Bowing up

[Vroomvroom]

Roger Norris, how do you like the Fred Asbell jacket?  Been thinking about getting one.  Nothing to do with bow hunting.  It’s all we’ve worn here moose hunting.   Guys would come up here with reds of dollars spent on a suit and a local would have an old sweater on and sweat/track pants.  Because it’s soft and the expensive hunting suits are just noisey.  I’d tell the guys before they come up but it’s like many don’t recognize how loud they’re. Clothes was.   If you push past brush and hear it swiping past your suit, or crinkling when you move.   Throw it away.  It might of cost you a moose hunt.  Are those jackets fairly thick?  Any liner in them?  Size chart true to size?

[Archie]

I'm almost 54.  I've been shooting bows between 48# to 67# since I started pursuing traditional archery around 2006.  I shot an old-school compound since the mid 1980's, have never used a release, never had a compound with more than 35% let-off, and those bows were always between 65-80#.  I'm not a super hunter like so many of my fellow TradGangers are, and do not speak with a voice of great authority.  I'm not a super muscleman, and I'm an accountant by trade and a pianist by night, so not a tough farmer or tradesman.  But I've always drawn my bows as a way to exercise, and my arms, shoulders and back are in good shape from decades of that.  I had a bad e-bike accident a 2 1/2 years ago and broke my drawing arm shoulder, but have come back from that as strong or stronger than I was before.  My thought on the "heavy bow" conversation is that a guy ought to work on building strength and then settle in where it is comfortable for his physique and musculature, and work to maintain it.  I'm not talking about brute strength.  I have a 57# bow hanging behind the door in my office at work, and I draw it during the day.  I have a 65# bow at home that I do the same with.  I just like to keep the muscles working. I draw equally, right and left, by the way, always trying to balance my muscles.   Sometimes I work hard, sometimes I draw a few times during a TV commercial.  But it's a constant companion in my life, and I hope I can do this for a couple of decades in the future.   

I know that it's become popular in recent years to shoot lighter bows, and there's a lot of talk (with which I do not disagree) about superior bow design and superior arrows.  They say that the heavy weight is no longer necessary... it's superfluous.  I've no problem with that... I just don't care to argue, really... I don't care.  But I often wonder if some are using that argument as a way to spend less time building themselves up, and instead are depending on technology to propel them forward.  And I don't really care about that either, but that's the same situation that a lot of archers found themselves in with compounds, before they turned to hunting "the hard way".