Howard Hill?

[bihunter]

In his book, "Hunting the Hard Way", Howard said he was not good enough to shoot recurves. That he could not shoot them well. Has anybody figured out why that was?

[Airdale]

Probably because he was selling Longbows.  Howard could probably put a string on a 2x4 and shoot better than most of us.  He was as good a salesman as he was an archer.

[Trenton G.]

I think he said it was because they were too sensitive for him.

[Ari_Bonn]

you have to remember back in the day  "recurves"   looked nothing like we have now. they were  longbows  with a recurved tips,   not much limb stability at all and no mass to compensate for forgiveness.

[McDave]

you have to remember back in the day  "recurves"   looked nothing like we have now. they were  longbows  with a recurved tips,   not much limb stability at all and no mass to compensate for forgiveness.

There were recurves like that, but there were also recurves like the 1959 Bear Kodiak, a classic then and a reborn classic now.  I suspect that Howard was just being Howard, and since he didn’t choose to clarify his remarks before he died, we just have to live with them the way he said them.  Trying to guess what he meant now is futile, in my opinion.  We know there are many fine longbows and recurves now, and many fine longbow and recurve shooters now.  As always, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Charlie Lamb]

Since the book which contained the original statement was published in about 1953. We can figure that the bows Howard based his statements on were pre 1950. Not much '59 Kodiak experience.
 
I totally agree with Ari Bonn. The recurves Hill referred to were different animals. In choosing a hunting bow in 1950 a hunter would have been wise to listen to Hill's advice.

[bihunter]

All good points.   

[pavan]

When you look at Hill shooting, to a longbow his variations were not shooting flaws, but to a skinny tip recurve they would be.  Some old bows needed to be released rather delicately, Hill said that his backed bamboo sort of recurve was so accurate and so fast that he felt sorry for his buddies that did not have the same, at least he thought that until he tried to shoot some grouse with it.  i was told that Howard did change his opinions about that later life, but it was also reported that even the Hill recurve in the 60s was not enough for him to change his opinion about recurve sensitivities.  I think his standards were a bit different.  We take a recurve and almost hit a pine cone at 30 yards and declare, "what a great bow I almost hit that pine cone".   Hill takes a recurve and misses that same pine cone and declares it an outrageous miss, because the bow was too sensitive to be accurate in those conditions.

[Orion]

Pretty much what everyone has said up to this point.

[bucknut]

What I took from it was that the longbow had a bigger sweet spot, Being more forgiving when shooting out of position where you may short draw and such.  I agree with Charlie these recurves we shoot now are a whole different animal with a lot more stability. Some of these carbon limb curves now have a draw cycle that nearly has a let off after you get the hooks rolled over giving them the same big sweet spot advantage. At least that's my take on it which ain't worth 2 nickels!

[Roy from Pa]

I shoot both longbow and recurve.

I make my own longbows and tiller them for equal limb timing on the tillering tree.

Longbows are just smoother shooting in my opinion.

[Roger Norris]

I truly do believe that longbows are easier to shoot than a recurve.

[pavan]

Stability and forgiveness is a fickle thing.  I have had bows that have the bottom drop out with just a half inch short of my my already shorter than average draw.  I was thinking a while back how did I ever have over a 28" draw, then looking through old pictures, I saw how I did that.  No wonder why I couldn't shoot up hill or anything that moved.  One thing about a longbow it has a nice balance when not shooting.  I am pretty certain that Howard Hill did not go around in the 60s shooting every new bow made to convince himself to go recurve, but i do know that he was into designing bows and had the blueprints for what came to be a very popular recurve without his name on it.  Ask Jerry.

[two4hooking]

I hunted with recurves for many years....then got bitten and immersed myself in Hill style and straight-end longbows.  What has been said about longbows being forgiving has been my experiences.  Shooting from odd angles and stances is where the long bows excel. 

I was hunting from a treestand and a deer approached me from the rear - right of my stand's position.  I turned and faced the tree....leaned out to my left as far as I could and had to keep the bow near vertical to clear the trunk of the tree.  Deer was about 15 yards away and quartering ever so slightly to.  I got maybe 3/4 draw if that.  Hit was a little higher than I was aiming but I killed the deer and a very short blood trail. 

I am convinced if that opportunity had happened when I was carrying the recurve I would have missed the entire animal cleanly.

[pavan]

A few years back hunting the first year of my JD Berry duo shooter, I had a forky come by me so close, that I could have touched it with my bow.  I was on my feet, because I had just moved a nasty blown down locust branch full of nasty spikes.  Then his big brother came by about 15 feet away, I pulled back and stuck one of spikes of the branch that I just moved deep into my arm, the string slipped off my fingers at about a 15" draw.  Good thing the bow hand rises faster than the drawing hand, I lobbed a slow one over the bucks back.  He ran off about 40 or so yards and stood looking away from.  One of the few times that I could take a shot without having to contort anything.  Most of the time every shot has something, this time the only thing affecting the situation was that i was bleeding out from the ouchy dingus that locust spike gave me.  Heck, I could have made that shot with a recurve with sights on it even.  When I had a recurve with sights, I never got that kind of a shot. Back then, I thought if I had a really short recurve, I thought that I could take chip shots out of tight cover pockets, but the deer stood 40 yards off and laughed at me, because they knew that with my super short and slow three under recurve  that I couldn't shoot that far.  With a good longbow, one can take the shots that a recurve with sights can take and take the odd contorted chip shots and do it all with fluid speed.  I suspect that accuracy with fluid speed is where Hill found trouble with the wave of 58 and 60 inch recurves of the 1960s.  I know that some could shoot them fine, but the deep grips and balance was very foreign to what Hill was accustomed to.

[Hud]

Howard made self bows in the early years, and eventually designed and built what we call the American Semi-Longbow of tempered laminated bamboo.  It wasn't until he met Frank Eicholtz a bowyer in Southern Ca did he get Frank to put glass on one of his bows. Eventually he used Gordon fiberglass. Bob Burton's book looks at bows built by Howard through the years. Some bowyers have concluded that Howard stopped building bows in the 1950's to devote his time to Africa, exhibitions, etc.  Howard had used several bows in Africa that were all bamboo (no glass).  Howard Hill Archery formed in the mid-50's had a number of different bowyers, and they made longbows, until people shooting field tournaments turned to recurves by Smithwick and others. Howard Hill Archery made recurves to stay in business, but when Howard retired in 1965 and sold the company to Dick Garver at Shawnee Sports and Ted Ekin took Howard Hill Archery name and moved to MT.  The recurve Hill built back in the late 1930's was probably all bamboo and ultra sensitive compared to his favorite longbow, Grandpa. Most of what we have learned was written by John Schulz, Craig Ekin, Bob Burton and others. I bought my first Howard Hill Longbow from Hugh Rich in Glendale, CA., he ordered it from Shawnee Sports in 1962.

[MikeNova]

If Howard coukd out shoot me with a long bow I could take him to school with a recurve....hmmm actually I doubt that lol.

[pavan]

Hill shot a shotgun left handed, bet if he had a left hand Bear recurve, he could have shot that better than his longbow.  Or just maybe, bows that didn't come with a butt load of hand shock freaked him out and caused a flinch.  Back in my heavy bow days, those Schulz longbows and Bear takedowns caused me to flinch, just knowing that the hand shock was not coming.

[Kelly]

While reading recently I found this quote from Howard Hill. "Let me say again "Thank You" for giving me this opportunity to speak a word for archery and for hunting archery in particular. I am proud to say that my first love was and still is, hunting archery. The more primitive or old fashioned the bow the better. The less advantages one takes of any wild creature, the more sporting, is the way I think of it."

[Roger9070]

I think that Howard had always favored longbows and felt they were more forgiving, stable, and versatile in hunting situations, therefore, he made that statement in a joking manner.  Sort of like Arnold Palmer saying he wasn't good enough to use a driver!  As someone else pointed out the recurves back then were far different from what we have today and perhaps at the weights that Howard was shooting it was difficult to build that type of recurve or they just didn't hold up.

Since Howard was such a natural athlete and had incredible strength and hand-eye coordination I doubt if any bow recurve or longbow would be difficult for him to master.  I think he went with what he knew and since he made all of his own equipment, including longbows, he didn't feel the need to change or switch.  Also, Howard was known to be a practical joker and enjoy a good joke or ruse so it might have been a little dig to his recurve toting buddies.