jklein:
You will see many people posting here, that reccomend you buy the bow that feels best to you. I have to agree. find a couple of reputable proshops in your area (I drove as far as 50 miles to find mine), that carry a good variety of brands.

Any competent proshop will encourage you to shoot as many bows as possible, and help you keep track of which ones are which, and how you felt about them.

Be sure to look at BowTech, Parker, and Mathews, as they seem to be top brands, and all shoot exceptionally well.

I've also heard from a lot of hard core Hoyt fans on these boards, so I'd have to say that they must be pretty good bows, though a little heavy for my taste (anything 4 lbs or over is more than I want to lug up a mountain after sheep. Mine weighs in at 3.6 lbs).

The four most important things to look for in a bow, are smooth/quiet shooting, weight, accuracy, and finally, speed.

Many of today's shorter bows offer all of the above, plus are easy to move around in heavy cover. The down side is that they may be a little less forgiving.

The easy way to find out if a short bow is for you, is to see if you can shoot one with any degree of accuracy.

You don't need to be splitting knocks right off the bat, but they should at least be able to group a few arrows in about a 3-6 inch circle.

Good luck in your quest.

Thane

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