Terry: Your whole statement has me in an honest state of "befuddledment". Let me try to explain. The first real "fire in my belly" about bowhunting came about simply by seeing Howard Hills book "Hunting the Hard Way" in a local sporting goods store back in about 1951 or 52. If you read his book you learned that he was very much about getting the most our of his equipment than he could. He was pretty excited about discovering that a fiberglass strip on the back of his bow made it a better shooter.
Ben Pearson and Fred Bear cannot be said to have not been innovators, technicians and inventors...just look at the patents that they owned.
Way back in the 1930's there was an add in Ye Sylvan archery that stated very simply that the way to achieve good shooting required two things....well matched equipment and proper shooting form. I personally have seen the advancement in bow and arrow performance (in trad bows and arrows) improve before my eyes over the years and it all has had to do with people who had an idea, worked on it and brought it to the market place. I doubt very much that you would give up your AD arrow shafts because someone with a technical/scientific gene thought them up, figured out how to produce them and then got them to the market place and eventually into your hands.
For me, personally, I cannot seperate the desire to have the best equipment from the best shooting skills I am capable of. It's sort of like cake without icing.
Again, speaking of the 50's the NFAA monthly publication, ARCHERY, had a column each month called, Archery, the Technical Side. I learned a lot from that all the way from archer's paradox and the importance of correct arrow spine, to how a radiused shelf and side plate made for better arrow clearance to how to mount broadheads correctly. If you go further back to the 30's and look into Ye Sylvan Archer you will find arcticles that led to the development of the spine tester and the development of the spine charts we are all familiar with. They even did tests where they weighed the physical weight of the string to determine how the weight of the string would affect arrow flight. The amount of math and calculations in these articles make me dizzy but it was those people who had a technical bent and interest in how bows and arrows actually work that have led us to the best equipment we have ever had.
For many who do not completely understand the physics of how to get an arrow from here to there traditional archery can be very frustrating to master. There is more to it than merely having a stick and string.
Where I do agree with you, and I see it when I go to various competitions, is that many, many trad archers have terrible and inconsistent shooting habits and form. With all the technical advances we have I do not understand the reason for what I often see as terrible shooting skills. It makes me wonder how well they know their equipment if they do not take the time to know themselves as shooters. In order to shoot well you must have the two basics I mentioned earlier....matched equipment and proper form. One of the reasons that compound shooters can shoot so well in a relatively short period of time is that compound bows and arrows do not lend themselves very well to poor form or poorly tuned set ups. You either do it right or it doesn't work....period. And the let off feature of the compound allows one to concentrate on form without getting the shakes from holding a heavier trad bow.
So, in some ways I will take the other side. I like to tinker. I like to know how to best get my arrow from here to there. I like to be able to shoot a bare shaft straight at 50 yards. I like knowing what to do to my equipment to get it to do that. I like to know I have that kind of control over my shooting skills to get it to do that. I like to share thoughts and experiences with others in that regard. And in the end, when the animal steps up and presents the shot, my heart still betrays me, my breathing makes all that control at the target seem impossible to regain, my desire to remain undetected at that moment creates doubt and sometimes my knees feel as though they don't belong to me.....and the pounding in my head has, at times, caused me to pass a shot that at the practice butt would have seemed a certainty. Never once in that few moments do I think about my nocking point, or the fallibility of my equipment or my ability to make the shot. If my equipment and shooting was not as good as I could get it to be then I wouldn't even be there....nor, I expect, would you. To me, and to guys like Hill, Bear and Pearson, their success...after you factor out all the human stuff I just described....depended on their confidence in their knowledge of their equipment, how it worked and how it could be used to its best potential in their hands. I cannot wrap my brain around how understanding the technical aspects of how one's bow and arrow works would make a hunting experience less authentic or exciting. And knowing and understanding all that stuff....does it make you less of a woodsman, or hunter, or lover of the sport? It hasn't for me. In fact, the more in tune I am with my equipment the more competent I feel I will be when the time to drop the sting assaults me. Ask a truly competent musician if it is important to understand how his/her instrument works and if it affects their performance and see what they have to say.
Topic: Trad Gang is not Popular Mechanics - UPDATE page 30 (Read 26742 times)
