what made you shoot start shooting traditional?

[EASTERNARCHER]

Like alot of folks on here, I'm getting tired of lugging heavy compounds around worrying about losing something or sights getting banged on a tree.
I've shot most styles of bows, and the older I get, the more I long for a simpler bow made of beautiful, light, warm glowing wood.
I guess the same reasons that I prefer to see or build(someday) a wooden canoe or other watercraft....they're just too purdy in my books.

[kennym]

I like stuff that works when ya really need it!!!!!!!

[mcgroundstalker]

Good Question...Always wanted to hunt with a recurve but "thought" a wheelie bow was the way to go...Looking at photos of Fred Bear and American Indians in my younger years kept a desire deep inside alive...

Always hunted deer on the ground, stalking and still hunting...But the compound kinda complicated things...Then after I was married a short while my wonderful wife bought me a 45# recurve and I havn't looked back!!!

... mike ...  :D  ...

[jimneye]

Using a compound was too easy.  If a deer was inside of 35yds it could be killed. Trad requires much more dedication and woodsmanship not to mention a deep respect for the animals we pursue, something most of the compound shooters lack.JMO

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I got tired of shooting the Matthew. It was so easy to line up the pin and let her go and hit where you were aiming. It became so mechanical. I was in elk camp with a friend that was a friend of Jim Brackenbury. My friend pulls out a TD of Jim's and assembles it. He asks if I would like to shoot it. I didn't do very well but I couldn't put it down. It was like I knew that bow could do better and I wasn't doing it justice. Well about an hour later I quite. I commented on how my shoulder was a little sore. My friend just smerked and said, "It takes a real man to shoot a real bow!" Well that really did it. I went home and bought a use recurve, then a longbow, then another recurve, got another recurve on order....he really started something! Thanks Gary!

[Orion]

Didn't have a choice.  I also started BC, before compound.  In fact, when I started, it wasn't called "traditional" archery, it was just called archery.  I must admit I did try compounds for a while in the mid-70s, but I came to my senses fairly quickly.

[JRY309]

I've seen too many mechanical problems,so many things that could go wrong.I like the simplicity of a traditional bow.The rest won't break off the bow,no sight pins to come loose.Plus it is more satisfing to me.

[Budog56]

TRADGANG !!! Believe it or not.. I watched the movie lethal flight by tim wells and decided bow hunting looked way to much fun for me not to be doing it..I was looking around about to get a switchback and I remember man I am going to have to spend a lot of money on "STUFF" to go with it..I dont remember how i stumbled onto tradgang but I thought Id see what it was about I had a few minutes to spare...many hours later I realized I was still there reading. I called and told the guy sorry but I didnt want the matthews. Then I immediately ordered a super kodiak from cabelas the next day and have been here ever since...Now that I think about it a HUGE thank you is in order for all the people here and those that designed this site for keeping me from spending all that money on wheels..THANKS A TON...          

[John57]

Somebody put a stupid name to what I'd been doing for 35 years.
So now I'm a traditonal archer,,,,,,,,whipdedo.

[njstykbow]

That's all there was at the time!

[John3]

I was growing weary of the "mechanical" side of modern compounds. It just wasn't challenging anymore. My uncle and I jet boated down the river a few miles then we had to paddle up a small creek for about 20 minutes. After getting out of the boat I realized that I had forgotten my release in the truck. That evening I decieded that there just had to be an easier way. Trad isn't easy, but it sure is more fun.

JDS III

[Stone Knife]

I started out at the age of 10 with an old longbow. hunted for over 20 years with a compound. Just got sick of all the bells and whistles i wanted to go back to were it all started for me.

[TexMex]

A Ben Pearson longbow was my first, that's all it took.

[Bonebuster]

As a kid it started out with a wooden longbow.
Grab an arrow, any arrow, look at what you wanted to hit and hit it. Shots were always close, as they are meant to be. It was simple, natural, and most of all FUN.
Everyone said I needed a compound. Then there were sights, arrow rests, releases, peeps, kissers, overdraws, cam timing, stabilizers.
I was still shooting alot because I was a bowhunter. Bowhunters MUST practice. I was shooting because I had to, not because I wanted to.
In October of 1990, I was guarding some acorns in a favorite spot. A decent buck came early to eat.
He was a ways out. I drew, put my sight a couple inches over his back and ended up dropping him in his tracks. (I`m ashamed to say how far the shot was.) Worse yet,my hands weren`t shaking. It was mechanical. It made me feel horrible.
I knew how traditional archery made me feel and I knew what to do. By late bow season of that year I was confident enough with an old Bear Grizzly that was my older brothers, to give it a go.
One COLD day just before Christmas, I had three does come crunching through the snow on the runway
I was watching. I blew the shot, by not picking a spot and shot two feet over the leaders back.
I was weak in the knees and shaking the way only fridgid temps and "buck fever" can make you shake.
I can still see those orange feathers spinning over her back.
I have never looked back. Simple, natural, and most of all FUN!

[BodarkOkie]

Well....about 50+ years ago, when I started, there were no "training wheels."  I'm not sure if they had training wheels for bikes then.  

In the mid-70's, I bought one (yea, a compound).  I shot it for about 4 months until one evening at an indoor range,  I realized I had developed a severe case of "peg-boarditis" (a very common disease among compound shooters.)   I took the sight off the bow, walked over to the trash can and threw the sight and release in the trash, put the bow in the case with the aluminum arrows, and gave the whole mess away to some "lucky" person.  Didn't even know him.  He just kind of stared at me strangely as I left the range.    

I went home and called Jack Howard the next day and ordered 2 Gamemaster Jets.

Haven't had a relapse yet.

And....that's the truth.

   

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I too started out with compounds, after guns of course. Never really got satisfied with shooting one. I was looking through a cabelas catalog and seen some recurves. This was about 3 years ago. I said to myself, "Why am I buying all the sights, stabilizers, rests, releases, expensive arrows, blah blah. When I can have a beautiful piece of art that'll fling arrows good enough for the job." So I got a 1960's Kodiak Mag off of fleabay, and that was that. I don't wan't to ever go back.

[Benoli]

It's the simplicity. I love to fling arrows because it soothes me. I picked a compound for about two years and got real tired of tuning and tinkering all the time. It took the fun out of it and I wasn't able to just relax fling an arrow. I also realized while in the backcountry hunting, someday again soon I hope, that if something went wrong with the wheeled machine I proabably wouldn't be able fix it until after the hunt. "One stick with one string and an arrow I'll fling"

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Started in 1962 with an old fiberglass longbow I bought from my uncle for 50 cents. Was before compounds. Couldn't afford a compound so just kept collecting recurves. Got lotsa recurves and lotsa compounds(don't shoot the compounds, but they make great tradin' material for recurves) I just love watching an arrow in flight and as I get older, at least I can see the arrows when shot from the 'curve.We must all enjoy that aspect of archery or we wouldn't be doing it.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I decided to brake down and buy me a new bow last July.....i bought one of the fastest bows in the world at the time....i thinks it's still in the top ten.....but i could care less....It took me a lot of tinkering to get that new bow dialed in.....and then i just got disgusted. it just wasn't fun any more....There are many other reasons too but the thing that did it was watching the Trad guys having a ball at a 3D shoot. They were flinging Flu-Flu arrows 50-60 yards in a high arch at an elk target.....I watched those arrows fly....and listened to them laugh..... I hadn't watched one of my own arrows fly in years..That just grabbed me by theheart strings watching thos woodies fly......that ripped it....I sold the new Bowtech the following week...and bought a sander and a band saw.... have just started building my first long bow....

I'm really looking forward to this guys!

[808nate]

sounds like the simplicity is a recurring theme, I have to agree, I i want to just shoot, not tune and tinker, if i want to do that I can tinker to my hearts content under my truuck's hood