THAT'S IT!!!! Perfect name for a new class.... Outlaw Traditional! Only for shooters that use aiming/shooting techniques, bow designs and arrow materials that are illegal for the other traditional classes.

Arthur, &quot;Outlaw Traditional&quot; it may have to be <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>


If all Canadian shoots were shot as TC stated Longbow or Recurve I think they have the right idea. With no other limitations than an unaided stick it allows the participants to maximize their individual shooting efficiencies. Why force shooters to stay inside the box so to speak just so those who feel our sport stopped evolving during the time Howard Hill shot can justify their interpretation of the word Traditional as it refers to archery. If we were forced to use our equipment to put food on our tables for our family....we would shoot what ever style or equipment was our most efficient.

Efficiency for me would then be Claymores wired to a IR Trail Event Timer
Say cheese MR Venison!

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Seems to me that the reason you got so many classes and such is because if they didn't some jerk, with terminal trophy cravings, would show up with a bow mounted on a gun carriage and claim it was traditional because the Chinese used them 2000 years ago.

Just stop a minute and think about it. More rules happen because people don't follow the rules that are already there. Winning is everything for you guys so don't act like you don't understand what's happening or why.

Rita,
Winning isn't everything to me or my hunting buddies. Bringing home venison still isn't everything but I like it more than winning a 3-D shoot. Being out in the woods and enjoying good company IS the most important about the sport. I must say that there are some who will do anything to win (Even Cheat). That's not for me. Please don't try and fit everyone in the same mold. Dick

Hi Rita......Obviously I failed to get my point across.

I have been active in archery for more than 40 years. In my youth winning was everything. I competed in the NFAA, NAA, PAA, and finally the IBO. I shot a LB at first...then curves....then wheels starting with the old Jennings Model I and ran the gammit through all the high tech equipment I could get my hands on until archery was no longer fun. When it became mentally more draining than the worse day at work it was then the competition fires went out for me and I turned my back on archery all together for almost 4 years.

I knew I needed to get back to shooting arrows again but I also knew that I wanted it to be fun. I looked back at when I enjoyed shooting the most and found it was in my youth with my old Bear longbow. When I returned it was with a Longbow in hand with no desire to compete ever again. This path I have chosen has been the most fun I can ever recall in my years with a bow and an arrow.

My point of this topic was to basically ask why organization which are supposed to represent us....don't! Club shoots show the real heart of the archers who prefer to shoot sticks. More and more I see archer enjoying this sport using techniques and equipment deemed illegal in classes set up for these shooters to shoot in by organizations who are attempting to define the sport for its users rather than the other way around. The cart shouldn't push the team of horses! IMO it is and at the expence of allowing the archers to maximize their personal accuracy potentials and ultimately their enjoyment of the sport.

Less rules and less classes will cut down the whining and really eliminate the cheating. For cheating is breaking the rules....with fewer rules there are less to break thus less cheating.

To say all we care about is winning.....couldn't be further from the truth for myself and those I share my shooting times with.

Jim, over the past 15 years I've been tournament director for somewhere around 100 events. BELIEVE ME, I've heard more whining and complaining from the wheelbow guys in each tournament than I've heard from trads in all those events combined.

I've seen that most trads are only at the tournament to shoot arrows and BS with their friends, and to make new friends along the way. In fact, quite a few of 'em (even some that I've known for years and are deadly accurate shots) don't turn in a score. Most of 'em will take a trophy if they get lucky enough to win one. Only a very few are actually on an all-out mission to win a $15 hunk of wood and plastic. Those are the guys who wind up joining the big organizations and start raising a major stink to get the restrictive rules passed by the orgs.

Unfortunate, but that's the nature of the beast in competitive archery.

If enough people were interested in getting the rules changed to allow all arrow types and legalizing 3-under, then joined the major orgs (IBO and ASA) and raised their own major stink to get the changes, the rules would change.