Suffice it to say, it's been a while.

Arrows, releases, screwdrivers and an assortment of other tools lay scattered across the pool table in front of a dazzling collection of trophies on a nearby table. The basement serves as a home inside his home for Bauernfeind, who for nearly four decades has been a competitive archer.

There's no time for pool.

It's in his basement where he hones his craft and established his business, Zenith Archery Products, which he still runs out of his home. For his business Bauernfeind designed and created, among other products, releases, a small hand-held device that serves as a trigger attached to the string when an archer pulls it back before shooting.

While the business has slowed recently with Bauernfeind, 71, contracting out most of the work, his competitive drive in archery has yet to waver.

His latest accomplishment came last week at the Empire State Games, where he won gold in the archery masters division with a score of 859 in the compound all-around 70-and-older bracket. And while his age bracket included only four competitors, his score beat all the younger age groups as well, where more than 20 people competed.

In his career Bauernfeind has won so many trophies he's given most of them back to be reused for future winners. With so many already cluttered around his basement, there's only so much space left.

"It's just fun to go out by yourself," Bauernfeind said of his fondness for the sport. "You're just always trying to better your best. The act of shooting an arrow, it's like a fascination people get. Just to be able to see that go down and into the spot, it kind of grabs you."

Bauernfeind, who's lived in Wading River since 1966, never envisioned himself growing into such an active archer. He stumbled upon the sport at Brookhaven National Lab, where he worked for 39 years in electronics before retiring in 1997.

The lab had an archery club, and one day in 1963 its members put on an exhibit during a company picnic. A friend of Bauernfeind's told him about it and encouraged him to try.

"I went down there and that was it," he said. "I found my game."

He learned the sport under Mal Johnson, an archery veteran who, though not much of a shooter himself, was an excellent teacher. The archery club at Brookhaven Lab still exists today, although Johnson passed away many years back.

About six years after stumbling into archery Bauernfeind began competing and hasn't slowed down since.

The sport has taken him across the country -- to Baton Rouge, Virginia Beach, Disney World and Pittsburgh, to name a few -- with National Field Archery Association competitions in New York, sectionals, which are made up of several states, and nationals. He's qualified for the Senior Olympics as well.

Last year in Louisville he won gold in his age group.

"Hopefully the guy that's better than you, you leave behind for one age group," he said. "Last year I won the gold because my friend hadn't caught up to me age-wise. Now this year he's going to catch up to me."

In addition to being an archer, Bauernfeind is also a cyclist, although the training for that has become too intense in recent years, he said. About five years ago he stopped competing in cycling. In his career he won a few gold medals at the Senior Games, though, which are state qualifiers for the biennial Senior Olympics.

Take a drive through the East End any morning and you'll most likely still pass by Bauernfeind on his bike. Each morning before breakfast he bikes between 25 and 30 miles. Some days on a weekend he'll stretch it out to around 50.

A typical route takes him to Manorville and on a Sunday ride he and his riding partners will extend to either the North or South forks. The real passion remains archery, however, a sport he has no intentions of giving up any time soon. He even volunteered once to write a column in an archery magazine called The U.S. and International Archer. His idea was to share the opportunities, like the Senior Olympics, that existed for older archers. It worked out so well he writes a bimonthly column titled, "From the Senior Corner."

"It's not so much about tournament results; it's a senior outlook from traveling around and what's going on and what the seniors are doing," he said.

In one column he wrote about a speeding ticket he received in Arizona.

Much like his attitude toward the sport in general, Bauernfeind keeps it light in his column. He competes in archery strictly for the sport of it; he's never hunted, not even once.

There are archers who hunt and there are hunters who simply use a bow and arrow. The lines don't always cross. And for Bauernfeind, he's simply an archer, a sportsman.

He taught the sport to his three children, all of whom became pretty good, he said. All three, a boy and two girls, are grown now with families of their own and have since given up the sport.

Now Bauernfeind shares his expertise with his grandkids, two boys and a girl.

"I'd like to see my grandsons do it but they're into video games and whatever," he said.

In terms of action sports, archery may not rank up there with basketball or lacrosse. But it has its niche. And it creates just as much anxiety for a participant.

Outside his home, Bauernfeind held up his bow, minus an arrow, demonstrating how the device works. Hold it up with no target ahead and it's easy to hold firm.

But put a target ahead in a competition and suddenly the arms wobble ever so slightly. Even a few decades later, the arms still wobble.

"It's almost like you have a radar like in a fighter plane that locks on a target," he said. "Your eye does the same thing. So once you lock on that, even though your bow is wiggling around, that thing goes off your body has the ability to make those instantaneous corrections. You don't even know it."

It's a lesson that took a long time to learn, he said. And one he still hasn't figured an answer for when shooting at certain targets that leave an archer nothing to aim at.

Judging by the results, he's still doing OK.