I killed skeletron with Demon Bow + Cursed and Flaming arrows, + 40 or so lesser health pots. Demonite armor too (killed him after EoC and EoW).
Had a ball of hurt, but the DPS was turning out to be way too low for the risk. When I ran out of ammo, I'd switch hitting him with my Breaker while collecting it back again.
I think the key to my success was setting up the arena - Built a tower on top the castle to catch arrows (technically not for the fight, it went to my skybridge and was going to be a skycastle). For the fight, I also flattened out the left side of the castle and then put four rows of wooden platforms. With that much mobility surviving actually gets pretty easy and he doesn't go underground so you never have to stop hitting him.
I didn't actually find him that hard, but I think I'd want to go in with more than a hundred cursed arrows or a better bow next time, it got too close to dawn for comfort after I started running out of arrows and had to finish him with regulars (Went in with a hundred cursed, 250 flame, came out with 13 regular or something like that).
Like the EoC, I didn't find the problem to me to be dying so much as running out of time. with a hellbow, I can assume it would be a cakewalk.
Also, easiest way to find Islands is definitely meteor shot, just shoot straight up occassionally and if it comes back down you've got an island, whee!