When'd you take the plunge and get rid of your compound?

[reddogdan]

I will tend to take my compound with me for wet days in a pop up

[Buff]

The difference I've seen in the past is a lot more wounded and lost animals by traditional shooters. That's the biggest turn off for me. That's why I feel like I need to be able to shoot small consistent groups.

I don't take long shots with my compound bows. The vast majority of the deer and pigs I kill are 20 yards or closer. 25 is a long shot. So I don't see the traditional bow as a handicap that way and figure I must be doing something right to get as many kills per year as I do. That being said I hunt in a lot of target rich environments and its easy to pattern animals to feeders. Not sure how great a hunter I am but I am successful.

The amount of practice it takes to get good and stay sharp with a trad bow is exponentially more than a compound with sights. To me that is the big difference. The slow is fine. As long as any bow is relatively quiet and you can effectively shoot at the range they are at you can kill them. But doing that without sights, just pointing and releasing, trusting your brain, eye and hands to consistently deliver that arrow on target is tougher than shooting the compound.

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That has not proven to be the case here at my place.
You need to hang out with a different group of Trad guys

That said their is nothing wrong with hunting with all your toys.
For me .... I feel like I'm running out of time.
I have no ideal how many deer seasons I have left.
I like to kill deer and any given day may find me hunting with a Recurve, Longbow, Muzzle loader, Shiloh Sharps buffalo rifle, or a .308.
I enjoy every one of them for different reasons.

Now if you are on a quest to kill a deer with a Trad bow, I would suggest that any deer you kill with your compound is a deer you will never get to kill with your recurve.

Just go have fun playing in the woods

[RickBarbee]

The difference I've seen in the past is a lot more wounded and lost animals by traditional shooters. That's the biggest turn off for me. That's why I feel like I need to be able to shoot small consistent groups.

I don't take long shots with my compound bows. The vast majority of the deer and pigs I kill are 20 yards or closer. 25 is a long shot. So I don't see the traditional bow as a handicap that way and figure I must be doing something right to get as many kills per year as I do. That being said I hunt in a lot of target rich environments and its easy to pattern animals to feeders. Not sure how great a hunter I am but I am successful.

The amount of practice it takes to get good and stay sharp with a trad bow is exponentially more than a compound with sights. To me that is the big difference. The slow is fine. As long as any bow is relatively quiet and you can effectively shoot at the range they are at you can kill them. But doing that without sights, just pointing and releasing, trusting your brain, eye and hands to consistently deliver that arrow on target is tougher than shooting the compound.

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Actually, there's a reason why McAlester Army Ammunition Plant only allows traditional bowhunters (or used to be that way. Don't know if it's changed). All of the studies showed the trad guys to have to lowest percentages in wounded & unrecovered animals.

Rick

[DRT]

I agree that there are higher quality trad hunters than I have run across over the years. I've known a couple of good ones over the years. However they put in a lot more time and effort than I had to give back then. Now I do have that time and intend to do it as well as I can.

I've seen you shoot sir. I would say you have put in the time to hone your skills to such a high level. I don't know that I will ever be at that capabilities level but I expect to try hard to.
And quality equipment helps.

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[Lost Arra]

Actually, there's a reason why McAlester Army Ammunition Plant only allows traditional bowhunters (or used to be that way. Don't know if it's changed). All of the studies showed the trad guys to have to lowest percentages in wounded & unrecovered animals.

Rick

yes Rick it's still all traditional

I was told while hunting there a few years ago that keeping it all traditional allowed more hunters per weekend because the overall success rate was a little lower for trad vs compound/xbow. It was easier to predict the overall harvest figures. Bill Starry was the one who was behind keeping it all traditional. Now that he's retired, I keep wondering if it will change.

[Lost Arra]

At 62 yrs of age I bought my first compound because of a shoulder injury and having already drawn an elk tag for the following fall. The shoulder recovered over the summer and I could hunt my longbow but I've kept the compound just in case my shoulder flares up again.

I did hunt it a couple of times last year in a stand where I was seeing deer just out of my traditional range. As you would guess, I killed a nice buck with it at 10 yards.

I do not hunt deer with a firearm but if my elk tag isn't filled with the bow I go back with the rifle in October.

[MedicineMan7]

I finally broke down and sold my wheel bow just before bow season started this year. With that being said, I've got another one that I traded for and have pieced together over the last year or so getting all the perfect bells and whistles put on it and in the time that I've had it, I can count on one hand prolly the number of times its been shot. Trad gear is always where my heart will be, but I sure like seein' arrows fly from 60, 70, 80+ yards and hitting exactly where I want to with my wheel bow. Because of that, I doubt I'll ever totally get rid of my wheel bows.

But, of all the critters I've shot with a compound, only a handful can compare in accomplishment terms to even the smallest of critters I've taken with trad gear. Just something about hearing the thump of the string on the limbs of a longbow and watching the arrow flying through the air as if in slow motion at times and visibly watching the arrow disappear into a critter. I've yet to find anything that matches that!

[ballgame]

May 2011 and never looked back.

[Hunter Todd]

[QUOTE=MedicineMan7;11866679]I finally broke down and sold my wheel bow just before bow season started this year. With that being said, I've got another one that I traded for and have pieced together over the last year or so getting all the perfect bells and whistles put on it and in the time that I've had it, I can count on one hand prolly the number of times its been shot. Trad gear is always where my heart will be, but I sure like seein' arrows fly from 60, 70, 80+ yards and hitting exactly where I want to with my wheel bow. Because of that, I doubt I'll ever totally get rid of my wheel bows.

But, of all the critters I've shot with a compound, only a handful can compare in accomplishment terms to even the smallest of critters I've taken with trad gear. Just something about hearing the thump of the string on the limbs of a longbow and watching the arrow flying through the air as if in slow motion at times and visibly watching the arrow disappear into a critter. I've yet to find anything that matches that![/QUOTE]


This ^^^^ I still own a compound, but hunting with the longbow is what gets my heart rate up!!

[Jmh05]

I don't plan on giving up my compound anytime soon, but I will be trad hunting a lot more and compound hunting a little less.

Still EXTREMELY proud of anything killed with an arrow, even my compound. But there's nothing like the raw feeling of a recurve kill. I only know that feeling three times, but three times I will never forget.

[Felix40]

After I killed my first buck with the recurve I got rid of the compound. Been recurve only since 2006. Missed out on a TON of kills but had a TON of fun. Could have killed a couple nice bucks and a couple decent bulls by now with the compound. Then this summer I bought a compound on a whim and hunted with it here in Texas this bow season. Killed a nice buck and hog. Enjoyed the hell out of it. I think owning both is the way to go. Unless you hunt in a target rich environment it's going to be very hard to get many kills with the recurve. That doesn't mean it's any less fun but sometimes I actually want to shoot something.

[Felix40]

I will add that I kind of wish I took the compound to Colorado this year too. I would be eating mule deer steak for dinner every night. Killing isn't everything but is definitely a major part of it. Bow hiking gets old after a few years.

[Deb]

I never had a compound

[meangreen04]

I like em both but I'm looking forward to getting better with the recurve and taking a deer with it.

[ghostgoblin22]

ill always keep the compound, I consider it my rifle lol...so late late deep in the season if I haven't tagged anything ill bring it out, plus I attend compound 3D tournaments with it, so Ill never sell my hoyt katera.....but 90% of my sits are with a recurve, and I usually hunt 150 hours a season