California bow wood

[TolkienFan]

Hey all,

I will most likely be moving to the Bay Area next year and am curious if anyone has experience with bow wood out there? I would love to start doing some research and maybe even get some stuff cut on my trips out there and start seasoning it before we get there so it's ready when we do.

As always, thanks for the help!

[Oakenshield]

Hey Tolk

I just moved here a month ago from TN, so im in a similar boat. So far I've found (from research) that the most common bow woods are Juniper, Ocean Spray, and further north towards Oregon there's yew. but ill be watching this because as much as i tried, I've yet to find any in person.

[Weylin]

What are the laws like in Cali for harvesting wood. I can't imagine they are very generous given their reputation. I have three bows that I made from California yew but it was harvested about 35 years ago.

[Accipiter]

I can't say much about the legality, but there is plenty of yew in northern cali, as well as california bay from the border pretty far south. Bay is a great whitewood, IMO. There's also an abundance of black locust in the eastside. Its actually a bit of a weed around the canals out east, so i imagine no one would be too mad about you taking some.

[DC]

Is there another name for Bay? I did a Google search for it and drew a blank.

[rossfactor]

We have a plethora of bow wood in Northern CA from the Bay to the Oregon border. Lots of oaks (tan oak, coast live oak, black oak etc), walnut, California bay, abundant wild plum, apple and other fruit woods, a number of maples but Vine maple is the best, ocean spray and lots of excellent shrubs, CA nutmeg can be found, and in the  national forest excellent Yew can be cut with a permit and investing the time to find it.

No shortage around here.

Gabe

[rossfactor]

Good call accipiter, we also have both honey and black locust.

[rossfactor]

Lots of juniper once you get away from the ocean.  Its what Ishi often used.

[JoJoDapyro]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbellularia

Hope that helps.

Not that I have worked any Juniper from California, bit Utah juniper is pretty sweet. Way stronger than I would have thought!

[bubby]

I hate to tell you guys but there is some osage here in cali too, just gots ta find it😈

[Oakenshield]

Found some ocean spray today in Marin county.

[LEGIONNAIRE]

There is Mulberry, Black locust, and near Sacramento there is some Osage orange too. Ive harvested all of these plus yew as well. You can find alot of white oak in most of the canals, I love this wood its very resilient, kinda heavy but makes a decent bow when it is heat treated only.

[Badger]

  We have a lot of black locust and if you live in the city elm is not too hard to find. I don't like splitting elm and most of the time the trunks are just too large for me to handle so I have to pass on most of it. About 3 months ago I could have had 1/2 dozen arrow straight elm trunks but they were all over 1,000# each.

[TolkienFan]

Thanks for all the replies! So I am in the Bay and just hiked Windy Hill and saw mostly oaks but found three I have never seen. Any help?

[TolkienFan]

And this last one was a crazy looking tree. Never seen anything like it. It shed its bark on the top of the limbs and was really smooth and beautiful color.