ORIGINAL: GMMAT
I know shooting or become proficient with a traditional bow takes more practice. No one debates that.
Okay, you take your new recurve out and because of proficiency limitations your maximim range is 10 yards, you succeed at taking your doe at 10 yards, to you, perhaps that might mean more than taking one with a compound. Kudos.
Same scenerio, a new compound purchaser practices the exact same amount of time you do with your recurve, he's not so good so he too limits himself to only taking his deer at a maximum 10 yards and does so successfully.
Whose hunt was harder?
I get that.
Let me put it this way.
I can have my son.....who's never shot a scoped rifle....proficient enough to shoot a deer with it at 100 yds in minutes.
I can have him shooting groups of 9" from 20 yds in ......well....he was doing this the day he got his first compound.
He shot at my 2' x 2' with my longbow from 10 yds......10 arrows.....and hit it, once.
It's just leaps and bounds above (becoming proficient) anything else mentioned here (re: weapons). I'm still working on it.
So your allocating how long it takes one to become proficient with a weapon to how hard a hunt is. Some pick up things quicker than others. So with your example above, if it takes me longer to learn how to shoot (weapon of choice) than it takes you using the same weapon and we both kill a deer at 10 yards, my hunt was much harder than your hunt?