HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - I had archery in junior high school with recurve bows.
Old 02-01-2022, 12:24 PM
  #2  
bronko22000
Boone & Crockett
 
bronko22000's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Eastern PA
Posts: 12,737
Default

Johnny you're correct in your assumption of the recurve being "more elegant". But technology has a way of stiffling that. Today's compound bows shoot an arrow almost twice as fast as a good recurve bow. And crossbows are even faster!
And to complicate things even further besides sacrificing speed is, especially if you shoot instinctively, is the amount of practice you need to stay proficient with the recurve (or longbow). Plus unlike a say 60# draw compound bow, when you come to full draw you're only holding back 14# @ 80% let off. With a recurve you're holding the full 60#. You'll be using muscles you've never used before. Believe me when I tell you "don't try and be Mr. Macho and shoot a 55# or more recurve." You be perfectly fine with a 40# - 45# draw.
Way back when I started bow hunting which is going on 60 years now all we had were longbows and recurves.(even before I was able to hunt at the legal age of 12 I was already shooting a recurve bow for about 5 or 6 years). I spend hundreds of hours behind my grandfather's house shooting at targets on hay bales.
I shot my first deer, a big fat doe when I was 12 with a Damion Howett Queen recurve that was taller than I was! My next harvest wasn't until I was 16 on a nice basket racked 8 pointer using a brand spanking new Bear Grizzly 40# draw. There were quite a few misses and blown opportunities in between but thankfully I never wounded one. I either hit and killed or missed completely. And I'm thankful for that.
If you plan on hunting with a recurve be sure you have the time to practice, set a limit on your effective range and stick to it. You owe it to the animal to make a quick kill.

Last edited by bronko22000; 02-01-2022 at 12:29 PM.
bronko22000 is offline