what made you shoot start shooting traditional?

[Tree man]

I started with real bows as a kid. Bought a compound as an adult... and was back to real archery before the season opened. The beauty of a traditional bow's lines captivated me. A couple years later and a failed attempt to buy a custom recurve had me shooting a compound-I hunted with it and missed some deer and turkeys(Wrong Pin, misjudged yardage etc.) When the opportunity for another "real" bow came I jumped on it. Confounds are interesting mechanically but boring to shoot.

[Danny Rowan]

1962 BC. Only game in town. Never wanted any training wheels. Started with an old Ben Pearson fiberglass bow, then a Pearson cougar. Went to longbows for many years and now I shoot mostly recurves and a couple of three piece longbows.

Danny

[tamure]

Because I'm a hopeless romantic.  :D  

There's something beautiful and graceful about a longbow or recurve that a compound just can't match. I started with a little fibreglass recurve when I was a kid, and my grandpa bought me a compound for christmas when I was 12. Of course, I was elated, because that's what Pop Pop and my uncle shot. But I always wished I'd win one of the longbows at the raffles, and boy did I buy gobs of raffle tickets. I guess I wanted to be a female robin hood, and robin hood didn't shoot a compound. I never did win one, though, and it wasn't until I was 17 that I finally bought a stick bow. Not long after that I gave my compound away.

My uncle is a gun nut type and a walking encyclopedia of reloading information. He always had the latest greatest compound, sights, all the gadgets too. He loves machines and so on.

The other day he said, "ya know, I think I want a longbow. I just want to go out to the range, take it out of the truck, string it, and shoot."

I think he's gotten gadget fatigue.  

[kennym]

"I think he's gotten gadget fatigue."

That sums it up bout right!!!!!  

[smoke1953]

I'm recently converted and I decided I just needed to get wood back in my hands.

[PaPaFrank]

I started hunting with a bow a little "later" in life, but with wheelie bows.  Then I saw two guys on various videos,(Barry Wensel and Paul Brunner)and thought, "these guys are havin way too much fun!"  That was about 16 years ago...I haven't been the same since!!!LOL

[J-dog]

I could care less about all the "traditional" thinking. I shot compounds, they work their job, but I hated the gadgets. What got me was trying out a recurve and I shot it pretty good, and just realized that pound for pound that a recurve is a much more efficient hunting weapon (provided the hunter can do his part!.) Might not have the range of a compound (least not in my hands, 25 yds top for me) but if I wanted to shoot deer past that range I will carry my 30/06. bowhunting should be a close range kill.

On the range the compound rules, in the woods recurve/longbow can't be beat. I see compound dudes with levels on their sights??? you tell me I am going to check a level before I release? yeah right, me and that person are hunting different critters I reckon.

Most of the guys I shoot/hunt with are pounders though, we have a good time ribbing each other    .

Later

Jason

[J-dog]

One more thing, once you get hooked there  is no cure though! be careful. I got guys shooting them and I have seen it so many times! trad-itis

It is such a debilitating disease, you only think you spent alot of money with compound junk, then you get your first off the shelf recurve, then ya want a custom. Then ya want hand made custom crested arrows. With a compound off the shelf muzzys were great! not now, not with trad-itis, NOPE you gotta try twenty different kinds of 2 blade traditional heads to find what the bow spits best.

And then it happens the fianl outcome of trad-itis, you come home from work and all of your clothes and hunting stuff/bows and arrows are in the from yard. course ya pick up your bow and arrows and leave the rest of it.    

Later

J

[NDTerminator]

The process actually most likely started when I quit shooting competitive 3D about 7 years ago.

I shot mostly in the Unlimited Class and was darn good, with boxes of trophies and awards in storage to prove it.  But it was a constant arms race for the next best sight, release, bow, whatever, that would give a guy the point or two edge that meant the difference between first & third place. I would be disappointed if I didn't nearly clean whatever course I was shooting that weekend.  Frankly, it got boring drilling 10 and 12 ring shots.

This translated over to bowhunting.  I got so I viewed an animal I was drawing on as a target, and just 10 ring'ed them.  I rarely, rarely, missed a kill shot.

Too make a long story short,it struck me that the compound and all it's accessories had made bowhunting too easy, after I killed the biggest buck (138+)of my life last season. After the initial elation I felt a letdown.  Something was missing.

In short, I had lost the magic & essence of archery which had led me to pick up a bow when I was a kid back in the 60's.  I put my compounds in the closet, got a recurve, and haven't looked back.  I've fallen back in love with archery, and can't wait to shoot every day...

[Ian johnson]

I was given an old bear fiberglass recurve for christmas when i was eight, about 7 years ago, got serious about trad archery two years ago, and next week I buy my first custom bow made to my specs!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

allot of great answers posted, but for me it is the respect for the game I hunt is why I went to Traditional gear. Shooting a center fire firearm, wheeliebow or the new smokepoles are great but they take away from the hunt. The game only has it's senses sight,smell and hearing, with all the new blockers, cover scents, etc: the game is at a disadvantage with all that. I now use a old sidelock smokepole and a Shrew hybrid longbow ( till I can make a good shooting selfbow ) to hunt with.. I feel I'm putting the game back in to gamehunting...

[snapper1d]

I started out primitive.Just a stick and string.Blue jean patches on my jeans when we could aford them. Once I went all winter without a coat.Now you can get the picture.Poor,poor poor we were.I had to fix or make almost everything I owned.I once sold enough coke bottles to buy a Ben Pearson Filly 37# @ 28".I have still got her.Arter almost 60 years I still make and fix everything I own but no I am in a very much better financial state.I had to make a new gunstock the other day.I used some of my bocote and bloodwood.Now that thing turned some heads.To me there is something about things you make yourself that something store bought just does not have.Store bought maybe much shinnyer but its not the same.I was out shooting once with some friends and one of them was using a compound.He let me shoot it.Those things are just a piece of store bought machinery.To me they were not much fun to shoot and I just dont really under the craz that people have for them.I still make and shoot all my own bows from primitive to glass and thats where I will stay.

[fflintlock]

My very first bow, was homemade, it was,
A palmetto stem for the bow and bindertwine for the string. the arrows were made of sharpened green cane or the straightess saplings we could find, with self nocks and no fletching. My next bow was a hickory sapling. it did'nt take long for the bows to take a set. We made new ones about every other week. We also shot at everything that moved, or did'nt move.
 Ahhhhhh, those were the days !!

[JBiorn]

"Gadget fatigue". Yup, sounds like the main problem for me!

 Jeff

[fingers]

For 26 years I used the "wheels". I shot target and hunted. In that time I did everything but become a national champion, I came close,,, I got book bucks 20 some elk, and began to lose interest. Then one day I spotted an old self bow out of yew in a 2nd hand store, bought it for $5. Took it home and built a string for it, not knowing much to nothing about it I tried a shot and and promptly slapped my arm. I was a newbie again! Right now I have around 20 bows I've built and am zeroing in on a nice fast pyramid bow design using Ipe and hickory. 65# @27"draw 58"ntn. A real screamer! Yeah, I'm hooked, I'm young again, well on some level,,,;

[Doug S]

More Challange. Every shot is fun.

[bowfiend]

I was a week out from going into the Bob Marshall on an elk hunt when my compound broke. The limb split right at the axle and I couldn't get new limbs until after the trip. So I picked up a used damon howat hunter and went to work practicing as much as I could. I didn't shoot anything on the trip but I also didn't feel bad letting cows walk at 30 yards. I knew I wasn't good enough to shoot that far so I watched as they wandered by. That was a realization that there's more to it than taking game.

[Gray Buffalo]

Dad gave my brother and me some Ben Person longbows for Christmas in 1950 and that was a start of a long love affair. I shot a compound from 1972 to 1977 and went back to the longbow. I had to have a new compound every year through the 70’s and finely realized it was expensive and no longer fun.

[Saskscout]

I just bought my first bow ever last summer... a 50# Bear Grizzly recurve... Never have and never wanted to purchase a Compound... they have no appeal to me... Recurves and Long Bows are the way a Bow should be... In My Opinion

[Kingstaken]

I got bored with shooting the compound bow tho I owe it much and being the romantic guy that I am, the Longbow was it for me...