Welcome aboard! All I can say is that your first two steps are good ones. I’ve only been around a short while, but there are a lot of nice folks willing to share the wealth of knowledge they’ve gathered over the years with you.

My older brother found a nice old Bear Kodiak at a flea market for $10. I went the other way and ordered a custom Java Man longbow that should get here some time in the spring.

There’ll be folks that know a lot more than me about good choices for you along directly.

Good luck,

Gary Davis

Welcome aboard. There are ways to measure your draw length. The big consideration on any bow whether recurve or longbow is that will it pinch or stack on you with a longer draw. Also if you are just restarting you might want to go with a lighter weight and develop good form and accuracy and then build up to a heavier weight. After all if a bow says 60# @ 28″ then if you are drawing say 30″ you will be drawing 66# which maybe a little hard to draw and shoot right from the get go.

If You can find a Traditional shop near You, go and have Your draw lenth checked. Most Folks find when they switch to a trad. bow thier draw length shortens up some due the differant form in shooting. Have fun in Your pursuit !

Check out the Samick takedowns–something like the Sage or Red Stag. You can start with a set of 35lb limbs, then once you’ve remastered your form you can buy a set of heavier limbs. This’ll be a lot cheaper than buying a second bow and it might be a quicker way to experience success than wrestling with a 60 pounder right out of the pen.

I should have mentioned prices. The Sage is ~$130 and a set of extra limbs is ~$70. Pretty cheap way to get back in the saddle, and these are good bows.

http://www.lancasterarchery.com/bows/traditional-bows/take-down-recurve-bows.html?manufacturer=2181

Welcome to the trad world. I’ll second Prowler on the Samick and the light limbs to start. I started out with 30lb limbs and it was best thing I ever did as form is the foundation on which all trad shooting is based. Picked up 45lb limbs cheap and I’m currently shooting those. Hope to move on to a custom bow over the next couple of years once I have the money and my ability can justify it.

Welcome back to trad shooting. Compounds are fun too, but I love traditional so much I’ll probably never go back. Sixty pounds is more than enough weight to hunt white tail. I would recommend cutting that quite a bit. I don’t have experience hunting larger game, so I don’t know what weight to recommend for that. Martin bows and Bear bows are great and won’t break the bank. I like the others’ posts about replaceable limbs to achieve different draw weights. Most bows’ weight is rated at a standard 28 inches, so you don’t need to know your exact draw length to buy the bow.