Why did you start hunting Trad?

[Jmb413]

I was obsessed with the cartoon movie Robin Hood as a kid. I loved the outdoors but did not grow up in a hunting family.I started bow hunting with a compound at the age of 18. Killed 2 whitetail doe my first season with the compound and the snow started rolling. Got into gun hunting in addition to archery. Years later my wife gave me a recurve as a wedding present. I enjoyed shooting it from time to time but was not confident enough to hunt with it. 14 years after she gave it to me i realized ive been saying i would hunt with it someday for 14 years. This was my first year fully comitted to traditional archery. i only hunted whitetail with the recurve but i would not hesitate to take it on any hunt that i went on at this moment. ive learned when the time is right the time is right and my weapon of choice is not the determining factor of success. I was able to kill a doe and 2 8pt bucks this year with the recurve and I do not feel that it hindered my hunting in anyway.

 

[Jason277]

Thank you everyone who added to this thread. I’m still in the just looking camp. One day soon I’ll take that step !

 

[Hartland]

I never switched to traditional. It's more accurate to say I never switched away from it. Starting as a kid in my front yard with my little fiberglass recurve, transitioning to a Ben Pearson 35# pull with white cedar arrows when I was about 10. (I once went unsuccessfully hunting for fox with this outfit at the age of 12.) My first serious hunting bow was a Bear Super Kodiak 55# pull that I saved up for and bought through the mail from Cabela's, along with a nice set of fiberglass arrows, in 1972. To me, when the compounds came along, they simply didn't fit at all the sport that I came to love at a young age and so I was never even tempted to try them.

 

[Mrshort]

I'm not someone who switched from compound. I've only ever owned a trad bow... but I can speak to why I don't feel the need to switch.

Shooting a traditional bow is intimate. You can still leak out on building your own arrows, tuning your arrows to your bow, and form (ALWAYS a work in progress). So it by no means feels less technical. I've helped beginners setup their compounds, and I see the appeal to the "gear head"... but the satisfaction I've experienced in harvest animals with my one piece longbow has far exceeded the animals I've taken with a rifle. My assumption is that it may feel the same with a compound. That is all based on the distance from the animal though... so I suppose if you're stalking mule deer in their beds and shooting them at 15 yards with your compound, you may be having the same experience I'm having. That's debatable.

Put simply... it's mostly romance.

 

[FLS]

Simplicity. I always a recurves, but hunted with compounds and shot fingers. I never like shooting a release, I felt the connection to the bow was gone. I picked up a Traditional Bowhunter Magazine on a work trip and liked what I saw. Bought a Bear Grizzly and shot it all Sumer and killed deer with it that fall. I went deep down the rabbit hole and built and hunted with self bows and made my own glass bows for a few years. I still have an old Mathews Conquest set up for fingers. I took the sight off and and shoot it bare bow some. It’s like a recurve on steroids.

 

[Medic77]

I didn't grow up hunting and started when I was around 21 years old when athletics was over and looking for a challenge. I bought a compound and shortly after went on my first hunt, a hog hunt. After a few years of compound hunting, we returned on that hog hunt where a friend of a friend showed up with a recurve and wood arrows. He was shooting before the hunt and I was absolutely mesmerized. I'd never really paid attention to or seen it before. I could see the white fetching spin and he would hit what he was aiming at without a site! (All the while we were moving site pins like madmen trying to dial our compounds back in). He came in after a morning huntand had shot a hog....man.... I was hooked. I had to have one. I was telling the guys at the firehouse about it and one of my friends said he had one I could try, a bear kodiak.
A year later and a ton of trials, errors and practice led to me shooting two hogs on that trip. That same year deer season I took my compound out for the "rut" and long story short, I missed a doe at about 10 steps from my treestand. I got out of that stand, packed my stuff and went home. I told myself that if I'm going to miss, It's going to be the way I want to hunt. I've never looked back. Been traditional only for the last 20yrs or so (I do still get mad at them and rifle hunt as well)

I think someone saying the "romance of it" is right on for me. It's beautiful. The quietness, watching the fletchings spin, the dedication, the sore fingers, the mindset. It's all beautiful and perfect for me. It relaxed me in the stand.

 

[Beendare]

For me, a compound was too automatic…and practice became boring.

Trad reinvigorated my love of archery. I killed more and easier with a compound…but I just like hunting with a shorter range mindset.
.

 

[KentuckyTJ]

Hello all, I'm just curious what made you start hunting Trad? I have hunted with a compound bow unsuccessfully for 4 years now for elk and have only been hunting in general for 5 years. I haven't had an elk at bow range ever. What keeps me thinking about Trad is the more simple setup vs a compound. I know it's way harder and your woodsmanship has to be spot on. What made you guys start?

For me just more of a challenge!