A longtime passion turned into a business venture for Josh Bickmeyer.

The 34-year-old Hermann native opened a small archery shop called Twisted Tines Archery on July 8 at his residence at 1047 Ravenwood Drive in Montgomery City. The business specializes in archery repairs, strings and accessories.

Bickmeyer has been doing archery for years. He got his first bow when he was a teenager and became addicted to archery when he turned 20 years old. Bickmeyer said his longtime experience with archery motivated him to open up a shop.

“I’ve been shooting archery for quite some time now,” he said. “I’ve always been a big deer hunter. I’m big into bows. Hunting was our lifestyle growing up. It turned into me working on somebody else’s bow, working on a few friends’ bows and stuff like that. I just started tinkering around, started learning and went to school for it. My daughter (Rylinn) shoots as well. She’s seven and she started shooting. It’s just more and more people coming to me, so I figured I might as well do my own little thing, like build arrows and do everything.”

Bickmeyer said he also decided to open an archery shop since there isn’t one in Montgomery County.

“This is a big archery area,” Bickmeyer said. “A lot of people around here bow and hunt. There used to be one where AJ’s (Restaurant) is now. It shut down 15-20 years ago.”

Bickmeyer works as a full-time paramedic in Audrain County. Because of his work schedule, the hours of his business will vary weekly. In the first week, the shop opened from 10 p.m. on July 8, 9, 12 and 13. Due to the Montgomery County Fair, the shop will have shorter than normal hours. It will open from 12 p.m.-8 p.m. on July 18 and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on July 19.
Bickmeyer said it took about a month to construct his shop, which is located on the right side of his home.

“I had friends who helped me out along the way,” he said. “The wife helped me out tremendously and so did my father-in-law. If I wasn’t working at the ambulance, I would be here from 7 a.m.-midnight just working on things. I’m sure our neighbors got sick and tired of it eventually.”

Bickmeyer came up with a couple of different names for his business before deciding to stick with Twisted Tines Archery.

“There’s actually a deer that I have and he has twisted tines,” Bickmeyer said. “I have a couple of deer on camera and they don’t have your typical, perfect straight lines. Those are a few of them who have a little bit of jag. It sounded good and we just kind of went with it.”

Bickmeyer said before his business opened on July 8, he would spend plenty of time working on archery supplies.

“I had people coming to my house and dropping bows off,” Bickmeyer said. “I would work on them and bring them back to them. It was the same thing at Mexico. People would drop bows off for me at Scott’s Corner Ambulance and I wasn’t even around. They would be just sitting there when I would get up there. I would take them, work on them and bring them back. It kind of started becoming more and more of a thing.”

Bickmeyer, who has been living in Montgomery City for 10 years, said even though his business just opened, he’s optimistic that it’s going to grow in the future.

“I have a feeling that after this year, it’s going to blow up and we’re going to have to move out of here,” Bickmeyer said. “That’s the way it’s been going right now. We’re projecting in a year that we’re going to move out, but we’re going to stay in Montgomery County. We will always be in either New Florence or Montgomery City. It’s here to stay.”

For more information, call 636-377-9482 or email jbtwistedtines@gmail.com.