There’s so much I could say about ETAR 2026. For starters, I decided to camp this year instead of staying at an Airbnb or hotel, and it was a great decision. Sure, it was a little more work and I had to spend money on some new gear, but not having to leave the site for the full event was priceless. The worst part was the 48º night on Wednesday into Thursday morning when I learned the hard way that I do indeed need a decent sleeping bag.
As for the event itself, I’m going to let pictures and my YouTube video tell most of the story. There are a few highlights worth mentioning though. One of the big unknowns was the showers, but they turned out to be better than expected. Somehow they’re able to get away with six stalls for thousands of people, but my wait was never more than a few minutes. The courses were basically the same as always, but that doesn’t make them less fun or challenging. I still don’t like that many of them are a little too far to replicated realistic hunting situations, but I simply moved closer to where I was comfortable. I only lost one arrow. I temporarily lost two but one was recovered on the orphaned arrow table.
I scored a win at the swap meet again, this time grabbing a 1972 Bear Kodiak Magnum for $220. It’s in excellent condition and after giving it a good cleaning, it looks like it had barely been shot. When I took it to the range for a trial run and drilled the bullseye twice from 20 yards, I was sold. The challenge with a Kodiak Magnum is its short AMO length of 52 inches. Many people have trouble shooting them because they’re not as stable as longer bows, but I didn’t find that to be the case. I have a new TTT string on the way and look forward to setting it up and doing some shooting.
I got another great deal in the Bear Archery booth. I really needed a takedown in my collection so I tried out a Kodiak Takedown with a Mag Riser. I never thought I’d like a Mag Riser bow but after shooting it on the range and immediately seeing its capability with just 40 pound limbs, it was love a first site. Because it was at the show and being used as a demo, they hooked me up with about a 40% discount. It was too good to pass up, and I was able to use my savings to buy a Bow-NaFide Target. Since I now had five bows after arriving with three, I tried to sell my Oberon but had no luck. It’s a great looking bow, but it just never seemed to fit me. I’ll eventually put it on eBay or try one of the archery sites.
Recognizing I’ve already written more than I wanted to, I’ll stop now and share my video and some photos below. I’m already looking forward to next year. As I mentioned to a few people, if ETAR was a place I’d like to move there! Of course, I’m sure too much of a good thing would apply.
