Dear Traditional Archery,
You started me out with a Department store red fiberglass bow. You hung there right under my pellet gun in my bedroom with three fiberglass arrows with blue and white plastic fletch. I shot you at just about everything that I shouldn't have... Oddly enough I pretty much always hit what I was aiming at unless it was a target, I could never hit a target... One time my buddy Matt had bent down to stand a pop bottle back up that we had been shooting at and I shot it right from his hand, he told on me,, I sure got in trouble for that....
He had a fancy recurve all black with a feather strung from it as a wind check, I sure admired his bow. He couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with it. He also had a fistful of wooden arrows with barred feather fletch and about half of them were capped with a 3030 shell as a blunt point. I convinced him I needed one, he reluctantly gave it up and was I dangerous with that. We had red squirrels in my neck of the woods and I shot a pile of them with that arrow. One night just before dark I watched a grouse fly up onto a branch to roost. I was shaking at the knees. That was big game as far as I was concerned I took a breath and drew, that arrow slipped from my fingers and drilled that sucker mid body feathers went everywhere like a down pillow blew up. I looked and looked but I never did find that bird,,,it bugs me to this day.
As I got a little older I was gifted my Grandfathers .410 and I stepped away onto bigger and better things. Fast forward 15 years I was sitting in a Ground Blind watching a big field with a hand me down Savage 99 in .308 with a 3x9x40 I watched a big mature doe walk to the field edge just inside the treeline. I waited for her to swing her leg forward and I sent the bullet on its way. As I stood over her I sure felt bad,,, like really bad… she had used all of her skills and patience as she waited for light to fade before she was going to step into that field, she never knew I was there she never had a chance. I had sat 150 yards away waiting to do my part, the shot was perfect I took out her heart but something was different for me at that moment I needed to make a change.
For awhile I thought that maybe I was done hunting, but that wasn’t really what I felt. It was the beginning of something else. I thought about that Red Fiberglass bow, it kinda rushed over me all at once I wanted to Bow Hunt I wanted a new challenge and I got real excited and didn’t have a clue how to start. I didn’t know anyone that bow hunted, Bow Hunters were like a mystical creature where I grew up. So I hopped on a local hunting forum on the internet and started asking questions. I was greeted by some fellas that hunted with compounds and even had a little archery club that they took me to introduce me to the sport.
Like many I bought a compound, fast, light, quiet, hard hitting, yeah I bought into it all… I still like my Compound don’t get me wrong. The surgical precision I can drill an arrow into a target, living or not is in a strange way very comforting to me. For the first time with a bow in my hand I could put to use the skills of a hunter to get close to game and have the accuracy to hit what I wanted, even a target…
So, here I go again… after finding quite a bit of success with Bow hunting I found myself perusing a local classifieds. That’s when I saw a Browning Wasp Recurve, Grey glass, unassuming… I thought wow those lines I wanted it and I wanted it bad!!! So I talked to my wife and said its $80 I’m gonna try this out. The guy that had it said it was his fathers bow and he had passed and didn’t know a thing about it. I looked around for anyone that could point me out on how to even string this little 50lbs wonder. Back to the internet,,, watched a video or two and figured, how hard could this be…. Well its friggin hard. I bought arrows with plastic fletching’s, I developed poor form, I tried split and three under I fought and wrestled that bow and arrow. I just couldn’t consistently get on target.
Back to the internet and onto Youtube and I discovered Trad Gang. I can tell you I got to be much better I found other bows some that I could shoot some that I couldn’t. I just cant for the life of me hit the target the way I want to. I can pack two of them tight together and the third just floats off 6 or 8 inches. Finally found a bow matched 6 arrows to it and got to be pretty consistent. I’m ready to hunt… well kind of, I could hit a pie plate out to 20 yards I shot for months I was consistent. So when the season opened up off I went, my second sit I had a small buck within 10 yards and I was gonna take him. Once he got to where I could shoot I let fly. My lower limb cracked off the seat of my tree stand CLAAAANG and off my arrow went and off went my buck… many hunts and another year later, late in the hunting season it finally came together and I arrowed my first deer with Trad gear a small buck. Im as proud of that deer as any big one I had taken with my Compound.
I had achieved what I set out to do, success with a Traditional bow and life got busy with kids and at work, I would take the bow out shoot at that Target get frustrated and go back to the Compound to fill my freezer. But every chance I could I took out my recurve and went for a walk and I just let arrows fly at random stumps and leaves sticks and mounds of dirt and I noticed I rarely miss and if I do its not by much. This leaves me with more questions than answers when I practice on a target I never find my desired accuracy but when I take a walk I am dialed in. I suspect it has to do with how relaxed I am and dare I say a lack of focus… but when I let them fly I remember how it felt when I was a kid…
Any way I have rambled long enough, I would just like to say,,,,
Dear Traditional Archery I want you to know that I am coming back I am going to put in the effort, I am going to shoot with the same joy I had as when I was a Kid in the woods forget it if I cant hit a target...and I wanted to say thanks to all the wonderful people out there that have helped me along my way. In person or through sites like this.
I’ll see you in the Woods
The-Crow
Topic: Dear Traditional Archery, I will see you in the woods (Read 797 times)
