Me and my dad went down to Libby, MT to spend the weekend at a trad. only shoot. It was a lot of fun, 45 target course, great food, and great people. I did some flintknapping with my dad for a bit, animals have nothing to worry about:D. Meet a man who is building bighorn sheep bows, there absolutely incredible! 70#'s pulls like 40. They just don't stack up and are incredibly fast. Overall I shot decently with my longbow. Seeing and doing all of this really made me want to make the switch to full trad. I know its one of those deals where I will have to sell my compound and go balls deep in order to switch. To me, however, I feel it's more of a personal battle of ethics more than the experience. Honestly, i'm not sure I could calm myself enough with trad. equipment when a deer or an elk presented a shot. I still get the fever with my compound, but I feel more concentration is needed, perhap a different type of concentration is needed with a trad. setup. I feel as if I need more harvests under my belt in order to ethically justify making the switch in my mind. I'm still fairly traditional in my compound ways, shooting a heavy arrow, and limiting shots to very close ranges. I'm not the type to fling arrows out to 60 yards because I can practice good at 60 yrds. I consider myself an in cognito trad shooter For me the harvest isn't the size of the animal, rather what I FEEL is the animal I want to take. Overall, I know I will switch someday I just don't know when. Perhaps I just need a swift kick in the ass.
Backcountry I wish I had known about the meet in Libby, as its just up the highway from Kalispellm, MT. I will be finding out where more Traditional only shoots are and gatherings.
well in my opinion there are too many people decideing what is and what isn't "ethical". do you think back before compound bows people thought that they were unethicallly shooting animals. you can miss or make a poor shot just as easily with a compound bow as a longbow or recurve. the ethics isn't the weapon you use. best thing to do is become more confortable with shooting your longbow and feel confident in hitting the mark. i also don't think that you have to only shoot one or the other, there are no rules that say you can't hunt trad one week or year and then hunt with the compound the next. just have fun good luck
