ELIMSPORT - If there's any doubt that archery is a family sport that is growing in popularity, just walk into Drop Tine Archery, off of Route 44, and speak to the staff and the "regular" shooters.
Collectively, the staff has some 100 years of experience.
Drop Tine is owned by Dave and Laurel Strayer and Nate and Renee Earnest. Within its 15,000-square-foot building, the shop contains three indoor ranges.
Recently, in the 3D range, two sets of families lined up to practice. The shooters were male and female and ranged in age from children to adults.
Their ages ranged from kids to adults and from little girls, teens, women, boys and men.
"They have been shooting since they were about 6," Charlene Gordon said of her boys, Curtis, 11, and Justin, 17.
The Gordons - including father and husband Tim, who is on the shop's pro-staff team - all shoot together, Curtis said.
"I think it's really cool," he said of the time he spends with his family at the Drop Tine Archery range. "Once your family does it, you really want to get into it. At nights, you can shoot with them and it's really fun."
He said the family can get pretty competitive but, out of the four of them, he said his dad is the better shooter.
Charlene just picked up a bow this past September. She said archery is an excellent activity to share with her children and husband.
"I enjoy being with the family and being out in woods," she said.
She took her bow out for her first hunt this fall and really enjoys it.
For Megan Mosher, 10, and her family, Drop Tine is a place they can gather and shoot in a league together.
Mosher said she just started last year when a friend of her sister, Michelle, let her try out his bow. She liked it so much that she began to shoot with her dad Terry, mom Ruth and sister.
"I moved up to a bigger bow and now we are all in a league," she said. "My sister got a bow and a mom got a bow."
