RE: Shorter ATA Bows?
I have two thoughts on my draw length right now. 1) When I did the longbow thing the tech told me to pull back a little further than I was. I wasn't anchored right and that brought me upt to 29 in his opinion. He may or may not be right. Some 29 draw bows feel great to me. Others don't. My current bow at 29 is too long but I think that has more to do with a spongy back wall on the Parker Buck Hunter. It seems to want to give a little bit more at full draw. Bugs the heck out of me sometimes.
2) I just went and shot and there was a pretty good shooter there who watched me shoot for about 30 minutes and gave me some pointers. He THINKS my draw might be 1/2 inch too long and that I might be better at a 28.5. I was doing some torquing and he showed me a different grip and worked on a few other things and before long I was shooting a lot better. Than, I got stupid and shot a Darton Avalanche that the shop had. At 29 inches it felt perfect. Damn thing shot X's for me at 20 yards after getting it sighted in. Maybe it was the lesson but the bow was a lot more stable in my hand. Little larger brace height but a little shorter ATA. Also a heavier bow. Liked it a a lot. Nicer handle than the Parker and better balance... Damn..
As far as being new to the sport, the harder thing right now is that I shot a lot as a kid about 15-20 years ago. And I have some real bad habits from back than that for some reason come back to get me at times. Just need to retrain the muscles and the eyes to do what I want them to do. Low brace heights have driven me away from more than one bow so far. No arm slapping or anything like that but anything below 7 is just, well I have my torquing issues.
You are right, I am going to keep shooting different bows until I find the one that I like and that fits all my needs. At 10 bows shot now I know which ones are my favorites and which ones, ehhh, were not right for me. There are at least 4 more bows that I would like to shoot before I make up my mind and chances are I will be picking two bows in the end. I have really like 3 bows that I have shot now and if I had to choose between the three it would be easy right now which one I would choose. But there are more bows to shoot and I need to go back and shoot the ones I liked to make sure I like them still. You have to make sure you are comparing a to b and not a to c and c to b. Oh well, the quest continues.