You can strengthen your biceps and fore arms by lifting weights. Improvise with a gallon jug of water or two, and do curls with it. Do this 3 days a week, and work up the repetitions. The other days of the week can be spent walking or biking, if the weather permits( join the mall walkers for half an hour a day on alternating days when the weather is not cooperating.
To improve your circulation, stop drinking any beverage with caffeine in it. Reduce, or stop smoking, too. You will be surprised at how much more steady your aim is by " sacrificing " these bad habits. :shocked2: :surrender: :thumbsup:
I have a bad left knee, from a college injury when I was a guinea pig for the prototype of the Nautilus equipment. I use a walking stick when hunting deer, to help me over the up and down ground. I also use it as a monopod, to brace my gun for those longer shots when a tree is not handy. I have used two such sticks in the past: one was improvised from a branch I picked off the forest floor from a recent blow down. The second is a skier's pole, with the basket and sticker removed, and replaces with a rubber chair leg " bumper" I bought at a hardware store for less than 50 cents! The wrist strap comes in hand for me, and the pole is very light weight, but obviously made very strong with fiberglas. The wood pole I made was much taller, and therefore was more adaptable for shooting off-hand, but the ski pole is about 4 feet long, and works fine with a kneeling or sitting position.
I inherited an adjustable camera monopod, which is long enough when fully extended to use standing off-hand. It telescopes to different lengths, so I can use it as a cane with my left leg when it begins to throb and swell. Its made of strong aluminum alloy tubing,and its about the best " stick " I have found.
I have recently seen carbon- fiber "sticks" being sold for hikers. I have not seen them out of their packaging, so I don't know how long they are, but it sounds like a light weight, " GOOD IDEA", and they are not all that expensive.
Being the Cheap guy I am, I tend to lean( no puns, please!) towards making my own. The Ski pole I bought after the ski season, from a local rental shop, that has "single " poles turned in each year, from people who lose or break the other. I paid about 50 cents for each pole, and originally bought a dozen of them.
I have since given most of them away to Police investigators to use as Tracking Sticks, after they trained with me. To remove the baskets and points, just pour boiling water into a bucket, and put the basket end of the pole down into the water. in 5 minutes the glue softens enough that you can pull, or turn the basket off the stick.
Use a stout tree or limb if you make yours of wood, but dry it out, or use dried out wood for this purpose. Wrap the stick with something on which to put your hand. remove all the bark- its coming off, sooner or later anyway. Drill a hole through it at some handy location and put some boot lace or leather thong through it to be a wrist strap. Put a large rubber bumper- the kind you see on crutches-- on the end Carve it if you wish. Stain it if you wish, But give it a few coats of wood sealer, and stock finish to seal it from moisture. One friend has a ring of blaze orange tape around the top of his stick, so he can find its where he leans it against a tree! Smart friend.
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