Couple sets up archery shop in Old Cabin Shop
Bob Sheldon must have seen something special in the young bow hunter who came to him back in August 2008.
Sheldon was apparently looking to sell his archery equipment and get out of the bow hunting business but something he saw in Jerry and Lindsay Eulitt made him change his mind.
That decision by Bob Sheldon, only a few weeks before his tragic death on Oct. 12, 2008, led to the creation of a new business, Ike's Archery, in the back of Sheldon's store, The Old Cabin Shop, on Black Powder Lane west of Carthage,
"There's not too many people that I know of who would have given us the opportunity that Bob did," Jerry Eulitt said. "Bob and Ellen were just great people and they gave us a heck of an opportunity to get our business started. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't be this far along, that's for sure. I'd still be building arrows out of my workshop at the house more than likely. They gave us a heck of an opportunity to get started and there aren't enough good things I can say about them."
"He was our biggest cheerleader too," Jerry's wife, Lindsay Eulitt, added. "When we first got set up here he told everybody, made flyers and hung them around town. He was just so excited, he was really good to us."
Jerry Eulitt said Bob Sheldon shared a lot of information with him in the short time the two knew each other.
"I didn't get a whole lot of time with Bob, but the man was just the most intelligent person I've ever met in my whole life," Jerry Eulitt said. "He could rattle off facts about guns, and I learned more about not only how to run this business but how to deal with people and all the aspects of this company. Bob had 30 years of knowledge on how to do that, and he wasn't scared to share that knowledge and that wisdom with you."
"Anytime he would have a break he'd come back here and sit on a stool and just talk to us for a while," Lindsay Eulitt added.
"He was the type of person that I could ask him a question and he'd do the best to answer it," Jerry Eulitt. "We miss him a lot."
Creating a business
Jerry Eulitt, whose nickname, Ike, led to the name of the business, said he wasn't thinking about starting his own business when he came to The Old Cabin Shop last summer.
"I had always fletched my own arrows and worked on my own bows and we came up here to the Old Cabin Shop because we had heard that Bob was selling out on all his archery stuff," Jerry Eulitt said. "We came up here and I was wanting to buy some of his tools and see what he had for sale. We had come up here a couple of times before I finally got the courage to talk to him about it.
"I think it was on the third trip in we talked to Bob and he said he was looking for someone to take over, so we sat down and hashed out the details and he let us come in here and set up shop."
Ike's Archery is set up behind the main showroom of the Old Cabin Shop. A small, indoor archery range, about 20 yards in length, is set up in a room behind the Ike's Archery room.
The business offers a large selection of fletches, vanes and feathers, a selection of arrows and a variety of bows and targets.
Jerry Eulitt also works on bows and can offer a wide variety of services.
"We do bow repairs, putting new strings on bows and pretty near anything on most kinds of bows," Jerry Eulitt said. "We build custom arrows, a guy can come in here and get wraps on his arrows and feathers and vanes and just about any kind of arrow he wants. And we help people sight in their bows, tune their bows, especially beginners, if someone comes in and buys a new bow or even if he has one that he's bought somewhere else, if he comes in here, we'll help him sight it in and get it all tuned."
Jerry Eulitt said the sport of bow hunting is growing.
"It's huge," Eulitt said. "It's getting more popular and it seems to have grown huge over the last five years or so. When I was a kid, it was kind of a novelty, but with the technology we have now, they make bows a kid can buy when he is 13 and still be shooting when he's 18, so it's a lot more affordable and there's a lot more people getting into it than before."
Eulitt said his father got him started in the sport.
"I wanted to hunt when I was eight or nine and at that point, he really felt like I was too young to rifle hunt, so he went out and bought me a bow," Eulitt said. "I think we paid $15 for it at a garage sale. I shot it for a few years and once got to where I could hit with it and he thought I could go out and kill a deer, not just wound it, then he started taking me out on hunts."
Eulitt said the sport is becoming less expensive to get into, and that's one reason it's becoming more popular.
"A lot of guys like it because it's more of a challenge when it comes to hunting," Jerry Eulitt said.
"Even for a guy that's a good shot, you're going to have to be within 25-40 yards probably at the max. Also, bow hunting offers an extended season. Rifle season is two to three weeks long, muzzle-loader season is I think a week long in this area, but bow season runs from September to January, so it offers you that much more time out in the woods."
