figure, um, but they were very, very small, um, a quarter of the size that you and I are. Yeah, um, and that was really about it as far as like archery shops, that I can recall off the top of my head. But the immersive experience of archery up there is wild. There's full clubs up there, and by that I mean indoor ranges, outdoor field courses, outdoor practice ranges to 80 or a hundred yards every 40 minutes. So where I lived I could get to six or seven of those clubs within an hour.

Zakk Plocica: 3:34

That's so. That's wild. So you, I would think that with there being that many archery clubs, that there would be a lot more shops. So they were solely clubs, just a place where you could go and shoot ranges.

John Winker: 3:45

Yep, social clubs, social clubs, competitive clubs, but you could just go and you could go any, any time, any day of the week. You could show up at the club and there would be people there so you could. Even if they weren't shooting, they would just hang out like some of the older guys, you know, the old timers. We'd go and we'd go and shoot a 600 round indoors and they'd be there drinking coffee the whole time. Never shoot an arrow, they'd have their bows with them, but they might just be hanging out drinking coffee. You know, kind of communing.

Zakk Plocica: 4:16

Yeah, so so I wonder what the difference is for that, based off where we are, because the archery community here is not nearly as big, especially right where I'm at, right on the coast, as what you see when you go further up north, and honestly I'm curious what it is, because here there's not. I mean, we have a 4-H program here that's new for Onslow County, I believe but there's not a lot of clubs and all the clubs have were around here seem to be really starting to die off as far as, like, there was the down East coalition, I mean a lot of those clubs that were a part of that have really seemed to drop off. And you do you notice that where you're at as well.

John Winker: 4:56

A little bit. Yeah. So I used to shoot in the down East coalition years ago here and it was huge, and now there's like two clubs left. I don't even know if they're hosting organized stuff anymore. Right um, over by me, the central carolina archery association used to be like five or six clubs strong. Um, now they're down to three more. County bow hunters, which is relatively new in comparison, is blowing it up. I mean, their events are somewhere between 100 and 150 people every event they have, and they have sometimes two events a month. They're doing an amazing job. So I'm not sure exactly what's the what 100% like to the letter, asa rules, style shoot-offs, all of that stuff where I think some of the other clubs around have kind of made up their own rules and so a lot of people may not be enjoying that as much, because everybody that shoots competitively shoots ASA around here.

Zakk Plocica: 6:04

So that's, that's good information and interesting because so, depending on who you talk to, right? So the big thing now is the event that you really see taking over the archery world At least what I see from from where I'm involved is a total archery challenge. Right, they're all over the US and it draws in people from you know bow hunters to your casual shooters, to there's target guys. It's a good mix and it's not competitive at all.

John Winker: 6:33

Yeah, it's really interesting. Actually, I I have not been to one, um, and that's primarily because I typically only travel to compete and I just don't have a lot of time to uh. I just don't have a lot of free time anymore, since I'm a shop owner and I'm also trying to be competitive in the industry. So to to make a big trip, you know, maybe a four or five day long trip to an event where there's nothing on the line for me doesn't make a lot of sense. Now it's gotten so popular that I just feel like I have to go shoot one because I mean, it's so popular.

Zakk Plocica: 7:11

I mean, they're fun, I like doing them. So I've never been a competitive guy, though, like as far as IBO or ASA stuff, and as far as that goes, do you still see, like, is that still a growing sport for for what you see based off your customer basis, or do you see more people gravitating towards the total archery side of things?

John Winker: 7:31

So I think both Okay. I think what I'm seeing is a lot of guys or my customers rather are gravitating toward that total archery challenge that aren't competitive, but they really enjoy the social aspect of getting together and flinging challenging arrows um, and for some reason they just don't want to keep score right so that total archery challenge is like a perfect fit, and then, I think, also competitively.

John Winker: 8:03

I haven't shot a lot of 3d recently just because it seems like I'm always injured during the summer, but at least in barebow the competitive side of things is getting out of hand like it's wild. It's getting hugely popular. Barebow and longbow archery in competitions all over the country are getting huge. So I feel like there's growth in both places. But I think they're appeal to two completely different people.

Zakk Plocica: 8:35

So I would agree I think it's two different audiences amongst them, but if you were looking at doing because one of the things that we want to do here I want to do is, you know, I want to keep archery going, especially for our where we're located, and continue to grow it. And I'd be curious as to you know kind of what your suggestions would be, because we've watched these coalitions or these clubs kind of like fold or go away, like what, what it would take to revive them or bring the audience to where we're at. I mean, it just doesn't seem as as big here on the coast and maybe it's. You know, just archery is in general, is just isn't very popular here.

John Winker: 9:11

So I think if I was going to try to run a 3d club cause that's what, that's what happens around here 3d If I was going to try to run a 3d club and I didn't have a lot of competition because out by us there's a fair amount of competition for that I think I would alternate my shoots between tack style shoots, so long range, little to no scoring, uh, challenging events where you know not everything is a golf course, you know fairway, and mix that up maybe every other week or something, with an ASA style shoot where it's competitive, it's scoring, offer a fun class for the people who don't necessarily want to keep score or are just getting into it at a cheap level. But I would stick to ASA rules exclusively because that's your target audience in this area. There's just not a lot of IBO shooters in this area. So there's no sense in shooting Reinhardt targets, there's no sense in shooting Center 11s, there's no sense in following IBO rules because for the most part nobody around here cares.

Zakk Plocica: 10:20

Interesting. So is IBO smaller than ASA nationally.

John Winker: 10:24

I believe it is. Yeah, but if you move up further North, IBO is much more popular because that's what they shoot up there. However, I think if you go to an IBO event versus an ASA event, you're going to see much bigger numbers at an ASA event, and typically IBO is all unknown event and typically IBO is all unknown. So those guys are a little more kind of old school hardcore, no range finder guys where ASA has transitioned into almost all known classes. There's there's actually very few unknown classes, comparatively speaking.

Zakk Plocica: 11:01

Now at ASA, so for me I would. I would probably gravitate towards the asa side of things, because I've tried to do like just on my own, trying to range targets and visually figure out, and dude, I'm not even close ever no, I, to tell you the truth, I shoot and then I shoot in an unknown and a known class.

John Winker: 11:22

Uh, depending on where I'm competing, I am a terrible judge of distance. Now, fortunately, because I shoot barebow, the distances are relatively short for me. So if I'm judging, I only have to judge out to 30 meters, that's about 33 yards, so you don't have to be terribly good at that distance. But if you're shooting unknown distances out to 50 yards or 60 yards, once you get past about 35 yards for me I'm just like okay, uh, short, medium, whoa so, but for me, though, you're talking about like 33 yards, 30 meters or whatnot, but you're shooting a bare bow.

Zakk Plocica: 12:00

That thing's not sending an arrow screaming fast.

John Winker: 12:03

No, no, I'm probably lucky to be close to 200 feet a second.

Zakk Plocica: 12:07

Yeah, super slow.

John Winker: 12:09

But at the same time your drop rate's not too bad at 33 yards, so you can manage it pretty well. But you know, you're, even on a compound bow shooting 290 feet a second at 50 or 60 yards. You know, if you miss it by two yards you're not competitive anymore. So that's, that's a. That's a big difference and thankfully why I'm not judging distance that far.

Zakk Plocica: 12:33

Yeah, that's wild. So one of our guys, cody harrington, he went and shot one. He enjoys the unknown side of things and talking to him about some of the strategies that guys implement, uh, in order to judge yardage is why things I never even would have considered from you know time of flight and all these other different things that he was talking about with some of the guys it's just out of my wheelhouse.

John Winker: 12:55

Oh yeah, and and it's pretty wild, because I mean, the guys who do it well don't necessarily have to be good archery shooters. If you can judge distance really really well, you can actually be a mediocre shooter and still do pretty good in an unknown class. If you are lucky enough to be able to shoot a bow and judge yardage, you're pretty hard, you're unstoppable in one of those classes.

Zakk Plocica: 13:20

Oh yeah, that makes sense.

John Winker: 13:21

But you know, being able to shoot a bow really well doesn't hold up any water at all If you can't tell you how far away the target is.

Zakk Plocica: 13:30

Oh, that shot execution looked great. Sailing it over the back of the target, that's right. So what? Why barebow archery for you? Well, I mean, what made you gravitate towards that? Because I mean, dude, that's a whole nother animal If you've never done anything traditional wise or shot a bare bow. That stick and string style of archery is, I mean, for me, when I think about it, very primal, very, um, I mean, the most simplistic, most simplistic form of archery, but also probably the most difficult.

John Winker: 14:00

Yeah, there's probably some truth to that. So the the story is I'll try to make it short I was a competitive compound shooter. Um started out in bowhunter class. I did fairly well in that at an amateur level. I switched to freestyle or unlimited class. I did pretty well with that. I did have some uh fleeting aspirations of maybe turning pro at one point years and years ago aspirations of maybe turning pro at one point years and years ago. And then I just started shooting a lot of ASAs because I moved to North Carolina Target archery.

John Winker: 14:32

There's no such thing as target archery in North Carolina. So if you're looking to shoot paper targets in North Carolina, you are. You're on the hunt for events, but if you want to shoot 3d targets, they are everywhere. So I started shooting 3d, I started going to a lot of asas and I got so burnt out on these amateur 40 and 45 yard shooters showing up to events where I've taken time off work, I've taken time out of my life to go to this event and we get to target number one and these guys are like oh, my release misfired and my bow's not, my sight, tape's not good and my scope's got a glare in it and I'm like, well, what have you been practicing for?

John Winker: 15:18

Like you didn't know your release well enough to fire it correctly, you didn't realize the sun was going to be out today and you couldn't get a sunshade for your scope. And the complaining got to be so bad in the amateur classes that I just I didn't want to go anymore. And I came off a course one day and, uh, I think we were in alabama somewhere and I saw the uh, I saw the traditional guys coming off the course and these guys were all like arm and arm, like laughing and patting each other on the back. Every single one of them had a smile on their face and everybody I was standing next to it was like somebody peed in their Cheerios. Everybody was having a bad day.

Zakk Plocica: 16:00

You know who? That reminds me of Corey, but but.

John Winker: 16:05

But I looked at these guys and I was like what are they doing that they're all having so much fun? And I knew one or two of them kind of just from being in the industry a little bit, and I went over and I said, look, what is it that you guys are having so much fun doing that all these other guys are having such a miserable time. And they said, no, we're just happy to be upright shooting arrows. And so this guy talked me into shooting longbow a little bit and I kind of quit shooting competitively, complete at all. So I started shooting with a longbow in my backyard and just trying to have fun shooting archery again. And I got to where I was having a lot of fun, but I was not competing at all.

John Winker: 16:46

And then somebody one of my close friends witnessed me shooting a longbow. And they were like, oh man, you're like pretty good at that. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to go back. And they're like, well, you should. You know the USA team trials are coming up in like three months. You should go try out for the USA team. I'm like I've never shot a longbow competitively. They're like, yeah, but you could probably do it. So I said okay. So I went to like three or four 3d events that summer and I did okay with the bow and I went and tried out for the USA team for long bow 3d and I and I made the team.

Zakk Plocica: 17:28

Wow, that's I mean, that's pretty incredible. So I know, like I said, with that bow that did you take the bow that you had started with and that's the bow you shot to make the team.

John Winker: 17:38

Yeah, so I yeah, so I had no idea what I was doing. I found a company called Timber Creek Archery in England and they made longbows and they're not fancy longbows, they're just run-of-the-mill longbows and actually a lot of companies in Asian countries have copied their bows because they're so simple. And I bought one. It was called a Timber Creek Viper. It was like a 68 inch long bow. It only weighed like six ounces. It was really light, it was super lightweight bow and it was like a 45 pound bow. I had no idea what I was doing, which was a little heavy for me actually.

Zakk Plocica: 18:19

That's I mean getting into the traditional side of things. People don't really. If you've never shot a bow, you know compound. Obviously when you draw that bow back there's let off. So you're not holding that full weight right. When you go to the traditional side of things, if it's 45 pounds at 28 inches and you draw 20 inches, you're holding the full of that at that drawing.

John Winker: 18:38

Oh, yeah, yeah, and I'm. I'm 31 inches, so I'm gaining something like two pounds an inch. So I was holding like 53 pounds on my fingers, isn't?

Zakk Plocica: 18:48

that a lot for somebody shooting target.

John Winker: 18:50

It's a lot, especially for somebody who's never done it before Now. If you compete a lot with that type of bow, 53 pounds gets pretty normalized, but having gone from compound bow where I was holding 19 pounds, which is still a lot for a compound but I like a little let off bow.

John Winker: 19:07

So going from 19 to 52 or 53 was pretty extreme, but anyhow I so I I made this team. I kind of made the team in the third place slot, but I was super stoked about it. We went to France. It was the first time USA had ever fielded a complete team at a 3D event. Not me personally, but the team brought home several gold medals. It was an absolutely amazing experience. And after that I was totally hooked.

John Winker: 19:41

And when we got back, one of the other longbow shooters who was on the team with me, calvin smock, who you might recognize as one of the original owners of cd archery, asked me if I would shoot one of his barebow risers.

John Winker: 19:58

And I didn't know anything about barebow at the time, except for what I had learned through the team event. So he he gave me a riser to try, kind of a riser that had been damaged in transit or something. And so he gave me this riser to try because he said you know the way you shoot your longbow. It's very typical of the way a barebow shooters would shoot a barebow, which of course I had no idea what he was talking about either, because I was still fresh into the longbow. But I picked up this bare bow, I put a set of limbs on it and I was instantly good at shooting it. And I told him hey, what would it take to get this riser from you? So he sold it to me at a discounted rate because it was damaged, and um, and then, like I think, like a year later, I won the indoor national finals with it.

Zakk Plocica: 20:48

Man. So going from a longbow a longbow is hard to shoot. Yeah, like I've got some buddies that have brought them in and I've tried to shoot the thing and like they're so light, yeah, they're very, very difficult. Is your shooting style the same for a longbow as it is for a barebow, or is there a difference? What's the? What's the differences?

John Winker: 21:07

It's a little different. So with a with a longbow, because you can't make the bow do anything for you, you can't mechanically manipulate it to adjust your arrow flight, you may have to hold it a little bit different. Or can't the bow over to the right a little bit to control your center, your center alignment? You may have to adjust your string blur in a slightly different way to get your arrows to shoot left or right the way you want. And then you're doing most of your tuning with the arrow. So to shoot a slightly stiff or a slightly weak arrow to get the performance you want out of the arrow, the point of impact you want out of the arrow, the point of impact you want out of the arrow those things are a little bit different on a long bow.

John Winker: 21:47

On a bare bow, because it's a machine, you can make the bow do stuff. If I want my arrow to go to the left, I can force the bow to shoot my arrow to the left. If I want my arrow to hit lower or higher, I can force the bow to shoot the arrow higher and lower. So there's a lot of manipulation that allows you to control the bow on a bare bow. And on a bare bow, you're typically standing a little more upright, the bow is perfectly vertical. All of that stuff is a lot like shooting a compound bow, because it's all very precise and adjustable. Long bows are sometimes depending on the bow. You have to kind of shoot the way the bow wants to be shot instead of the way you want to shoot the bow.

Zakk Plocica: 22:31

That's interesting. So are you shooting? So, on a long bow, you're shooting off the shelf and then off your bare bows, you're shooting off of a spring spring right, yeah, a wire rest and a plunger wire, rest and a plunger. So you have a lot more capability when it comes to tuning with the barebow side of things. Oh yeah, lots. Do you enjoy shooting the barebow more than the longbow? Uh?

John Winker: 22:52

I don't think I enjoy shooting one or the other anymore, but I haven't shot a longbow in years since I started competing barebow, because I just kind of fell into this niche groove that I was good at and I just got a long bow about four days ago. That I've been waiting 19 months for. I ordered it at Lancaster when I was in the Lancaster shoot. I ordered it in 2024. And it arrived three days ago and I am in love with this long bow. So you've shot it already, yeah, maybe 30 or 40 times. And I'm waiting on some arrows to show up because I, in order to be competitive with a longbow, you have to shoot wood arrows. So I'm, I'm shooting my carbon hunting arrows off of it right now and with some good success.

Zakk Plocica: 23:47

When my wood arrows get here, then I have to make a hard decision on what I'm going to compete with this this season. So you're still a very actively competitive when it comes to barebow or just archery in general yeah, barebow specifically.

John Winker: 23:56

Um, yeah, I would like to think I'm probably top 15 right now in the country for at least for indoor, uh, barebow, like I said, I haven't shot a lot of outdoor recently because it seems like every summer I'm injured, but um, yeah, I'd like to say I'm in the top 15 or so, probably nationwide, for indoor barebow so you enjoy shooting paper?

Zakk Plocica: 24:18

yeah, and that's, that's kind of what you gravitate towards. Yes, what's the draw for you to that? Because it's so repetitive? I mean, it's like's like consistent, consistent, consistent. There's no deviate. It's indoors that the distance doesn't change. I mean, what's the what has drawn you into that versus 3d?

John Winker: 24:33

So my, my primary love is field archery, which there is almost none of down here. Um, and field archery is multi-distance, known distance paper targets. It's like walking through a wooded golf course. It's like 3d but a little more complicated and and much longer distances out to 80 yards. That's my absolute favorite archery and one of the reasons I gravitate towards shooting paper we'll call it shooting paper is because or whatever you call it with the correct terminology shooting paper right?

John Winker: 25:08

um, locally that's what everybody calls it shooting paper. So is that paper doesn't lie? You either scored a 10 or you did not score a 10. There is no. Did I pull a line? Was I shooting a fat enough arrow to stretch that line far enough to get that score? In my opinion and it's not a popular one, but if you had to stretch a line to score it, you didn't get it and you stretch that eight so far that that 10 line came over to touch your arrow. In my opinion that's an eight because you didn't hit the 10. You hit the eight and then warped the target. So, like I said, you're out, you're out.

Zakk Plocica: 25:57

So so I agree with you on that, and that's one of the things that I learned very quickly. Whenever we started doing our side of the 3d stuff is, you know, guys are like did it pull the line? I'm like what do you mean? Did it pull the line? I thought you know, if you're in, you're in, if you're out, you're out. No, that's a, that's a thing, that's the thing. Yeah, I didn't.

John Winker: 26:13

I learned that very quickly the rules on that game are would be easy to fix. All you have to do and this was is an easy fix. All you have to do is say you have to touch the inner edge of the line. If you're touching the inner edge of the line on a foam target, then it scores that value. The outer edge of the line does not count.

Zakk Plocica: 26:40

That makes sense, because you can misinterpret pulling a line depending on who the individual is looking at the target.

John Winker: 26:47

That's right. And you can only pull exterior lines. You can't pull interior lines, because if you're pulling an interior line you're in the scoring circle. You can't pull an interior line out far enough to score it. That's not possible, yeah. I mean that would make it very cut and dry very cut and dry, but nobody wants to hear that it's okay. If you're touching the inner scoring line, you're in. If you're touching the outer scoring line, you're out I could get down with that.

Zakk Plocica: 27:14

Maybe we'll do that with ours. No, don't, don't make your own rules. If you make your own rules, nobody will come.

John Winker: 27:19

Oh my gosh you gotta, you gotta, stick to the rules that are in place.

Zakk Plocica: 27:22

Yeah, that's it man.

John Winker: 27:24

But I just like paper because it doesn't lie. And the truth is, especially with indoor shooting and I have never been a big indoor fan until I became a barebow shooter but the truth is is if you can successfully shoot one shot 30 times in a row, like an indoor game requires you to, you are a good archer. 3d archery does not put that test to the limit. All you have to do is make some rando shot 30 times or 20 times in a day. But a lot of good 3D shooters not the best, but a lot of good 3D shooters can't play the indoor game because they can't make that one good shot 30 times in a row. They're just lucky enough or good enough at judging distance or stretching enough lines to be good at 3D, but they can't handle trying to hit a target that isn't changing distance, isn't changing color, isn't changing in the shade, isn't stretchy.

Zakk Plocica: 28:23

So do you notice that there is like some division amongst, like, your 3d versus your target guys?

John Winker: 28:29

absolutely, oh, which is hilarious now, most target guys don't have much of a problem shooting known distance 3d, as long as they can have the equipment to see their pin or whatever it is, you know, because the equipment changes pretty significantly, in my opinion, between the two games.

Zakk Plocica: 28:45

For a bare bow too.

John Winker: 28:46

For everything. Okay, bare bow is not as bad because there's so little equipment to change, but arrows will change, speed will change, stuff like that. But with a compound bow, especially magnified compound bow, a lot of paper target shooters are going to shoot stick-on dots. They're not shooting fiber optics. Fiber optics aren't something that you see on a lot of spot shooters' bows In 3D. You won't see hardly anybody shooting a dot. They're all going to be shooting some type of fiber optic and in most cases outside of world archery they're going to be illuminated fiber optics. So you know the equipment sometimes will alter. Uh, who's playing?

Zakk Plocica: 29:30

Right. That's just still interesting to me that there's so much division in the archery world, right, so your 3d versus your target. But also, whenever you like, read the read any comments on anything. Right, like you've got your crossbow guys compound guys hate crossbow shooters Right, and then from there, you've got your crossbow guys, compound guys, hate crossbow shooters, right. And then from there you've got your um traditional guys who who say you know if you're shooting anything but a stick and string, yeah, you're cheating, you're cheating and that you dude so like I have a satori that I mess with. That don't make it in that crowd either. They're like no sir, get out of here yeah, yeah, you're too modern too modern.

Zakk Plocica: 30:05

Yeah, that's exactly what it is yeah, but that's.

John Winker: 30:07

You know what all that is is. I mean, all that is is bad for the industry. It's bad for everything. So if you're one of those guys and don't get me wrong, there's, there's just too many of them out there to name them all but if you're one of those guys that is just a hater because somebody else is using something, you're're not using it. It doesn't matter what sport you're playing whether it's baseball and some guy's got a new bat that can hit a little bit better, or golf, because somebody's got a new head that drives 10 yards longer. If you're a hater, then all you're doing is hurting the sport you enjoy. So if you, if you're a traditional guy, you know you, you die hard. Wood arrows Good for you. There's a division for that. Longbow shoots wood arrows competitively. That's the rules. Go play and go have fun, but don't hate the guys that want to shoot barebow or want to shoot bowhunter compound or open compound, because the only thing hate does for a sport is make it worse.

Zakk Plocica: 31:05

Yeah, I would agree and it's. It's unfortunate that you see that within this community and it's still odd for me to see that, because we're both, we both are involved in, um, uh, in the archery world a little bit more, a little bit more involved, I would say, than most people that just shoot bows, because we deal with the customers who come in and we talk to customers across the board, from guys that do shoot traditional to compound. I mean in the fact that there's division is just unfortunate to see as it. I mean because it doesn't, like you said, it doesn't do anything good for what we're trying to do.

John Winker: 31:39

Well, that's right, and you and I specifically probably are involved a little bit more than even your average archery shop owner, because you're I mean you're podcasting, you're on site at TAC doing interviews and, unless I'm mistaken, you're still running booths at events and stuff like that for sales. So you're actually a little more proactive in that aspects than some other archery shop owners might be. Me, as an archery shop owner, I'm highly competitive, so I'm traveling around, I'm at all of these events. While I might be not interacting the same way you are, we're both having a larger influence on the industry. But here we are sitting across the table from each other, two hours away, technically running you know shops within territory of each other. So what's the point of being, what's the point of having any negativity in that field? That doesn't help you, it doesn't help me, it doesn't help anybody. Might as well do our best to work together. Support everybody, Cause if everybody's supported, everybody's growing, everybody's doing good.

Zakk Plocica: 32:43

That's a very, very good perspective on it, because and like I said, we'll go back to it it's unfortunate that there's division in anything, especially when it comes to a commonality right and ours being archery. You know, it's always been important to me with our shop and what we're doing, because we're still kind of the new kids on the block as far as the archery world goes, because our shop didn't start as an archery shop. It's kind of evolved into it that I always wanted to be able to work with other brands. We're not on top of each other yes, we're in the same industry, but we all kind of bring something different to the table and it was important to me that we, our company, was able to put out information and work.

Zakk Plocica: 33:25

And you know, this podcast to me was something I wanted to do, because I wanted to sit down with guys who had all this experience and really pick their brain, because not everybody has a platform to put out the knowledge that they have.

Zakk Plocica: 33:36

Because that's one thing that I have noticed is a lot of the local guys here, right, the bow hunters. They've been doing this for a long time and they've got more experience than anybody, but they don't have a social media presence to share what they've learned. And that was important to me to be able to do that, to be able to bring shop owners and bow hunters and all these people together so we can sit down and have a conversation and kind of see where the the archery industry is heading, because this is one of the other talking points I wanted to talk about. It's in a weird spot, in my opinion, so this is a little bit we're kind of jumping ahead. But when you look at the cost of archery equipment and you look at the feedback online from people, there's a lot of guys, a lot of blue collared guys, a lot of your average, you know, hobbyists or enthusiasts that whenever you read the comments they're like I'm priced out.

John Winker: 34:24

I yeah, this is. This is too much and I don't. That's something that I don't really buy into. Like I get it. Those are getting expensive. Arrows are getting expensive. Um, what are they getting so much more expensive than they were nine years ago? Not like, cause I've owned my shop now for nine years.

Zakk Plocica: 34:46

So you so you have a lot of history with it. So that's one of the things.

John Winker: 34:49

Not really Like. What was it when I started the shop? Uh, and let's just talk about like worst case scenario a carbon Hoyt right ran about $1,500 or $1,600. Well, a carbon Hoyt today is like $1,900. So that's $400 increase over almost 10 years. That's not actually that terrible considering the price of everything else over the last 10 years. When I started my shop, a dozen eggs was 99 cents. Now a dozen eggs is like three and a half dollars. That's a 350 increase or whatever. That's a crazy increase, yeah so we're.

John Winker: 35:33

We're not talking and I realize eggs is like the very worst case scenario for this thing, but but four hundred dollars over 10 years isn't all that bad and you're not priced out. I don't care who you are. You want to get into bow hunting. You want to kill some deer. You want to have fun with your kids in the backyard. You maybe want to come to your local shoot and have a shoot the bow hunter class or something like that. You can get a diamond edge xt fully loaded for 399 dollars. You can get a half a dozen arrows for seven bucks an arrow. Seven and a half dollars an arrow for a decent eastern arrow. Right, you can get a 49 release and you can be shooting for 500 bucks so do you think it's just people look for something to complain about?

John Winker: 36:23

well, you know what I'm priced out of a ferrari ha, you and me both buddy but I don't choose to drive ferraris, so but you want a ferrari, yeah right if you, if you're going to complain about being priced out of a ferrari, ask yourself if, are you in the ferrari market?

John Winker: 36:42

if you're not in the ferrari market, then you're technically not priced out of a ferrari. Are you priced out of driving a car? No, go get a camry. Camry is a great car and it'll do the job wonderfully and it'll talk to your phone and do all that other crap the Ferrari will do too, right? So you're not priced out of driving a car. You're just not a Ferrari customer.

Zakk Plocica: 37:06

Not yet.

John Winker: 37:07

So if you decide down the road that you are no longer bowling, you're no longer playing golf like you used to, you're not going to the beach and renting a cabin for two weeks during the summer. If you're not doing those things anymore because you're shooting your bow, that much more than maybe you have become a carbon Hoyt customer and now you're not priced out because you're not spending your money in those other aspects of your life.

Zakk Plocica: 37:32

That's a good way to look at it too, right? So, and I get it everything is expensive. Right, life is expensive. Now, everything continues to increase and I can sympathize with people that way. But I also realize that Americans are consumers. Right, we consume, we consume, we consume.

Zakk Plocica: 37:46

There's a lot of people that have a lot of different hobbies. You brought that up. That was a really great point. And maybe you have to be a little bit more selective with the hobbies that you want to invest more deeply into. That's right, you know.

Zakk Plocica: 37:59

And archery is one of those right Because you can. You know that's valid. You can get into this sport at a reasonable cost and we've said that. I've put out a bunch of content on that. You don't have to think get into bow hunting, you don't have to spend $2,500 to do it, by no means. You can get into the game very reasonably for that $400 to $600 price point and still be just as effective and just as capable with the equipment at that level. But there's always a tier up from there.

Zakk Plocica: 38:28

If you've determined that archery is something that really consumes you, you know, maybe end up in your own shop, you know there's that next level. And if that's something that your whole focus is like cause. I know a lot of guys that once they get into archery, archery ends up being that consuming thing. And then once that's your only hobby or maybe you're you have only a select few hobbies at this point it's a lot easier to justify buying that top of a line piece of equipment, because I think some people get into it too right away and they don't technically need that Ferrari. Right, you know they. They want it but they don't even realize the capability that they have or how much they could do with less.

John Winker: 39:06

Yeah, that's right. Well, and the thing is is and I'm going to pick on Matthews because they're extra extra good at it but Matthews is an excellent marketing company. And I don't mean excellent in a mild way, I mean Matthews has got it figured out. So when guys who are kind of on the fence about whether they're going to get into archery or not, they're being inundated, inundated with Matthews advertising, and so when they come to the shop and they go yeah, I'm thinking about that new Matthews, because their brains have been absolutely crushed with the excellent advertising that they do, right, and then you go okay, no problem.

John Winker: 39:51

Like, we're going to build this Matthews, and we're going to build it with, you know, um, equal level components. So if you're buying a top tier bow, you're probably should be thinking about putting top tier components on it. You're talking about $2,800 bow, maybe, and they go man, 2,800 bucks. And I go well, you don't have to have that, matthews. You know, we can set you up with a uh wait, torex, we can set you up with a bear adapt. We could set you up with something that's going to be in a much, much better price point, but they can't because they've been brainwashed.

Zakk Plocica: 40:25

They've already priced themselves.

John Winker: 40:26

They've already priced themselves out of it and then they want to complain about it but that's just because they didn't open their eyes up to the bigger picture and then buy a Bear, adapt or something like in that price line, shoot it for two years. If you're hooked, good, absolutely. What we want you to do is come back, bring that bow back in I don't know about you guys but trade it in on a new Matthews and take some of that money you invested in the Bear, put it into a Matthews. You already know you're into it. You already know your draw length. At that point you know what draw, what you like. You've tested out a couple of different sites and you've shot your buddy's stuff and you're like, okay, I'm going to build this Matthews, I'm going to get this site and I'm going to get that quiver and I'm going to get these stabil you and that initial investment you made on that cheaper bow is actually going to pay for itself.

Zakk Plocica: 41:17

Yes, I think that's that's a really good approach, because I think with archery too, it's one of those. You need to crawl, walk, run because it's very technical and people. If you've never been in the archery side of things, there's a lot that goes into it, especially in the setup process and the build process, and we always tell people it's like buying a car you need to go in and test drive some of these things and kind of figure out what, what you and you like, what fits you best. Especially if you have no experience whatsoever, you have no idea what you're even getting into.

John Winker: 41:44

Yeah, that's right.

Zakk Plocica: 41:45

And then you go into it and you spend $2,500 and you know you don't appreciate the equipment quite as much. That's right, yeah, like equipment quite as much.

John Winker: 41:53

That's right. Yeah, like I started out shooting relatively cheap stuff, used secondhand stuff, and I started out competing in bow hunter class so I got a really good grasp of all the different types of accessories before I started shooting higher and higher in stuff. So I kind of progressively knew now, even to this day, I still have literally have closets. Now, even to this day I still have literally have closets full of old equipment. Like my original competitive boat hunter site sat in my closet for 14 years. I just recently gifted it to somebody. But like you hold on to that stuff for a long, long time and sometimes it's worth money and sometimes it's not worth money. But you have to experience all those different kinds of levels before you realize what you either should have gotten or what it is you prefer.

Zakk Plocica: 42:42

Yeah, that's um, that's good. I mean it's something that evolves. I mean people are I think that's one of the other problems as just people in general. It's that instant gratification right. And bow hunting is not that, archery is not that it takes time one to develop the skill set to be able to do it well. I mean you've been doing it forever. Yeah, it's not a just jump into it and you know I'm good at it, I mean, but it seems like you were.

John Winker: 43:07

When it came to the the longbow side of things, you were very natural but that's also after being a competitive compound shooter for a long, long, long time. So I already knew how to shoot a bow, right. I just had to apply those skills to a slightly different setup, and that setup just happened to favor me, um, both in my size and my style, plus the fact that I was enjoying archery again, which made it really fun, and being fun again allowed it to be easier.

Zakk Plocica: 43:34

Right. So let me ask you this Do you think so? You have an extent. You're a very competitive and highly ranked and incredible shooter with tons of experience, not only as a competitive archer, but as an instructor, and a teacher is as far as like your shop goes. Is that made a significant difference in your customer basis? Because people seek you out because of your capability and experience?

John Winker: 43:59

Yeah. So I don't know that it's making a huge financial difference to the shop, but people do come to me for my specifically for my bare bow experience. So I'll have people travel pretty long distances to come and have me help set up their bows and then teach them how to do what I do. And then also on that same thing, I don't know that it's because of what I've done, but I have a fairly large youth program, JOAD archery, and adult archery program and I have somewhere in the neighborhood of like 40 to 50 regular students every week for that, and some of that is probably because of who I am. I know at least a few of my students are there because they want to learn from me.

John Winker: 44:46

But because I have so much experience in that field, I'm able to teach people how to compete. Teach people how to compete. So you don't necessarily have to be a good archery instructor to be a good coach, Because an instructor is someone, is something a lot of people can do. A coach is the person that can take your archery to a competitive level where you're comfortable in your own skin standing on the line scoring arrows, and I think coaching is what I do better than instructing. So lots of people can stand there and say pull through your release and pull through your release, pull through your release, pull through your release. But the ability to pull through your release when it matters most is kind of what I do so I can make. I can make people better uh, competitors necessarily than archers, and that's why I think more of my students come back to me.

Zakk Plocica: 45:49

So that's a lot. I mean cause you guys are open. Are you guys open five or six days a week? Five, five days a week? And there's how many of you that work in the shop.

John Winker: 45:58

Uh, full-time, it's just me and one guy.

Zakk Plocica: 46:01

Is it Hunter?

John Winker: 46:02

No, it's a John Ehrman. John, that's right. Yeah, no, hunter works for me on Wednesdays, um, and he, he does more social media stuff and sales than anything, but he does. He's really good on the camera. He's, uh, he's good at talking to customers. He does some bow tech work for us, but mainly he's there for, uh, sales and social media and he's fantastic at those two things. I have another guy, scott. We call him part time. Part time. He works sometimes, um, randomly, usually when I'm traveling and weekends and stuff like that. So he's been in the industry for a long, long time as a bow tech and a hunter and so he works a little bit part time and obviously my wife is there helping run the office and stuff, but it's just me and John full time.

Zakk Plocica: 46:50

So, which is interesting, because running an archery shop, especially when it's busy, is difficult. It's, I mean, because each service takes time. It's not like you can just pump this stuff out. If you're diagnosing an issue or you're tuning a bow, you're working. You know especially someone new getting them fitted for a bow can take a little bit of process to get them to develop. You know how to draw that bow back, how to anchor, yada, yada, yada. But how are you guys doing that while also maintaining that highly sought after Joe ad program that you've got?

John Winker: 47:20

So our Joe ad program meets in the evenings, um, and it only overlaps regular business hours by about a half of an hour. Oh, so the shop closes, yeah, so. So our Joe ad program on Tuesdays starts at 6 pm and goes till 7.30, and the shop is closed at 7. So there's only a slight overlap there between shop hours and JOAD hours, and then the Wednesday and Thursday classes go from 6.30 to 7.30. So there's only a half hour of overlap, usually that half hour or hour at the end of the day. While it sometimes can be your busiest hour, it's also the easiest transition time because I can kind of bounce back and forth between both programs, the shop and the classes, because my wife is also. Well, we have my wife and another couple of part-time coaches that help us offset that a little bit.

Zakk Plocica: 48:12

Oh, so you have people that are just there as coaches, part-time coaches specifically.

John Winker: 48:17

Yeah, so my wife myself, uh, we have a part-time coach, judy Clay, who's helping with, uh, some private lessons on Sundays and she's doing our Wednesday night Joe ed program. And then we have a new part-time coach that we just picked up, um Dre. He's also a cheerleading coach, Um, so he has a lot of experience with helping people manipulate, you know, body functions so they can get their hand, eye coordination right For archery. Um, he's been a big help. He's going to help with our intro classes, um, getting people just started off. It's going to be good.

Zakk Plocica: 48:50

So you guys got a good um group as far as the coaching goes, because that seems like it's a very difficult niche thing to find people to come in and help coach.

John Winker: 49:00

It is really difficult and we've gone through several coaches. I don't say gone through, we haven't gone through. We've had several coaches kind of come and go. One of our coaches that we had years and years ago started his own program and carry and that's been wildly successful for him and congratulations to Brian. But but yeah, it's a, coaching's a tough thing. He had to make a long drive to get to us and I think between his work schedule changing and the drive it just became not reasonable for him anymore. And then the town of Cary asked him to start something down there and he did and that became really successful down there too. So it's a yeah, coaching's a tough niche to fill.

Zakk Plocica: 49:41

And so for you guys too, with being a smaller team, as most archery shops are, you don't have a massive manpower to pull from. You're there a lot at the shop?

John Winker: 49:50

I'm there all the time, yeah, so in fact, recently as of last year, I started taking Wednesdays off. Like I said, hunter comes in on Wednesday and helps us on Wednesdays, but I started taking Wednesdays off just for some mental health rehab.

Zakk Plocica: 50:05

You have to, man. I mean because our shops open seven days a week which I honestly wish I could be open five days a week if I had it my, just so that everybody could get a break because scheduling and stuff is tough. I mean because, you know, finding a good, competent tech is very difficult. We're a very niche thing. Finding the manpower, finding anybody to hire at this point is is a struggle, um, so scheduling becomes overwhelming and I know, as a shop owner, especially as involved as you are with the coaching and still running the shop, that's a lot to do Well and you're, you're in.

John Winker: 50:36

I'm not into e-commerce yet. So I have a very, very small e-commerce. You're scheduling people to do e-commerce as well, so that's even more complicated for you. But in my opinion and this is just my opinion you live in the South. Just close on Sundays.

Zakk Plocica: 50:50

Sundays are big days sometimes, though.

John Winker: 50:53

Any day is a big day sometimes.

Zakk Plocica: 50:55

You're right, just take a day. Yeah, you're right about that. If you're going to pick one Sunday's the day, huh.

John Winker: 51:00

Because nobody in the South is going to say oh, I can't believe he's not open on Sundays. Chick-fil-a's closed on.

Zakk Plocica: 51:06

Sunday. Chick-fil-a's closed on Sunday. It's easy to justify at that approach.

John Winker: 51:14

So you can't make everybody happy all the time.

Zakk Plocica: 51:18

This is one thing that I have found true, um with, especially with the archery side of things. Um, and it's in, don't get me, don't get me wrong. We do make mistakes, um, I think everybody makes mistakes, uh, but the cool thing about the archery world is, when you develop a relationship with your customers, you typically develop a very tight niche relationship and they become, I think, archery customers, from what I've noticed, become very loyal to their shop. Have you noticed that for your shop?

John Winker: 51:45

Very true.

Zakk Plocica: 51:45

So I get guys we've had guys that are passing through that come to the beach right Because we're right on the beach, that come up through your area and they, you know, anytime anybody says they've come there near Raleigh, I always ask them about your shop and, um, you guys have a very strong following, um, from what I've been able to see, that just from where, where we're located at, because I always bring you up, I'm like, oh, so do you know? Do you know John? And yeah, you know, there there's always good things to be said about your shop and just the amount of detail that you guys put into or take the time with your customer is, I think, overlooked in some shops.

John Winker: 52:24

Yeah, and I appreciate that it's a we. We do the same thing, we. So I'm sure your techs at least your bow techs, who are working on the bows every day you get to recognize other people's work. So bow comes in, you can see by the way the knots are tied, by the way things are done to the bow, you can kind of tell what shop it came from, um, and so we will see.

John Winker: 52:45

Sometimes we'll see some of your work and the guys will be like, oh well, I was just on my way out to the mountains for this and that, whatever, and we stopped and realized that you know, my peep had come sideways or whatever. And we're like, oh, is this from extreme? And they're like, yeah, like I will tight right back in the old tight and everything will be fine. You'll be good, those guys over there, top-notch, so you don't have to worry about it. But, um, and I think also John and I and I've been working at it for 10 years now but John and I are both fairly neutral people, so we don't come across as like cheery, happy, go fun. We're not perky, neither one of us. And so sometimes we get that's a great way to put it Sometimes that it's taken incorrectly, like those guys kind of assholes over there, and uh, it's not that we're assholes, this is that we don't. We're just not, um, you know, we're not door greeters at walmart, right. So, uh, I get that and and sometimes you just touch people the wrong way.

John Winker: 53:45

it's just not not, you can't please everybody all the time, like I said, but, uh, I think archery customers in general are some of the most loyal customers out there any industry, because we have guys and I'm sure you do too that just come in and like hang out. Um, you know it's a, it's a wednesday afternoon, they just come and hang out, they bring their bows, but maybe they're shooting a little bit, maybe they're not shooting a little bit, but they're hanging out at the counter talking, talking about what's coming up this fall, what animals are they going after, what stage are they going to? And these guys will come in, you know, all the time, every week, you know, maybe two, three times a month, and while they're good customers they're, you know, they're almost like good friends. They just come in and hang out and that's something that you know.

Zakk Plocica: 54:32

I just don't think you see in a lot of other industries I would agree and I think that's how you can kind of tell you've got a good shop too is the guys that come and just hang out for no reason. Uh, they just want to be there, they, uh, they like the presence of the individuals that work behind the counter. Um, and and I think that's important too, because I think when you look at it, there's a. There's a lot of people I've talked to especially and I'm sure you see it too going to the different competitions and stuff, but whenever we go to like total archery events, there's a lot of people that don't have great shops.

John Winker: 55:00

No, I see that all the time. People, oh man, I've never seen anything like this before and I'm like how have you never seen anything?

Zakk Plocica: 55:05

like this, which, because I look at it like our job, is to serve the people. I mean that's what we've built our business around providing experience for the archery enthusiasts, the bow hunter, and putting everything we can and investing into it so that we provide a good quality experience. And there's some shops that you hear about that you know the techs. I mean I don't know if there's just not a passion there anymore. Maybe they're burnt out, because running an archery shop is hard when the man powers. You know, you don't have a lot of people to choose from. Um, I'm, I'm just it's always kind of baffled me that they're like man, my shop just doesn't go out of the way for me.

John Winker: 55:42

So I think the problem is is that, um, and it should have always been this way, but I think it's become more and more important with the internet.

John Winker: 55:52

The way it is is that archery shops should always base their business on service, because the way the internet is now, you can buy archery stuff on the internet.

John Winker: 56:05

What you can't do is have Amazon put your bow together for you correctly, and no matter how many youtube videos you watch, no matter how much googling you do, the truth of the matter is, unless you're a long time experienced well and you know well-educated bow tech, you can't do it as good as a good bow technician at a pro shop can, and so if you're not basing your archery shop uh services based on quality out the door service, you can't make money selling archery stuff.

John Winker: 56:44

There's just that's just that those days are gone, okay, and so I travel around a little bit with the archery trade association because I helped do their bow tech certification program, and when we do that, we always go visit archery shops, uh, in whatever town we're in, and a lot of those archery shops are struggling because they're trying to sell stuff instead of provide service. And if your archery shop isn't providing the top notch, extremely well, well organized service where, like, you, can come in and you want to get a broadhead tune, a paper tune, you want to get some tips on hand position or coaching or shooting form. If your archery shop can't do that for you, then your archery shop may be on its last legs, because that's the only reason archery shops exist anymore is all the archery shops who can't do that are or have already closed their doors.

Zakk Plocica: 57:54

Yeah, there's a lot that we've seen that are going away year after year. Right, COVID was an interesting time period. Um, it was great for some shops who had like the e-commerce side of things to keep the doors open, but it closed a ton of shops closed a ton of shops and I didn't have e-commerce and COVID was a booner for me.

John Winker: 58:11

Like at first, we all thought we were going out of business. I think everybody did. Um, I thought I think every archery shop owner in the country like put their boot laces together and went okay, here we go. Like now, now we have to find a new job. However, the moment the doors opened back up, it was on real it was.

Zakk Plocica: 58:30

There was this crazy spike for archery and I was reading some of the um, some of the statistics or whatnot about it. They were talking about the amount of bow hunters, those, those two years, I think, in the woods was like off the chart was off the charts because people were home, people had additional money put into their accounts, they had you know the, the um, what was it? Everyone's getting like $5,000. Uh, and it was just a lot of people got into the archery world.

John Winker: 58:59

Um well, it was something a lot of people could do in their backyard.

John Winker: 59:01

They didn't have to go out in public. Um, that's right, they could stand at home with their kids and their kids got into it and more people started spending time with their families. It was well, in my opinion, it was awesome. Um, it was horrible. It was a horrible situation, right with an awesome outcome for archery, yes. However, uh, you know, now we're starting to renormalize a little bit, and so people are going back to work and people are sending their kids back to daycare and they're not spending time with them the way they used to and, in my opinion's just this is just the worst thing that can happen to Americans.

Zakk Plocica: 59:36

Back in the rat race.

John Winker: 59:37

Yeah, because when, when COVID happened and everybody was spending time at home and everybody was enjoying their family time and everybody was in the backyard playing outside when they could, everybody was better. Yes.

Zakk Plocica: 59:51

I would agree with you on that, and so it's kind of interesting to looking at how we go back to talking about shops that have closed their doors, have gone away or on the downward spiral. I've noticed a big influx in people looking at getting in and doing their own work, right, um, I think with the rise of social media, youtube, the information that's out there, there's more and more people that we see investing in archery equipment and, in particular, presses. Um, jigs fletching arrows, tuning their own bows. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

John Winker: 1:00:32

I think we touched on it just a little bit earlier. I think if it's something you're interested in doing, by all means awesome, do that. I think you know I see the social media posts every day and there's always some guy posting on Facebook in the bow tuning group and he's like, hey, this is my tear and he's got a terrible right side tear or something he's like and I've, I've done this and I've done that and I followed all the rules and I read the books and I bought all the tools and I'm like well, your grip, input sucks.

Zakk Plocica: 1:01:04

Dude, don't tell anybody that. Oh Lord, that's. That's its own talking point right there. People don't realize how much your input into the bow matters when it comes to shooting it.

John Winker: 1:01:13

Right, they'll post a video of them shooting. And they'll post yeah, they're choking this bow to death like trying to kill a chicken and I'm like, well, there's no wonder you can't get the bow to shoot. You don't know how to shoot, but you can't tell anybody that and I try to be as polite as I can, even though I'm not always when I'm on those forums. Like the answer to your question is take it to a pro shop. I don't mean take it to bass pro shop, I mean take it to a pro shop, have them look at it and then have them look at you and help get the problem fixed.

John Winker: 1:01:51

If, if you don't have a pro shop and not everybody does Archery shops are fading out in some places, worse than others in some cases. If you don't have a pro shop, take a trip. You know what. You go everywhere for everything else. Take a trip, go find a good pro shop and book a couple of days in a hotel and go spend some time there.

John Winker: 1:02:16

See if you can schedule a coaching session with a coach. See if you can schedule some time with the tech to learn a little bit, even though most pro shops probably guard their secrets a little more closely than they need to because, to tell you the truth, all those secrets are on the internet already. The truth is is if you want to learn how to work on a bow, you can schedule that time with me. I will schedule a lesson with you, same way I would with a coaching student, and I will teach you to work on a bow Same same rate. I charge for coaching services. There's no secrets anymore. The secrets are out. You want to learn how to do it in person. You want to learn how to hold a bow, tune a bow, shoot a bow? Schedule some time with me. We can do that, and I think other archery shops are waking up to that too. So, by all means, you know if you're, if that's what you want to do, invest in that.

Zakk Plocica: 1:03:05

So that's. That's really great, because I think what that does is that opens up the door for a really tight relationship with that individual right? Sure, it seems like you're giving away this secret. That's not a secret anymore, it's not a secret. The information is out there. But then you develop that relationship with that customer and that customer dude. When you do that, you've kind of bridged that gap. You are the end-all, be-all for them when it comes to archery. They're going to seek you out further. You've built that trust. Now they want to buy from you because they believe in you, they believe in your brand your mission, your company?

John Winker: 1:03:39

Yeah, that's right, and all it does is just strengthen the industry as a whole. So, even if you're having to take a trip to do it, you got. You're coming from, wherever you're coming from uh, somewhere in the middle of Virginia and you take a weekend, come down here, you spend a half a day in my backyard shooting with me a little bit. Learn how to shoot a bow or something. We go to the shop and we learn how to tune that bow up. You know how to. You know, do any whatever you want to do. And then you go back home. What you'll do is you'll go on Lancaster. You'll buy the stuff you're going to buy on Lancaster. You're going to go on extremes website and buy the stuff off extreme. That's totally cool. But then what you're going to do is go man, well, I'm going to go back down there next summer. So I'm just going to put together my shopping list and I'm just going to send it down to him.

John Winker: 1:04:17

And I get those emails all the time. Hey, I'm getting ready to come in, you know, mid June. This is the stuff I'm looking for. That way it gives me time to get. And what do you think would be best for the circumstances that I'm using and I get those relationships built up in a much more profound way, and then when that customer comes down, it's. You know, hey, john, how you doing Good, how's it been? Let's put these arrows together for you that you've been looking at, and let's do this new thing that we've been talking about, and you know you're going to switch to a different kind of release and blah, blah, blah blah. It makes a huge difference.

Zakk Plocica: 1:04:53

It'll make you feel good too, man, cause I feel like when you get into this industry and you open a shop, I mean that's a major part of it is you know, I mean you want to help people, right, and whenever you can do it to that level, I mean cause the let's be realistic You're really big shops can't do that. That's the thing that separates your smaller mom and pop shops like ours, like like my shop, um is you know we're real people, um that are that, that just want to do good and help and see the, the, uh the industry grow and continue to learn, learn along the way while we're doing it.

John Winker: 1:05:27

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I didn't open an archery shop to get rich. I opened an archery shop to be happy.

Zakk Plocica: 1:05:32

That's it, man, and you know, sometimes it's a little frustrating, it's a struggle, like we were talking about the slow months every year, which is weird to me because we've been doing it long enough. I feel like I should know. But every time it happens, when it slows down, I'm like, oh man, I guess archery is done.

John Winker: 1:05:49

So every year nine years now I've been doing this Every year we get into those early late spring, early summer months and I go what is wrong with us? What is wrong with us? Why can't we build more sales or experiences during these months? How many years do we have to do this before we figure out what the trick is? And then I talked to other archery shop owners and they're like there's no trick, man. I mean, you can do something stupid like start selling kayaks. Um, you know, and lots of archery shops do stuff like that. Where they try to, they're renting kayaks or they're selling kayaks, they're trying to invest in some summertime sport. But the truth of the matter is, like I'm not a kayaker, I don't give a crap about kayaking. Like I don't want to sell kayaks, I don't want to have these big plastic tubes filling up the back of my shop during the wintertime. So I'm not going to do it, but I'm beating my head against the wall to figure out what I can do to bring those archery guys in an extra three months early.

Zakk Plocica: 1:06:53

And that's what we try to do too. And nothing, you're right, nothing has really worked like I would hope it to. I mean we do like you guys do. You guys do indoor stuff, you have lessons. I mean we do outdoor 3d, we do indoor stuff. We've you know, we're starting off with our basic classes and stuff, but it's just like those months, people just don't want to hear anything about a bow man.

John Winker: 1:07:13

They don't care which is crazy to me Cause I live at three, 65.

John Winker: 1:07:17

I love it? Yeah Well, and the irony is? The irony is is if the guys who come in at the beginning of July or in July for their archery stuff, if they would have come in at the beginning of May, not only would they be in such a better position come September, but they probably could have saved some money. Because in all likelihood and I'm not talking for you, but in all likelihood, if you come to me in May and say, hey, I really want to get into this new gear, but I need to save some money, I'm probably willing to give you a discount. Sitting on a little bit of inventory, we need to get into this new gear, but I need to save some money, I'm probably willing to give you a discount.

Zakk Plocica: 1:07:52

Sitting on a little bit of inventory. We need to get this thing moving.

John Winker: 1:07:54

I'm sitting on some inventory. I got bills coming due. If you want your stuff and you want it a little bit cheaper, by all means come see me in May.

Zakk Plocica: 1:08:03

Yes.

John Winker: 1:08:04

Dude.

Zakk Plocica: 1:08:05

I put out stuff every year.

John Winker: 1:08:06

Every year.

Zakk Plocica: 1:08:07

So the biggest thing that I see. Funny, I just was messing with my camera doing some videos yesterday, playing around shooting my bow, and I was thinking I was like man, what are some of the top things that I see this time of year that are a repeat, that are just a problem for us? One was guys, a lack of tuning of their bow. Right, they go, they don't have their bow looked over and then they come in after they shot something and wounded it and wonder what happened and it turns out it's out of spec. Two is the big thing is string.

John Winker: 1:08:36

Strings.

Zakk Plocica: 1:08:36

Dude. So the best thing you can do is order strings early in the year as we approach the season string times like the lead time becomes astronomical six, eight weeks sometimes, depending on the manufacturer you deal with right.

John Winker: 1:08:51

Yeah, it depends, and it depends on how much your, your local shop, is willing to stock too so yes it like, and I don't want to.

John Winker: 1:08:59

I don't want to get too crazy, but I don't think our lead time ever gets longer than four weeks. But we also stock a lot. So it's. You know it's a double-edged sword, right stock a lot and get cut because you didn't stock the right strings, or don't stock a lot and get cut because you got a five-week lead time or whatever. However, and depending on who you're working with, some manufacturers, string manufacturers are better than others.

John Winker: 1:09:25

But yeah, strings and it's not just lead time, I don't care what anybody says there's a break-in period for your strings. I'm not saying the strings are stretching, I'm not saying anybody's got a better non-stretchy string than another string, but you got to shoot those strings to make sure that the bow finishes out where you want it. So if you get your strings done earlier in the season, then you can shoot it during the summer at your local 3D shoots. You got time to break your strings in. You can get out all that little stuff that just has to settle and tweak in and then, by the time season gets here, your bow has been shooting perfect for months, not for weeks.

Zakk Plocica: 1:10:03

Yeah, cause that's the thing. The last thing you want to do and we see it every year is guys are like I need strings now. Okay, you and everyone else. So there's already a pile of bows that are sitting on, that are waiting for strings to either come in or string to be put on, tuned, set up, and then you know you got a big hunt in two weeks. How much confidence do you really have in that equipment when you haven't gave that bow an opportunity to settle?

John Winker: 1:10:24

Right and you haven't put three or 400 arrows through it. Come on like and I get it. It's, we're in the today, we're in the amazon days. Yes, we can get it right now and we can do it tomorrow. Yep, but archery didn't like that man, and I don't care how long you've been shooting. You need to give the time for the bow to settle. You need to get time to get acclimated and comfortable, because when it comes down to shooting that buck of a lifetime, you're going to go to illinois, you you're going to go to Idaho and shoot an elk or something like that. When, when it all boils down to it, and there's only one arrow to be shot, that arrow needs to be the most comfortable, easiest arrow you can shoot. And if you don't have the time and the bow hasn't had the time to acclimate to each other, it isn't, it isn't going to be and the odds of screwing up are just going to go through the roof yeah, you've got enough as a bow hunter.

Zakk Plocica: 1:11:14

There's a. You've got enough variables working against you, that's right right.

Zakk Plocica: 1:11:17

You want to do your due diligence and make sure you are comfortable and confident with the equipment that you take into the woods to kill an animal, because that's the ultimate goal. You owe it to that animal to be proficient with that equipment in the woods, and that that means making sure that that bow is shooting as it as it, as it should and that those strings and everything are have settled. Not just you put them on yesterday. Now we're heading to Ohio tomorrow because, like you said things happen.

John Winker: 1:11:43

That's right. Things happen and and shooting your bow should be as second nature as you can be, and the only way to do that is to stay in the bow all year long, shoot it all the time, keep the maintenance up and and personally I tell people with crossbows any crossbow two years. If your strings haven't been changed in two years, you need to be changing them. If you own a raven, jesus, you need to be changing them every year, or maybe every six months, dude, I tell everybody change them every year, or maybe every six months.

Zakk Plocica: 1:12:11

Dude, I tell everybody change them every year. Just to eliminate that from my conscious. I'm like, listen, you're buying this bow, this is a crossbow, it's a ticking time bomb. The best thing you can do is err on the side of caution and replace these strings every year.

John Winker: 1:12:27

Now, unless it's a Raven R9 or R10, those old Ravens are more robust because they didn't have as much pressure on them as the new Ravens. The new Ravens are have an incredible amount of pressure on those bows. If you have an old Raven, maybe you can go two years. If you have a newer Raven, every year, every year, like clockwork. If you have any other crossbow in the world, maybe two years, you know, but don't cost yourself the hunt of a lifetime or don't cost yourself a bow that misfires in your face and could possibly injure you. Change your strings. It's relatively cheap.

Zakk Plocica: 1:13:09

It's the simplest thing you can do.

John Winker: 1:13:10

It's the simplest thing.

Zakk Plocica: 1:13:10

You can do. You don't even got to do it, just take it into a shop, let's do it.

John Winker: 1:13:13

And then on a compound bow, even if you're only hunting with it two months out of the year, just change your strings every three years. Change them every three years and be done with it. If you've got an old bow that hasn't had a string on it in 15 years, congratulations. You saved five times the amount of money you should have spent coming in and change your strings this year. Yes, so every three years, guys, just do it. That bow is just sitting there under a ton of pressure all the time, regardless of how many times you shot it. Just change your strings.

Zakk Plocica: 1:13:44

Those strings hold everything together and without them. That thing is an explosion. So, yes, if you are listening, get in there. You're already. You're by the time this podcast comes out this week. You're already a day late, dollar short. You're already behind the power curve. So get into your local shop and get your strings ordered and change right away If you've guys, if the guys that have the older bows I mean cause those strings typically aren't stocked, those guys, I mean. You typically have to wait a little bit longer.

John Winker: 1:14:08

Yeah, If you're. If your bow is more than three or four years old, you're, you're two days late, yeah. It's definitely a special order. Get in there and get them done.

Zakk Plocica: 1:14:16

Yep. So how do you decide for your shop what brands you carry, in particular bow brands?

John Winker: 1:14:27

Oh man, that's such a tough question. So we, we are dealers for everybody, okay. However, we we don't stock any PSEs anymore because in our area we just can't sell them for some reason. Even though PSE makes a good bow, they're just not popular. Now, seven years ago, pse was like our number one seller.

Zakk Plocica: 1:14:42

That's so wild.

John Winker: 1:14:43

It's so wild how it fluctuates. Our number one seller currently is Matthews. I mean, Matthews is blowing up. Number two is Hoyt Hoyt. Sales have actually been down a little bit more than recent years.

Zakk Plocica: 1:14:56

So that's what I've noticed too. Have you noticed the carbon bows have dropped off a little bit?

John Winker: 1:15:00

So for us it's the aluminum bows, really yeah, so we're still doing pretty good in our carbon bows, but the aluminum bows, like people don't even know they exist. People just go oh, I can't afford a Hoyt, I exist. People just go oh, I can't afford a Hoyt, I go. Well, you can afford a Hoyt aluminum bows the same price as a Matthews, and they go. I don't even know. Hoyt made an aluminum bow and I go. Well, here's the problem. Matthews has got this marketing thing figured out and Hoyt markets to elk hunters. When was the last time you saw a Hoyt ad marketed toward white tailail, especially Southeastern whitetail hunters?

Zakk Plocica: 1:15:34

I think that I think the Southeast is neglected as a whole, except for Matthews, which is wild to me.

John Winker: 1:15:40

Same thing with prime but I don't know how much you travel to the West West coast. Not often. So when you move around, matthews ads change. If you're out in the West or Midwest, matthew's ads are geared toward those hunters, and when you're over here they're geared toward whitetail hunters. Hoyt ads change, don't change. Hoyt ads are geared almost exclusively to Western elk hunters. Every time you see a Hoyt ad it's some dude standing on a arid mountain range, which is typical of the Southeast or the Northwest, somewhere like that, and they've got an elk rack in their backpack. Guess what, guys? There are no elk down here that.

Zakk Plocica: 1:16:31

yeah, that doesn't relate to me.

John Winker: 1:16:33

Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder um now I've talked to the guys at Hoyt. They say they're changing their marketing scheme up a little bit and they're going to gear up more toward whitetail. But I'm thinking, you know, might be a little late.

Zakk Plocica: 1:16:46

Yeah, we're like a month and a half out.

John Winker: 1:16:48

Yeah, so yeah, well, I mean like years late.

Zakk Plocica: 1:16:51

Yeah, yeah, you are not wrong there.

John Winker: 1:16:53

So and then we we stock some elites. Um, mostly we carry and sell the uh entry-level elites, uh, embers, terrains, basins, we do really well with those. Um, I think that's some of the best entry-level bows you can buy. Uh, we do a little bit of bear archery for those price point guys. Yeah, I mean we've got everybody in the store Prime as well, like, but Prime once again, like we used to do really really well with the Primes, I think, when they released that inline series, that very first inline series, that both bit them so hard that their sales dropped off so much. They still haven't recovered.

Zakk Plocica: 1:17:28

I would agree. I think that so we did. I mean, like, when we brought Prime on, it was such, it was probably, it was one of our top sellers. We sold a ton of Prime.

John Winker: 1:17:37

Back in the dual track.

Zakk Plocica: 1:17:38

Yeah, so the Black Series and then the Nexus.

John Winker: 1:17:41

Yeah.

Zakk Plocica: 1:17:41

As soon as the inline came out.

John Winker: 1:17:44

I mean the face plant.

Zakk Plocica: 1:17:45

Yes, and then from there we have noticed, they have not. I mean for us they have not recovered.

John Winker: 1:17:50

They have not recovered at all and the problem was is that inline series was a flop. That bow didn't tune, it didn't shoot well.

John Winker: 1:17:59

Did you guys have an issues tuning all the time and and prime just kept coming up with more and more excuses and more and more half ass solutions for it. Oh, we made new strings, we moved our speed knocks around, we've done this, we've done that and I'm like well, what you really need to do is change the cam because it sucks. And they didn't, and they paid for it and sales paid for it. And that black series, that Nexus series and before the black series, even those bows were legit. I had a black five, I had a black three.

John Winker: 1:18:32

I should not have gotten rid of that bow. That bow shot so awesome. I gave it to my cousin, thinking no problem, prime's getting ready to release their new bows. This year they released the inline series, which, by the way, did not fit me. Even though they didn't shoot, it didn't matter, because their draw length didn't go out to my draw length anymore yeah, what are you?

Zakk Plocica: 1:18:48

31, yeah, 31 and yeah, 31 and change.

John Winker: 1:18:51

So, uh, you know, I got, first of all I got spec'd out, and then I got, you know, untunable. So that was it for prime.

Zakk Plocica: 1:19:01

Yeah, uh, yeah, we noticed the same thing. Um, what about bow tech for you guys? You guys carry bow tech bows.

John Winker: 1:19:16

Oh man, we've got a couple on the shelf, to be true. To be truthful, they're just collecting dust. Um, we sell a fair, you know. We probably sell five or six of the uh eva shocky gen threes. That bow, by the way, is spectacular uh bow. If you're looking for a lightweight bow for, um, you know, I hate to say like a women's bow, but if you're looking for a lightweight bow that shoots really well for a youth shooter or smaller frame shooter, that Gen 3 Eva Shockey Bow is legit.

Zakk Plocica: 1:19:33

How do you put it against the RS?

John Winker: 1:19:36

You know it's lighter. I like the Gen 3 Shockey Bow. I personally do as well, the RS is great. The SS is great. Some of their other bows I just can't totally get on board with. Um. They just don't feel the way I expect them to feel. And then, like I said, I don't know. I don't know why, because like every sixth truck in Raleigh has a bow tech sticker on the back of it, but I can't sell them Um.

Zakk Plocica: 1:20:03

So if you guys have any of the proven 34s yeah, um, and it's a good shooting bow.

John Winker: 1:20:13

Um, it's a good shooting bow, um, it's a good shooting bow. But I think the problem is same with elite. Uh, when you shoot that bow side by side with a hoyt or side by side with a matthews, it's, it almost never wins. And even guys that come in and go, hey, I mean I'm looking for that new bow tech, and they come shoot it and they go oh, as long as I'm here, I'm gonna go ahead and shoot, go ahead and shoot the. Uh, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and shoot the ax two, or I'm going to go ahead and shoot that lift 33. And they go oh well, which bow do I want?

Zakk Plocica: 1:20:41

So so let me ask you this about the Matthews bows Do you think they live up to their hype as far as how they shoot, how they feel?

John Winker: 1:20:47

So I'm not personally a Matthews guy. I think the bows shoot really really well, I think they tune really really easy. I think you just I mean, we can set them up and knock them down. They're easy bows to shoot and easy bows to tune, and they sell themselves.

John Winker: 1:21:03

They sell themselves, I think. Personally, I think the Limb Shift technology, while it's very user friendly I I, as a design engineer from my that's what I am a design engineer from back before I was an archery shop owner I do not like the limb shift technology is as efficient as it needs to be, because what you're actually doing is bending one limb in toward the cam or away from the cam, which puts torsional strain on that limb. It's not it's not identical strain on the opposite limb. So I don't think the technology is as good as it's going to be in the future, right, um, but uh, is it super easy to work on? Can you do it at home? Yeah, you can do the bows shoot really well. Yeah, they can do. They shoot as good as my rx9 ultra no, so you.

Zakk Plocica: 1:22:08

So you like the the hoy rx9 ultra. I like the technically. I like the the Hoyt.

John Winker: 1:22:10

RX nine ultra. I like the technically. I like the RX seven ultra.

Zakk Plocica: 1:22:13

So, dude, so funny. You say that when we were at total archery challenge, that was the bow. When it, when it came to guys shooting Hoyt, I saw RX sevens more than any of the Hoyt carbon bows, I felt like everyone I talked to that was my favorite bow.

John Winker: 1:22:32

That was the best shooting, smoothest drawing bow weight ever made. Now, because they had to step up their performance game just a little bit. They had to make it a little bit lighter. They had to make a little bit faster. They did rx8. Rx8 was good. They did rx9. Rx9 was better. It's definitely faster. It definitely has a good draw cycle, but it is not as smooth, is not quite as forgiving as that RX-7 was Now.

John Winker: 1:22:54

Was I a hard transition? Yes, did I refuse to switch? Yes, did I come in one day and my RX-7 was sold and an RX-9 was in its place? Yes, but thankfully, because my tech is such a good person, he knows exactly what my specs are. He knows exactly how to set up a bow. I took a wednesday off. I came back, my bow was gone. A new bow is in its place. I'm in love with it. I like the rx9. It's shooting great. Um, it's out shooting me by far. Um, I think that I think personally, hoyt has the best shooting bow on the planet. But, um, it is the carbon bow. It is more expensive. It is the ferrari. I love it. It. It is the Ferrari. I love it. It is outside of the price range of a lot of people, but I'm in that market, so so let me ask you this what is your thoughts on?

Zakk Plocica: 1:23:40

so this is one of the big toss-ups when you look at Hoyt Matthews. Right, those are your one and two. The tuning capability of the Hoyt is the biggest like friction point for a lot of people, which to me it doesn't. I don't think for most people it matters, right, they're like oh, you still have to bust the axles out, you have to change the shims on it. Hoyt's behind the power curve. What are your thoughts on that? Because I think so. When I think Hoyt, I think durability, robust, reliability. Right, it's just an incredibly reliable bow. They're incredibly durable, they shoot really well and when you set them up and tune them, typically they stay like you don't have to mess with them a lot.

John Winker: 1:24:18

That's true, and I would agree with you basically on all of that. I think, set them up, shoot them. Once they're good, they're good, and I think when they're good on one broadhead, they're almost good on every broadhead. That's not necessarily the case with every other brand, however. Um, having to take the axles out and shim and stuff makes zero difference to me. I own a bow press. Even worse, I am an archery shop owner. I have the shims, I have the tools. If you're a diy guy, you know, cowboy up dude, you're gonna have to get a press. You're a DIY guy, you know, cowboy up dude, you're going to have to get a press, you're going to have to get some extra shims. That's not abnormal. This whole self-tuning bow thing is a relatively new phenomenon. Is Hoyt a little behind the curve on that technology? Yes, absolutely. Is there any reason to complain about it yet? No, I mean, cowboy up, get your tools, get your shims.

Zakk Plocica: 1:25:15

And yes, I agree with you on that. And the thing about Hoyt is I think they're from what it seems like is they're slow to change right, they know what works. When you look at the testing that they do, the dry fires, they've got the very heavy duty axles, their shim system everything just works really well. Do you feel like, or do you, does it seem like to you like, all these companies are chasing these features and stuff over shootability?

John Winker: 1:25:41

uh, to some degree a little bit, I think, the problem is the.

John Winker: 1:25:46

So I talked to some of the engineers at both hoyt and Matthews and the speed of a bow is essentially capped. We can't make vertical bows go faster. There isn't anything we can do besides make the draw weight heavier, which I know you guys are a little bit of a fan of, but there's nothing we can do to make these bows go faster. So now the only thing we can do is make them easier to shoot and easier to tune, and I think right now Hoyt has a pretty good balance between easy to shoot and easy to tune. I think Matthews has a really good balance between easy to shoot and easy to tune. You know, some of these bow companies like PSE have these little clip-in shims now and I think Prime at one point had these clip-in shims now and, uh, I think prime at one point had these clip-in shims. I haven't.

John Winker: 1:26:34

I don't know exactly what the new ones are using, but anything any bow today that's using like a multi-stack shim, like a like the bear bows do um, that's ridiculous. If you're using more than one shim on either side of the cam, you're so far behind that you're almost obsolete. Now if you're super tuning your own bow, like if you're super tuning your own Hoyt and you have the time and energy to do it. By all means get a shim kit from Last Chance. Take those Hoyt shims and throw them in the trash and stack up a bunch of two thousands thickness shims until you get it just exactly where you want. That's totally fine. People been doing that forever. Um, but one shim on each side, shims to match top and bottom, shims to shift left and right. A certain number of them is all you really need. It's not a big deal. All of you super techies out there crying about taking an axle out. I mean, give me a break. Limb shift Hadn't even been around that long. We were putting top hats in just two years ago.

Zakk Plocica: 1:27:38

So thing of the past, son get over it.

John Winker: 1:27:41

I mean, it's not that big a deal. It's not man and you got to take the limbs out to replace the, the axles out to replace the, the axles out to replace the dang strings on a matthews well, listen, you can't be telling everybody that you don't, you don't have to do that on a hoyt.

Zakk Plocica: 1:27:54

On a hoyt, you just pop the strings off and pop them back on and so you're very well aware then of there is we'll call them fanboys people who are die hard brand loyalists when it comes to bows. Right, if you shoot a matthews, that's all you can shoot. Shoot a Hoyt, um. Do you feel like people miss out because they're just so brand loyal to some of these manufacturers?

John Winker: 1:28:17

to some degree. Yes, um, I think. Yeah, I think a little bit of brand loyalty can go a long way, but I think a lot of like, if you have a Yeti tattoo, there's something wrong with you. But, um, at the same time, if, if shooting a matthews makes you more confident and makes you believe that your shot is going to be better, then by all means that's good for you. I, I totally understand that. Um, when I'm shooting a hoyt I feel better and I know my shots are going to break better. I've I shot deer with Matthews and primes and other bows, but typically when I'm shooting a Hoyt I feel better about the build and I feel more confident and therefore my shots are better.

John Winker: 1:29:02

But I think that can be limiting too. So I don't think there's any harm in trying some other bows, and I don't mean going like shoot three arrows out of a bow. If you've got a friend who has your same draw length, well, on a Hoyt it doesn't matter as much because you can just rotate the module. You know, rotate the module, set your draw length up, let all your buddies bow for a couple of weeks, give it a go. Vice versa, if you want to shoot your buddies Matthews, go down to the pro shop or wherever, and get a set of mods and change out the mods and shoot it Genuinely. Shoot it for a few weeks and see what you think, because I think a lot of people who are ultra brand loyal are loyal to a brand that doesn't even exist anymore. Those guys have been shooting Matthews for 15 years. Today's Matthews is not the same Matthews from 15 years ago and I don't care what you say. That Z7 Extreme is not a lift X.

Zakk Plocica: 1:29:54

Don't tell them that Holy cow.

John Winker: 1:29:57

So if you're a Z7 Extreme guy and you're still shooting Matthews because you're a Z7 Extreme guy, please go shoot something else and give it a try. You might be surprised, yeah that's funny, man.

Zakk Plocica: 1:30:11

Well, John, I think you've covered majority of it. I want to throw a couple of questions at you real quick. One thing on the influencer side for the archery world real fast. Do you think all the influencers that you see coming up to all the YouTube channels, all the Instagram platforms, do you think it's good for the industry or do you think it's creating some disruption, or you?

John Winker: 1:30:34

know. Yes, yes, okay, I think it's good for the industry because it's bringing more of a spotlight onto the industry. I think the more we can get out there and be seen, the better. Yep, obviously, with everything in the world, more information isn't always better information. You need to take everything with a grain of salt. I'm really excited about your stuff that you've been doing. I'm actually watching it, I'm subscribed. Uh, I don't do a lot of I'm not.

John Winker: 1:31:04

I'm not an influencer, I don't have the time or desire to uh edit podcasts and, um, I mean, I barely even make pictures on. I'm terrible at it.

Zakk Plocica: 1:31:14

I was looking through it last night.

John Winker: 1:31:17

But I mean, like even my Facebook account, my personal Facebook account. I don't, I do nothing on it, but I think, for all the information out there, take it with a grain of salt, weigh it against everybody else, find what you like, be involved, get involved. I think it's awesome. I think every guy out there that's at a tech event who's taken 18,000 pictures on every single target and causing everybody to stay out there for seven hours, get a grip, man, you're not Joe Rogan, get over it. If you want to take a picture, fine, take a picture and get the F out of the way, like everybody else is out there trying to have fun too. Um, and that's just me, and that's like raw me right there.

Zakk Plocica: 1:31:56

So I like it.

John Winker: 1:31:57

Um, but yeah, I think I think more eyes are better eyes, um, but but uh, you have to weigh those things. Like and I'm going to pick on somebody specifically If you're following the ranch fairy or if you're a ranch fairy fan, you're making a mistake. That guy's a moron. He doesn't know anything about what he's talking about. He's being fed all that information and he all he's doing is just regurgitating nonsense. So there is some bad information out there. Be careful, okay.

Zakk Plocica: 1:32:29

That's it. That is a really great point. There is a lot of, there's a ton of information, but there is also a ton of bad information out there. Um, yeah, that's, uh, that's the world of social media at this point. Right, you could just throw anything out there and you know, throw stuff until it sticks, and that's what a lot of people do. But there's also a lot of great resources and I think a lot of it is great for the industry to just spread general awareness and hopefully get more people involved in it, because that's what we're doing, that's what we're trying to do and that's what we want to see, especially with our shops, so our shops can continue to grow and move forward. But, john, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on this morning from Raleigh, north Carolina, first Flight Archery.

Zakk Plocica: 1:33:13

If you've never been, it's an incredible shop, I can assure you. I've been up there with probably the coolest range. I'm very envious of your range. Um, just a fantastic shop, um, and you guys are open five days a week.

John Winker: 1:33:19

Yeah, tuesday through Saturday. Tuesday through Friday 11 to seven. Saturday 10 to four. Um, we shoot, we have fun, we take days off. Uh, I encourage you to do the same.

Zakk Plocica: 1:33:28

I need to do it.

John Winker: 1:33:29

Just put the sign up closed on Sundays.

Zakk Plocica: 1:33:34

We love you, guys. We'll see you on Monday. That's perfect. All right, guys. That's it. That's another episode of the archery project. John, thanks again and, like I said, if you haven't check out first flight archery, um, they've got some incredible stuff huge selection, incredible range, a wealth of knowledge, really great guys over there. Go see them, give them a call, make the trip down to Eastern North Carolina, john, thanks again, man, and that's it, guys. Another episode of the archery project. Drop some comments, give us some feedback, let us know what guests you'd like to see on the show and you know what topics you would like covered, as always, appreciate you guys listening and we will see you in the next episode.