TradShops.com is a site dedicated to traditional archery and gear. Our main purpose is to help traditional archers locate bowyers, fletchers, shops, clubs, and events.

I got into traditional archery only a few years ago - I was lent a laminated wood longbow by one of my old college roommates, who had gotten the bow and taught himself during high school. I started along teaching myself, finding books, websites, and occasional help along the way. What was still lacking though was a single resource for finding shops and stores in a particular area. Slowly, through word-of-mouth I found out about a nearby archery shop (nearby being about 45 minutes away) as well as a bowyer, and an annual shoot or two in the area but I would have been glad to have known sooner.

I decided at that point that there needed to be a website just for that purpose - a place to list as many traditional shops as I could find (and be pointed to) regardless of how much they may or may not advertise, and regardless of whether or not they have any existing web presence. Someplace that folks new to archery (or new to a particular area) could go to find shops, clubs, shoots, and their local trad community. It was a great idea, so I promptly got my wits together and.... proceeded to just sit on it for a couple of years. But! I'm getting around to doing it now. I hope what I have here is a good start. But what it will never be is complete - there will always be new bowyers, fletchers, and archery shops opening up. That's where everyone else's help comes in. If there is somebody that I've missed, let me know! Odds are that somebody else will benefit from that information, and be glad to find it. If you own a shop or know of a shop that is not here, fill out the Submission Form and send it over.

The internet is an amazing resource, with forums such as TradGang being particularly helpful. This website is not, by any means, meant to replace them. This is an additional resource to make information easier to find for the trad community. What you see right now are lists of info. What you will see in the near future will (hopefully) be a searchable database - punch in the zip code of where you live, or where you're taking a hunting trip, and what comes out will be the nearest shops/clubs/events in that area.

My name is Mark Bosma, and I've been doing traditional archery for just the last few years. My career since college has been focused on different aspects of the computer industry, so once I started into archery the idea of starting up a resource like this was pretty natural. I grew up in NW Iowa, went to college here, moved down to Kansas and Missouri for a while, started doing archery, got married, and moved back. When I say "we", I'm including my wife and daughters. My wife helps me collect info for this site, and my daughters do their best to convince me to go play instead. Without their additional contributions things might not go as smoothly.