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How and why did you choose Traditional Archery?

I cut my answer short so I’ll continue here.....

I had a string made for my bow that was the correct length and just started shooting again. Now I make it a point to not even look at, much less venture down any rabbit holes.....I just shoot. Also, I’ve decided to just shoot instinctive. Not doing too bad and enjoying the heck out of it without all the nonsense clouding my brain.
 
I cut my answer short so I’ll continue here.....

I had a string made for my bow that was the correct length and just started shooting again. Now I make it a point to not even look at, much less venture down any rabbit holes.....I just shoot. Also, I’ve decided to just shoot instinctive. Not doing too bad and enjoying the heck out of it without all the nonsense clouding my brain.

There is so much information out there today that it is easy to get overloaded to the point that you actually shoot worse and stop having fun. I did it myself a couple of years ago when I started getting back into Trad. I tried to absorb everything from Tom Clum and Joel Turner and tried to completely change my shot, which was a shot that had treated me pretty good when I was younger. I finally realized that I didn't have to shoot "exactly" like them to be effective. Once I realized that and just started taking small bits of there information to improve my form and shot, and not trying to shoot exactly like them I started shooting really good and most importantly having fun again.

The only way you can shoot a Trad bow "wrong" is to shoot it without having fun. If your having fun your doing it "right". I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't use the information out there to make improvements to your shot but, the second it stops being fun you are by definition doing it "wrong".
 
I've read this thread a million times trying to come up with just one answer. I can't. So, I'll do it in one word:

How and why did you choose Traditional Archery? Simplicity! :)

PS: I've really enjoyed reading all your posts. It's amazing how Traditional Archery can effect us all so differently. Let Em' Fly!!!!
 
I've read this thread a million times trying to come up with just one answer. I can't. So, I'll do it in one word:

How and why did you choose Traditional Archery? Simplicity! :)

PS: I've really enjoyed reading all your posts. It's amazing how Traditional Archery can effect us all so differently. Let Em' Fly!!!!

True dat!
 
I'm not quite there. My 62 in, #25/28 lefthanded Sage is on the way. I have been researching trad bow hunting for the last 4 months. I've been hunting compound over 20 years.

What GCTerpfan said is true. I'm about overwhelmed with info from here, Tradgang, Stickbow and YouTube. I would eventually like to hunt with it, when I get to 40# limbs.

So I'm going to go to HomeDepot, get some hay bales and start when it all gets here.

Yall may be getting some dumb trad newbie questions in the future.

God bless, stay safe
 
There is a purity to traditional archery that just cant really be duplicated imo.
I can see that being the case.. And its what's drawing me in reading through multiple trad forums. Traditional wasnt at all on my mind when I started diving into the saddle hunting world, but I'm sure looking forward to expanding a skill set. Anymore "How and Why Traditional Archery" stories out there? Really been enjoying reading everyones stories.
 
For me it was pretty simple. As a kid I was always building bows out of the poplar whips that grew all around my parents property after the feds did their early clear cuttings in the 80's. A little braided fishing line from my dads salmon snagging days(when legal) and I was free to go.

My family though had no archery back ground. Simply gun hunters, and fall/winter sports and school work didn't offer me any free time to hunt during the archery season, so didn't get my first bow until the summer before my Freshmen year at GV(2001). Didn't know what I was doing, I just knew my big full length 2317's out of my old Darton 400mx with a single brass pin and TM Hunter rest seemed to go where I wanted them to. never tried fixed heads as the magazines said rocket mechs were the ticket...and not gonna lie...I used Rocket Steelheads for a decade with 100% recovery rate.

Anyways, after that first fall season I found a archery shop a few blocks from our downtown Grand Rapids campus and literally went down the rabbit hole of competitive shooting. By the next fall I was tagging out with ease and never took my trusty Remington 700 out of the gun safe back home. Set a state record(since been broken), won a few state 3d championships...and that was all by 2006. Got into a career that didn't offer me weekends so my competitive shooting has since been completed. I could still pick up my old Mathews Outback that I kept from those days and post a 300/50+ on a 5-spot even having not shot it for 4 years now.

Anyways, I found myself focusing on the wrong aspects of the hunt....or not at all. I was more focused on the kill above the how. I realized I wasn't setting a very good example for my daughters as to what to emphasize when we go hunting, and found Traditional archery to be my gateway to finding real purpose in my outdoor adventures. It came down to seeing all of these pics and photos of parents setting up tripods with crossbows and teaching their kids that the kill is what matters most...5-8year olds killing deer and turkeys having absolutely zero participation in the actual hunt, just being the trigger person. Kids not having an understanding of what it means to take the life of the animal....I didn't want to be that parent that focused only on the kill. Traditional archery helps me slow it down, and focus on the 'how'. Because I'm always still learning, and year in and year out I discovered more and more that the 'How' matters. So it's not about the kill...it's about taking long evening walks with my daughters, listening for turkeys to roost, how to identify animal tracks, deer trails, direction of travel, mass producing trees, browse, etc. My 8year old probably won't kill a turkey this year, just like last year, but she sure loved getting up at 4am and carrying her pack with yoga mat and fleece sleeping bag liner to the turkey woods and catching a couple hours more sleep to be awoken by the sounds of turkeys gobbling as a blanket of fog covers the forest floor. Eating her oatmeal out of her thermos while daddy heats a little water with his jet boil for hot cocoa. She's limited to headshots only, but she's capable. I tell her she can bring out a shotgun, that her friend uses a shotgun and she's already killed a couple..."So, I'll be the first to kill one with my bow," she simply replies. Now I'll admit the indoctrination with her took bite a little too much...but she gets it, and to sum up the 'how and why' in one simple sentence; I made the switch to Traditional Archery to be a part of the solution and to leave my mark in trying to preserve, and keep bowhunting, hunting with a BOW for future generations.

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No cool story here. It’s just the way I’d rather bowhunt. I like working on my own stuff, without a bow press. I like not having accessories and a release to keep up with. I really love the sight of perfect tuned arrow when it hits the mark, hell...even when it flies over the mark it’s nice. My group of friends and hunting buddies mostly all shoot and hunt with stickbows, so it’s the comradery as well.

It’s just the way I’ve always done it. Compounds are nice, and sure enough deadly, just not what I call fun really....so I guess, just like the others, it’s the simplicity.
 
Everyone likes to tell their story and I like to hear and read them. Give some detail and honor those who influenced you by telling their names. There is plenty of room here. A pic or 2 wouldn’t hurt either if you have them. Choosing the trad way to means you have chosen to do it the hard way on purpose and you are willing to take your lumps for the failures as well as the glory for the success. I’d really like to read your story.


simplicity. years ago i got a recurve for my 12th birthday, but I actually started hunting with it when I was tired of things either falling off of my bow or breaking, or the release failing, or slipping off the loop. less moving parts, for me, is a lot better.
 
I bought a 40#+ Ben Pearson from a friend who was went up in weight to a 50# Red Wing Hunter. That was in 1974, I had never seen a compound as they were just gaining a foothold back then.
I've been at it for 48 years, still love my longbows and recurves.
 
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