It's not that I'm embarassed, but for the sake of my own privacy, and the fact that the internet is an awfully scary place, all that I can really release about myself is that my name is Albert. I am 20 years old. I am a student, I am married to a lovely young lady, and I have been enthusiastically perfecting my skills with a blowgun for seven years now.
My first blowgun was the smallest that I've ever seen- it was eighteen inches. I had a very close friend and his mother worked at the hospital, I believe she was ER. I remember late nights we would spend HOURS shooting spitwads across the waiting room at faces of the stars on magazine covers. That same friend and I were at a sporting goods show with my father- we were thirteen at the time, and we snuck off and saw a crazy man with a blowgun stand. (That's going to be me someday...haha...) and for say 12 dollars we each bought a blowgun. We stayed up ALL NIGHT that night shooting at everything we could find. By morning, we were deadly accurate- and even with a gun so short. We were shooting ONLY the wire target darts that came with the blowgun. It was probably a week later that we noticed bunnies in the garden, and wondered if the blowgun was capable- and using a team tactic, we could put about four darts into a rabbit before it could run back to the den. I learned soon in online forums that others MADE their own darts. I was amazed, and began making my own. The simple- Xacto and skewer with paper cones. Soon after, though I decided to try to hunt this, and then that, and as the game changed, so did the rules, and so did the gear. I've hunted night, day, rain, wind, snow, heat, brush, open fields, and have taken everything from fish and snakes to squirrells, rabbits, birds, spiders, and the occasional horsefly. When I was about 15 I received a call from a man at the Washington Post, wanting to interview me for an article on the front page of the paper about modern blowguns. He wanted to know why someone would use a blowgun anymore, and asked about their power in relationship to an air rifle. For me, I think it was the challenge that made the blowgun so fascinating. It made me wonder what is possible, and what it takes to make the impossible closer within reach. |
