What attracted you to traditional archery?

[Jake Diebolt]

Two reasons:

1. Simplicity. When I shot compound for a year I was constantly wondering if my shots missed because of my sight being off. Also, in general, I like to keep things in my life simple with a minimum of accessories and gadgets.

2. Aesthetics. Kind of linked in with simplicity. I just like the way the bow looks and feels. It makes shooting fun for me, instead of just necessary practice.

[ermont]

The challenge. Shooting tiny little groups with wheels is boring after a while. With a longbow, you have to concentrate on every shot or your gonna miss by a mile.

[Coonbait]

The beauty of a simple wooden bow. Just called to me!
Glenn

[JohnnyWayne]

It just felt right to me  

[LONGSTYKES]

A wonderful way to take me back to my youth, when a lot of things were simpler. The Skookum that I use too hunt well with at that time, when I was younger. The feel of good long bow and the feel of a well shot arrow. I am there again.

[mwosborn]

I simply enjoy it.

[ksbowman]

USN_Sam1385, Good story, I'd like to hunt in your camp sometime you sound like my kind of people!

[Carpmaster]

The challenge and the drive to hunt harder, plus it is fun stuff!

[todd smith]

The bow grabbed me first.  Love at first sight.  Always have had an affinity with Native American culture as well and the stickbow fit right in...

[Roadkill]

That's all we had.  Went to wheels for abfew but longbows retook my heart

[bayoulongbowman]

I was 9 years old, at my elementry school there was this guy shooting a longbow in our autotorium, his name was Howard Hill! ya ever heard of him....lol...shortly after that my mom bought me my first Ben Pearson , cool huh ..    ....never been the same...Mark#78              

[Recurve50 LBS]

I got tired of bringing so many gadgets like lazer range finders wheel bow with fiber optic sites and a release. Heck just the bow alone had to weigh 5 pounds or more. I just like grabbing my longbow and some arrows and hit the woods. SInce going the traditional route I've never discovered I'd left my release back in the truck after hiking a good ways into the woods.

IMHO traditional archery is just simpler....period!

[trad_bowhunter1965]

To better my Woodsmen-ship.

[South MS Bowhunter]

Sam you can't leave us like this  


For me it was what I considered real archery!  I grew up as a young boy watching my step dad leaving and coming home with his 80# Drake recurve, I was fascinated by the smooth simple curved profile of that bow!  My dad probably didn't weight  135#'s but was a wry muscle and shot in local NFAA tournament at that time and did quite well.  I remember sitting at home and looking at all the bowhunting magazines with the glossy pictures of Bear, Pearson, Martins, Wing and other bow advertisement and saying I wanted one when I got older.  After joining the USAF  I soon purchased my first bow  a Browning Safari but it was the compound model.  I shot it a year or so and just never could convince myself that this was the archery I had dreamed of as a young boy.  Not long after I sold the compound and purchased my heart desire, a GFA era Custom Bighorn (Still have it 22 years old) and new that's what was driving me all them early years, it just felt right.  I've never looked back

[Mudd]

It never was how the bow felt when I shot it but how the bow made me feel when I had it in my hand and loosed an arrow..

God bless,Mudd

[ncsaknech1ydh]

My Dad bought me a Bear 76er in my early teens, I used to shoot it all the time when we would go shore fishing along the Missouri river, that always stuck with me but I didn't get serious about bowhunting until 1985 when I bought my first Bear Wheelie bow, in 1993 or there abouts I swiched to traditional and never looked back. Thanks Dad!

[sweeney3]

Got tired of not being able to work on anything myself.  Initially planned on just not having as much stuff to have to mess with.  Now I can start with some sticks, skins, and feathers and end with a nice set of archery gear.  Love it!

[buckeye_hunter]

I had never bow hunted before for anything, only gun hunted for 3-4 years. In March near my birthday I was with my wife at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo in Columbus. While looking at bows, my wife said for my birthday I had my choice between a compound, recurve or longbow(hybrid) that they were selling there. I went with the longbow because it was beautiful and simple, but eventually switched over to a recurve. The recurve in my opinion is even more beautiful and feels "right" in my hand.

I chose the longbow at the time because I knew I would never be satisfied with the compound. I was certain that I would have a nagging thought about whether I could effectively hunt with the longbow. At the time, I was unaware that there was a difference in archery between trad and modern. I just thought the longbow was simpler without all the sights and cams. Also, I am excellent at breaking things and the longbow had less to break.

Over the years I have grown to appreciate a bow in the woods more and more. After firing a gun the animals scatter and everything falls quiet. Often after shooting a bow, the animals stay in the area and will go back to whatever they were doing as they went about their day.

I am glad I made the choice, even if most people just don't understand me. That includes other bowhunters! I only hope that I can do half as much for archery as it has done for me. I think most trad archers feel that way and that is why I love this community.

[SheltonCreeker]

I shot a wheelie for years. Always shot almost daily. never got tired of it per say. I loved letting arrows go. A few friends moved over to the Trad side of life. I ended up shooting one of their longbows and that was it. Haven't had a wheelie in my hands since. Still let arrows fly daily but now I have to actually try!!! I love it. Ive always considered myself and archer but don't know that I actually knew what that meant until I started shooting, stick and string. Im still really green with it and I really hope this excitement stays with me for the rest of the journey. From what Ive read on here I fully expect it to! Great thread and thanks for sharing everybody. Good Stuff!

[Archie]

I have shot the same Proline Typhoon XT compound since about 1989, I think.  Always fingers, never used a release, but sights, yes.  Still pull it out from time to time, as I enjoy it, in spite of its obsolete technology.

My dad was a big archery guy and ran a shop in the 60s and 70s.  He always set me and my brother up with our archery gear, and we grew up puttering around on compounds.  Dad had honed his hunting skills with a JH Gamemaster on Catalina Island, in California.  He was a crack shot, and a killer hunter.  At some point, he started shooting a compound.  Then we moved to Alaska in 1979.  Dad went out moose hunting that year and killed a 70" moose at 86 yards with a compound.  It was facing him, and he shot it through the jugular vein.  I can still remember him telling me how the blood gushing out was like a stream from a garden hose.    He was putting his gear away and I remember him saying something to the effect of, "This is too easy.  It wasn't even fun."  I never forgot that.  Dad kind of hung up his archery gear after that, and communicated his frustration that compounds were getting too close to shooting a crossbow.

I hunted a bit growing up, killing small game with my compound, but it was only mildly amusing.  Then, in 2006, my dad surprised me with a Black Widow PMA.  By this time, I was 35 years old and lived far away, with a family of my own.  He wanted to pass on his archery heritage to his boys, and we all planned a big traditional archery caribou hunt the following year in Alaska.  At this time, I lived in Illinois, and my brother and his family lived overseas.  I had never shot a recurve before.  We all started practicing, and I practiced every day in the parking lot of the apartment complex where I lived.  I practiced around 10-11pm to stay out of trouble.  I was real excited, learning, learning, learning.  Then came the crushing news that dad died suddenly in a freak heart arrhyrhmia episode, at home in Alaska in March 2007.  We were to be hunting caribou that fall.

I do traditional archery because I really enjoy it.  I feel like it brings out the 'artist' in me.  I do trad archery because I aspire to be like my father was.  It was clear to me that his enjoyment increased a hundredfold when he started shooting trad equipment again.  And I find some of the same joy in it that my dad did.  I guess I started to do trad archery because it's in my family.