It's been quite a year for me. Bear with me, this one's a little long.
I'll start with some background. Back when I was 14, my Dad started me into archery. He and my uncle bowhunted almost exclusively, and because they'd both started on recurve before going to compound, that was how he started me. We got an old Pearson Cougar 45# @ 28, a bunch of aluminum arrows and got started.
Even though he shot compound, my Dad remembered enough about shooting recurves to regularly school me with my own bow. I learned alot from him the first two years. I improved to the point where I could take the bow hunting, and did. I never got a deer with the recurve, and as our lives got busy (my Dad working more, and I got a part-time job) we weren't practicing enough, and my shooting was suffering. So I switched to compound. I shot a little better, but not much, even with the sights.
Another hunting season passed, and while I got a shot at a deer, a twig deflected the shot and shaved some hair off the chest of a doe without wounding (thankfully). After hunting season we kept putting off going shooting, and by the time we got back to it I was out of shape and unprepared. I couldn't hit a darn thing. Over time this turned into Target Panic, with a capital TP. I couldn't even roll the bow over before I compulsively released. Practice sessions became frustrating struggles with myself.
That fall I went to college. I moved about 8 hours away, with no vehicle, and with studies and work I had no way to get out and practice shooting, let alone hunting. So my bow gathered dust in the basement.
Last year, around the spring, I got myself a car, and decided the time had come to get back into archery and bowhunting. I dragged out the old compound, looked at it, and said: "To heck with this, I'm going back to recurve." I had a nice tax-return check begging to be spent, so I looked around and tried out some bows before purchasing a Martin Hunter, 50# @ 28.
It arrived in June, and I took it out to the range a few days later, put an arrow on, pulled back - and the TP came back with a vengeance. I couldn't get the string more than halfway back. I went home as frustrated as I'd ever been. Still, I vowed I would practice and practice until I could anchor that bow and shoot well enough to hunt.
I fought my target panic for three long months, twice a week for an hour at a time, standing at five yards and hammering arrows into the buttes. Then, one day in august, pulling back on another arrow, I started to release prematurely and managed to curl my fingers and stop...and then pull straight back to anchor.
The next arrow I shot, and the next, and the next, I came back to full draw and released smoothly. I wasn't breaking nocks or anything, but by the time deer season rolled around I could keep my shots at 20 yds in a deer's vitals. I was elated.
Deer were few and far between this season. We saw a couple, but didn't get any shots. But just being in the woods with a bow in the hand made me feel more satisfied than I ever had hunting before. The simple beauty of the bow, the crisp November air, and the hush of the autumn woods were the perfect reward to months of hard work.
A few months later, I got a new job and moved to Manitoulin Island from Sault Ste. Marie. It took me a month and a half to find a place to shoot. When I did start shooting again, my skills were noticeably rusty. My anchor was sloppy, I was torquing the bow...you name it, I was doing it wrong. Once again I settled down to work.
In the last two months I've gotten back to where I was last fall. The compound archers I shoot with still look at me like I'm a little crazy when I show up with the recurve, but I like to think it's a good kind of crazy.
So that's been my year. I'm loving archery and bowhunting more than I ever did...and I have to say, I think it must have something to do with the equipment. The feel and look of the bow, the flight of the arrow, the time spent fletching and tuning your shot...this is what bowhunting is about for me: The love of simple things.
Topic: A Year in Trad (Read 357 times)
