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Newbie trad journey

kbetts said:
BS on the light weight stuff.....unless you have a nice, long draw or not strong in the upper body. I started with 60# and low reps. More pressure on my fingers helped develop my release.
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A lot of people use heavier bows because they mask a bad release. It’s true that a stronger bow rips the string out of your hand and will seem like you get a better release. A light bow will magnify form issues and release issues and will help with better development. No BS there. The lighter bow will extend practice sessions and ultimately lead to better shooting in most cases. IMO
 
Considering you are in no rush to hunt this season, I would encourage 30-35 limbs and focus on form. If budget is not an issue, I would also so say check out the courses on The Push website. You wont find better coaching imo than Tom Clum, Rod Jenkins and John Deemer. Throw in Joel's Shot IQ course for mental work and there is not a better resource for gaining top shelf proficiency. I would also encourage you to completely forget shooting at 20 yards if your plan is to slowly develop. Start at 10 and put a plain cardboard face on your target and use painters tape to make +. Shooting a + helps me dial in alignment and elevation and more importantly for me it create a small point to focus on. When my shooting starts getting sloppy it is generally either alignment or focus on a small point. Someone mentioned arrow speed, dont worry about that either for the most part, just stay in the 8.5-10gpp range for your finished arrow and it will be plenty fast enough.
 
OP: My advice is free……and, worth just that! :tearsofjoy:
If I were starting new in today’s world, I would take 15 minutes and call Tom Clum at Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear. Ask him for his “opinion” to get started ! Tom is the Real Deal. Like I said, this is free advice!
Trad bows are like choosing a mate for life…..choose carefully on your first and you won’t have to choose again!( that’s free too)!
Have a GREAT day and welcome to a lifelong journey filled with ups, downs, and empty wallets!!!!!!
 
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JoyRyd said:
OP: My advice is free……and, worth just that! :tearsofjoy:
If I were starting new in today’s world (keyboard cowboys, website jockey’s, and general know-it-all types with no proof of product) I would take 15 minutes and call Tom Clum at Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear. Ask him for his “opinion” to get started ! Tom is the Real Deal. Like I said, this is free advice!
Trad bows are like choosing a mate for life…..choose carefully on your first and you won’t have to choose again!( that’s free too)!
Have a GREAT day and welcome to a lifelong journey filled with ups, downs, and empty wallets!!!!!!
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I’ve bought 3 used old bows from RMS gear and they’ve been amazing. Their strings are good too.
 
Came back to bump this although I haven't made much progress. Having a minor issue with my compound now so looks like that trip to Lancaster archery I was thinking about may have multiple purposes. Although perhaps I need to find a shop closer to home if this type of thing is a they take your bow for a night or more? Lol how obvious is it I've never really been to a real bow shop?

The archery at my work event ended up being pretty terrible, they had youth bows with like a 26 inch max draw length and 24 inch arrows and 5 out of 6 bows had issues. We still had fun, I was able to act like I knew what I was doing, put some holes in targets, and some of my coworkers did as well, the rest put holes in the fence behind the targets lol.

That not real taste hasn't dissuaded me though, if anything it was frustratingly propelling me towards buying my own bow, I want to try this instinctive shooting trad thing out.

Now I have to figure out how to choose trad arrows. Or just get the people at the shop to sell me something that will work. Dang this hobby sure has depth and detail.

I did get the tree company to leave a few sections of black walnut limb from a tree that fell, the trunk was left too but at 24inch diameter is destined for a future dining room table, but the limb sections (8 inch diameter or so) may become attempts at bows one day. I understand BW is not an ideal wood, but hear that some have used it with success and it was free. it shall become some other project if not a bow. Or maybe firewood but that's a waste of walnut. I'll surely have thousands more questions whenever I go down that diy road.

Anyhow, not a trad archer in training yet, but still planning on it. I'll check back in next month, hopefully with some more concrete experience. Thanks for listening to the overenthusiastic newbie!
 
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