Noted sportsman, archer, inventor, founder of Bear Archery Company and the Fred Bear Sports Club. He grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. Later in life, he moved to Detroit to explore the automotive industry, becoming familiar with a new product called fiberglass. He would later invent the first fiberglass-laminated bow, revolutionizing archery forever. He learned how to make his own bows and arrows from Art Young (of Pope and Young fame). During the height of the depression, Fred and his partner Charles Piper started the Bear Archery Company with $600.00 in Grayling, Michigan. Over the years, he hunted worldwide and harvested many world-class animals, which still rank high in the record books today. Among Fred's many innovations are fiberglass laminated bow limbs, take down recurve bow systems, the bow quiver, broad heads with inserts, the archery glove, and fiberglass springs for Corvette automobiles. Until his death, Fred remained active in designing archery products.∼Hunting Legend, Fred brought bowhunting to national exposure. At the age of 21, he moved to Detroit to work as a patternmaker for the automotive trade. In 1927 he saw the bowhunting film Alaskan Adventures, which changed Fred forever. He met Art Young, the man who made Alaskan Forever and they spent time in Fred's basement where he learned how to make bows, arrows and bowstrings. He won his first archery tournament in 1933 and over the next 15 years he placed first or second in 29 out of 35 tournaments. That same year in 1933 he started Bear Products Company. In 1947, he moved the archery plant to Grayling. In 1970, the Fred Bear Sports Club was formed and then opened to the public in 1972. In 1978 the archery business was moved to Gainesville Florida and then sold to the Bass Pro Shops in 2003. Fred died when he was 86.∼FRED BEAR

Born March 5, 1902 in Pennsylvania farmhouse; killed first deer with a rifle at age 14; attended Carlisle High School
Moved to Michigan in 1923 and worked for Packard Motor Car Company; saw Art Young's "Alaskan Adventures" movie in 1927 and bowhunted for the first time in 1929; founded Bear Products Company in 1933; arrowed first whitetail in 1935
During late 1930s and early 1940s earned patents on modern shooting glove, fiberglass as bow backing and the first bow quiver; opened Bear Archery plant in Grayling, Michigan
Began marketing Bear Razorheads in 1956; killed world record Stone's sheep in 1957 and world record Alaska brown bear in 1960; authored"The Archer's Bible" in 1968, "Fred Bear's Field Notes" in 1976 and"Fred Bear's World of Archery" in 1979
Inducted into Archery Hall of Fame in 1972, the same year The Fred Bear Sports Club was opened to the public; Bear Archery plant moved to Gainesville, Florida
Fred Bear died in a Gainesville hospital on April 27, 1988; cremated remains later spread by Dick Lattimer and Jim Hatfield near a favorite flyfishing spot along Au Sable River near Grayling, Michigan