How you got started

[longrange]

I just wanted to say thanks for everyone here for being so helpful to a nobie to traditional archery. All of your insights on pointers have helped me out alot, mainly though reading your posts!!! I'm 27 and got started this last christmas shooting recurves and i ain't picked my compound up since and doubt i ever will again. I learned through reading books and listening to you all here. What i would like to know is how you all got started, be it through books, reading forums, or friends and mentors and how long you've been doing it?

thanks,  Matt

[Mo. Huntin]

I was shooting a compound for a long time.  I picked up an issue of traditional bowhunter magazine and loved it, the magazine showed me just how succesful this hunting can be.  I somehow found this website and These people have taught me so much.  I would have given up a long time ago had I not found tradgang.

[Joshua Long]

My wife is all to blame for introduction to trad archery!  I have shot a compound for 15 years until last year.  She bought a couple youth longbow sets from 3Rivers Archery for our boys.  Well that tricky company threw in a catalog with our order as well.  You can just imagine.  Then while at Gander Mountain I happened upon Traditional Bowhunting.  Your starting to see the picture right.  Last, but not least the computer started searching for trad info and here I am.  What a year!

[Prairie Drifter]

I started trad shooting about 20yrs ago. I had been shooting several componds for close to ten years. Then all the gadgets started. Releases, peep sights,kisser buttons ect;. When my bows statred to weigh more than a rifle, I said enough is enough. I picked up a stemmler recurve cheap, learned how to shoot instinctivley, and that was that. Haven't looked back since.

[BowHuntingFool]

I always wanted to shoot a Longbow. I hunted with a Compound for many years. I went hunting with a buddy one day, we were parked on the side of the road getting ready to go into the woods. I had my fancy new compound with all the latest gadgets and he took his Longbow out, I was blown away that this is what he hunted with. I finished out the season killing a few deer with the compound. one week after the season I went to my Archery shop and bought a Montana Longbow, I learned how to shoot it from the help of the fine folks here at tradgang. My Longbow is all I have shot for the past year and a half! Thanks folks!

[BWD]

My friend and hunting partner handed me a 71' Bear grizzly, 45@28, that a fellow fire fighter had left for him at the fire house and said, "why don't you take this home a play around with it". I did just that, ordered a string and made a target out of a cardboard box filled with old levis and such. Although I did not have a clue what I was doing, it set me on fire.

[Bill Tell]

My father taught me how to shoot when I was young.  Shot the string off of my kid bow and then he got me a real one.  Taught me to draw to the nose and gap shoot.  Only he didn't call it that.  He called it triangulation.

Then as history shows the compound became a big deal and I went with the flow.  

Three years ago I put down the wheels and went back to my roots.

[ChuckC]

I was shooting bows in the 60's. There were no, or very few books out there and no video's or CD's of hunting.  We saw Fred on the one or two outdoor shows on the . .   maybe three TV channels. .  and that was all it took.  Later I got interested in the roots of archery and learned a ton more.

You guys today are very lucky.  Back then there were very few mentors, very few that knew what they were doing, absolutely no internet to read and talk and learn very quickly.  It took years, and experience and TONS of mistakes.

But it was a fun ride.
ChuckC

[Onehair]

I only shot wheels for about 2 years.In the late 70's I ran into a guy hunting with an old Bear and I was hooked. Went home ordered a Bear Take down and gave away the wheel bow.Had I not run into that hunter I am sure I would have been a full blown alcoholic by now.

[bear1336]

My neigbor/sundyschool teacher got me started at age 8 and took me on my first deer hunt at age 10 been bowhunting ever since. I am almost 63 now.

[Gaff]

i shot a compound for about 15 years. always like the appeal of trad bows. i was surfing the web when i found this site. somehow or another i got hooked up w/ shaun leonard, and the guys at the bunny hunt, and the rest is in the books.

i dont ever see myself shootin a compound again!!
i almost have a few buddys converted!!!

gaff

[centaur]

I got a longbow for Christmas when I was 9 or 10 and had a ball with it. Went to guns for a few years, and then about 1970 bought a Bear Grizzly; became one of Fred Bear's 'two season hunters'. Got a compound about 1978, and used it for a couple of years until I got tired of fiddling with it and lugging it around; went to a recurve and eventually to longbows. After some success, I became a 'camera hunter' for a few years, and now I'm back with the longbow and enjoying it more than ever.

[TheFatboy]

Uh oh... picked up my old bow a few months ago now. Last time I shot it before that... a minimum of 5 years before. So a few months ago when I picked it up again, I wondered why I ever stopped. For all I know, I won't be quitting archery in the nearest future.

[DeathMetal]

I use to shoot in Compound Competitions many years ago (while in highschool) and always wanted to try the "old" bows. I bought my first longbow 3 years ago and I have since sold my compound.

[Jim Keller]

My Dad started me with a recurve when I was small ( that's all there was then ). We shot them 'til compounds came out shot them for the next 30 years or so. Last year a buddy of mine picked up a recurve some where and told me he was gonna shoot a deer with it. He did. Got me fired up. So I started shooting one again. When another buddy found out he brought me some of his bows, once I started shooting a longbow , that was it . I've been hooked since. Can't wait to hunt with it this season.

[straitera]

Bad gun accident at 12 restricted us. Borrowed my aunt's 35# longbow & never looked back. I'm 58.

[Kevin LaPean]

I discovered the Tradgang website a year and a half ago while trying to teach myself how to become a better hunter.  The ideas of a simplified, traditional hunting style quickly took hold, and before I knew it, I had stripped down my compound and began shooting with my fingers.  I bought a longbow last September, attended two events this summer, and cannot believe how much I love shooting in the backyard every night!

My neighbor got me setup for bowhunting when I was 16, but I haven’t had a mentor or shooting partner in the 13 years since.  The only resources I’ve used to teach myself are:
- G. Fred Asbell’s books (Instiinctive I & II, Ground Hunter’s Bible)
- Masters of the Barebow 1 & 2
- Tradgang.com

This fall will be my first time hunting with a longbow, and I’m hoping that a combination of hard work and dumb luck will allow me to get within 15 yards of a whitetail while hunting on the ground.  

I hope you discover as much joy in shooting as I have!

[onewhohasfun]

Shot gadget bows for 8 yrs. Then in 1984 I missed a whopper of a whitetail buck straight down out of a tree. He was only ONE YARD AWAY! That was it for me. I have not shot even one arrow out of one of those things since. So much more enjoyable now, I shoot every day.

[Boneyard Bowhunter]

I started shooting on my own in 1967 but wasn't doing too well. I went to the American Archery Center in Clarendon Hills Ill. and the guys there taught me shooting form and how to have a good time.
42 years later I still love it.

[Brian Krebs]

I had a mother that was an anti-hunter; and a father who was not interested in hunting.

 I am not sure where the hunting gene came from; but it was there from the time I was an infant. I didn't play with toys; I watched the insects and birds.
 
 My first bow was one that came with an Indian headdress and suction tipped arrows. I think I always rooted for the Indians in the movies.
 Go Tonto.

I made my own bows and arrows which left many people in the neighborhood wondering if there was a woodchuck loose in their bushes.

 I did shoot my dads military school issue longbow when I could get at it. Then I bought a Ben Pearson recurve in the late 60s and I hunted woodchucks and squirrels with it; and chased a few whitetails.

 I had a friend named Rick Berry - who was a baseball player; in 1970 or 72  he shot a really really nice buck with his recurve. Sill think about that.

 In 1976; after the military thing; I met a guy at college who was into bowhunting; and I went hunting for deer- with all seriousness. As someone borrowed my Ben Pearson I used my dads longbow (circa 1936). I fell totally in love with bowhunting big game that first serious bowhunt in 1977 - when I missed a whitetail.

 Yep I did a couple years with a compound because at the time it was impossible to find a recurve for sale in sporting goods stores. I recovered from that; and in 1982 I bought a Bear Takedown- and it was like a bird out of its nest for the first time; riding the wind and feeling at home.

 Been bowhunting every year since with a trad bow.

 Its probably just a phase though.