Every year since 1957, with the exception of the 2011 devastating floods and the 2020 pandemic event restrictions, in mid-September, thousands of Bowhunters journey to the small town of Forksville, in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, for the Pennsylvania Bowhunters Festival, the oldest gathering of Bowhunters in the world.
The three-day event offers a wide variety of shooting activities and events designed to prepare Bowhunters for the upcoming archery season and entertain them at the same time.
The Festival features the famous “Forksville Running Deer” target, moving small game targets, the steel boar, a timed clay pigeon shoot, stationary targets set at variable distances, and three game trails designed with all 3-D targets to simulate bow hunting in a northern hardwood forest. There are vendors and manufacturers, entertainment, and great food.
We are open to all bows. There are competitions for both traditional and compound shooters on Saturday. There is also a “Steel Boar” competition that runs all weekend.
The Saturday compound competition is a “3 person team” competition, but there are usually open teams looking for an additional shooters. These competitions start around 9:00 on Saturday.
There are 3 trails, the first is short and easy with about 7-10 targets. The second is extremely challenging. It goes up over the mountain, and has about 20 targets, the longest shot being about 70 yards across a gully. The third trail is the longest, running along an old logging road across the mountain side with approximately 25-30 targets.
There are also stationary targets on the fairgrounds, with distances from 10 to 50 yards, and 2 moving targets; the running deer and the small game track. The small game track has pigs, coyotes, and the like, changing periodically throughout the weekend.
