I know this group is about traditional bows - but I am getting ready to purchase my first bow and would like your honest opinion. I will be hunting whitetail from a stand 90% of the time other 10% stalking - What bow should I start with? I have never owned a bow ad would like your personal recommendations - Also any brands that you think would be a great starting bow
- Thanks
Mike
I have run the gammot of bows I have shot crossbows compound bows longbows and recurves.I wish I would have started with recurves because I don't believe I would have ever switched.The simplicity of a traditional bow is great ( not having to worry about your gadgets breaking ).As far as a recomended bow that is a very personal thing and only you can decide what one feels good to you.Almost all of the bows on the market today are high quality and will shoot better than most of us can make them so just try a few out and see how you like each one.Hope that helped some
You are correct in that this is an extremely biased trad. bow forum! But you are still welcome. I am assuming you have posted your question in the bowhunting forum as well (I haven't been over there in quite a while)?
Nonetheless, WELCOME TO ARCHERY!
Do you want to shoot Traditional or Modern equipment? If you don't know, the main question that you need to ask yourself: How fast do you want results?
With a compound, you could buy the bow and have the shop outfit it with any sight, rest, quiver, stabilizer, sling, dampeners, silencers, and a set of properly spined and cut arrows that you need and on top of that he'll even paper-tune it for you before you leave; with this set-up, you could go home, shoot for 30min to an hour and have all of your sights set at the yardage (most likely 10, 20, and 30 and reliably take game at each distance) you wish and go hunting in a matter of days as long as you can judge distance reliably (i.e. rangefinder).
OR
You could purchase a recurve or longbow and have the shop give you a variety of arrows (since you don't know which type will shoot best), a glove or tab, which ever type of quiver you fancy and you can go home and practice for at least a month before you will even feel confident to hunt. That is considering you want to know your arrows will go in the vitals every time at a given distance.
If you ask opinions HERE, you will obviously get a Traditional answer, go to the bowhunting forum and you will get the wheel and pulley answer. It all depends on what you really want, and how fast you want to hunt with it. I was shooting a compound for years and took several deer with it and this year I decided to swap and purchased a recurve (which most people say is easier to start off with). I got it in the middle of November, and I haven't been bowhunting since because I can not reliably hit a deer in the vitals past 10yds. To me it felt like I was shooting a rifle limited to 30 and occasionally 40yds. When I picked it up, I knew exactly where my arrow was going, all I had to do was line up the pin and pull the trigger. To me, traditional adds a reality check to archery. If you don't do your absolute best every week you practice, you can't hold your responsibility to game everytime. With a compound, you can shoot it, sight it in, lay it down for a month, and pretty much come back with it hitting in the bullseye with no effort.
It all depends on what you favor. But I like traditional because aside from the differences of the actual bow, I can and do make my own arrows and the neat thing is that my arrows probably don't look like anybody else's just because they are my personal crested arrows with feathers I cut and cedars that I shaped. Sure you can pesonalize aluminum and carbons for a wheel bow, buy MY arrows have character!
I am sure you will get a few different answers but this is my response for what it is worth...
"Clutz by Nature, Hospitalized by Fate..."
Pyral
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" Clutz by Nature, Hospitalized by Fate..."
...Pyral
If you're looking to start out now in order to be proficient enough with your bow that you can hunt next season, then it doesn't matter which way you go. You've got plenty of time to get good with either. But I do want to congratulate you for your good sense in doing so. A lot of people decide they want to take up bowhunting a couple of days before the season opens, then go out and make bad shots on game.
If you're going to be stalking, a recurve or longbow is much lighter to carry and not nearly as noisy and clanky as a compound with all the doodads. Go to a tournament and you can see that all compound shooters are constantly looking for an excuse to set their heavy rigs down to rest their arms and shoulders. You don't see much of that with stickbow shooters.
Most of today's compounds are practically designed to be treestand bows. You carry them in, drag them up to the stand and hang the things on a hook until just before shooting. And like Pyral says, you can get good enough to hunt with all the gadgets a lot faster with a compound.
By the same token, it takes longer to load an arrow, clip on a release, draw the bow, establish a 3-point anchor, choose the correct sight pin and shoot than it takes to load an arrow, grab the string, draw, anchor, point and shoot a stickbow. Shooting a compound is a very techical, mechanical way of shooting arrows, and very critical of shooting mistakes. Stickbows take a much more fluid and natural style and you can get away with some slight booboos to make a good hit.
You can get started in traditional for a lot less cash than compounds. You can find very good old recurves, especially Pearsons and Shakespeares, for $50-75 that still have a lot of good shooting left in them. Or you can buy a custom bow from a lot of makers and wind up spending less money than you would on a middle of the road compound with all the accessories. You can also spend the equivalent of the national debt on a top of the line, fancy custom from a big name bowyer.
Basically, there is no good answer to what you should buy. It boils down to personal preference and what kind of hunting experience you want.
Yeah, it depends entirely on how quickly you want it all to happen. You could be in a treestand in a relatively short time with a compound as compared to a trad style of bow. The only problem I see with taking up a weapon that takes little practice to use, is that it doesn't leave time for the shooter to learn the other aspects of hunting, because releasing an arrow at a live and possibly moving critter is only a very small part of the hunting whole.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, you might be able to arrow an animal in a relatively short time, but if you aren't able to track the wounded animal after the shot, what's the point? No matter which way you decide to go with the bow, learn the other aspects of hunting before venturing out to shoot at living critters.
Make em sharp and shoot em straight, or leave em home.
Edited by - wahya on 01/06/2003 10:51:54
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Make em sharp and shoot em straight, or leave em home.
Thanks for all your comments - I have rifle hunted for over 10 years and I am just wanting to do something new (also want to hit during the rut rather than after) - What pound bow is common for whitetail and elk?
Thanks again
Mike
Traditional or Compound
