DEFIANCE, Ohio – Sometimes Allan Hansford is amazed at how far the simple act of drawing back a bow can resonate.

“Yeah, I had one guy come up to me and say he drove 3 1/2 hours to shoot here,” he says, his voice echoing a little off the wood paneling and mounted deer heads and paper targets lining the far wall here in the low building set back off Ohio 15 north of Defiance.

The building squats on 44 acres of ravine-cut land that Don Ziegler sold to the Defiance County Fish and Game Club back in 1948, right across the road from a white-steepled church and the Oxbow Wildlife Area. Old aerial photographs of the place tell you they used to do some trapshooting here; the Rifle and Pistol Club still avails itself of the 100-yard shooting range on the property.

And now bowshooting is one of the draws.

The Straightened Arrows Archery Club has been conducting 3D shoots – shooting at foam deer and bear and, yes, even an alligator – at Defiance County Fish and Game since 2002. This year, they knocked out a wall inside the building and added a 20-yard indoor range, capable of handling 20 shooters at a time.

It’s $5 per night to come out and keep your hand in through the winter months. A fledgling eight-week winter league shoots there on Monday nights; right now there are just 10 participants, but eventually 40 is the goal. The outdoor range, which is open from March through September, costs $10 a session, and anywhere from 60 to 100 shooters use it in any given week.

Shooters younger than 18 get in free, part of the Fish and Game Club’s push to introduce kids to the shooting sports; the club plays host to a .22 youth shoots, a youth shotgun shoot and a Kid’s Day in August, and there will be a bow Kid’s Day on Feb. 26.

Young or old, indoors or out, the appeal is widespread, judging from the guy who drove 3 1/2 hours to shoot here.

“How it started was, basically we had a group of guys that wanted to shoot on Saturdays,” says Hansford, the club president. “All the clubs in the area shoot on Sundays, the 3D shoots and everything. So we approached the Fish and Game Club that owns the grounds and asked if we could set up some 3D shoots and start shooting archery here. And they said OK.

“Now we pull in more shooters on Saturday than a lot of other clubs do on Sundays. And it’s a different clientele. You get a lot of moms, dads and kids as opposed to just the guys. And there’s all kinds of archery equipment that comes out here. We allow everything from recurves all the way to crossbows.”

Hansford himself uses a compound bow “with all the bells and whistles,” a no doubt pricier option than the bow he started out with. That was in 1987, when a buddy sold his bow to Hansford for $100. A hunter since he was a kid – “I liked being outside, so I kind of took it up on my own,” he says – he took his first deer with it the next year.

“Been hunting ever since with a bow,” says Hansford, who says the longer bow season – end of September to the first week of February – is a big attraction, and whose four kids are all learning to shoot bow. “Just fell in love with it. Matter of fact, I’ve never killed a deer with anything but a bow since. I’ve only taken one or two deer with a gun.”

That sounds a lot like Jerry Latta, a retired elementary schoolteacher from Defiance who’s the Fish and Game Club president and himself an avid bowhunter. He picked up his first bow when he was in high school (“Probably 1963,” he says), and now he hunts with a crossbow because he can use a scope and it’s easier on his eyes.

“I guess it’s just more challenging,” he says, when you ask him about the appeal. “With a rifled shotgun barrel, a 100-yard shot is really common. With my crossbow, 30 yards is max for me. So the deer’s got to come in close.

“I actually enjoy just being out there in the woods as much as anything. I watch the squirrels, watch the raccoons as they come through and everything else. It’s a nice time to be out there.”

Or in here, as the case may be.

bensmith@jg.net