IMO…FWIW…i believe ‘trad’ will stay as popular as it now and possibly grow.

the world of compounds is a fascinating one, indeed. many prefer the technology they offer; but that technology is something that “turns me off”. especially in the “looks” department. 😯

admiditly, they are without question, faster than recurves and longbows but the cost of the gain in the speed is the loss of simplicity, the gain of weight (in hand) with the old adage “the more there is, the more there is to go wrong” in effect. 😕

speaking for myself…gimme a recurve. 😀

“MEN”
I kinda wondered when the compounders were gonna catch up to us ?8)
Tj

I don’t believe you will ever see that. In a lot of cases, it’s all about the short-cut to success. A good number of bowhunters today are just rifle hunters that are looking for a longer season. These guys aren’t looking for a simple stick & string.

I’m a teacher and its sad to say that a majority of the future hunters don’t have the patience for Trad so I don’t think that it will ever happen.

I just couldn’t deal with a compound any more. I couldn’t find one that felt good, but when I picked up my first Herters I felt the magic.

chrism wrote: I’m a teacher and its sad to say that a majority of the future hunters don’t have the patience for Trad so I don’t think that it will ever happen.

Hey I’m 15 and I have the patience for trad bows:lol:. All though you are right about us future hunters. All my hunting friends, (and my brother:cry:) have compounds and sights. Luckily my ten year old sister loves shooting her traditional bow and wood arrows.

Trad vs. Compound…I think about this all the time. I bought a sweet reflex-deflex longbow about a year and a half ago, and shoot it 3-4 times a week, mostly indoors in my shop on winter evenings and outdoors when I can during the day. Lots of outdoor practice during long daylight hours.
I also have a compound bow, picked up 5 years ago. I’m afraid that at this stage of my development, I still prefer to hunt with the compound because of its deadly accuracy and not wanting to wound and lose deer in the deep wood and salal in our forest. For myself, its an ethics thing: when I feel an adequate level of confidence, the longbow will replace
‘ol wheelie, but for the immediate future, it shoots targets only.

I shoot my compound the same way I shoot my longbows – finger release, no sights. I shoot my longbows every day and the compound once every couple of months. It’s a fun way to shake up my routine.

All any hunter needs to remember is its all about the journey not the destination,or in owe case the “kill”,It is not about their weapon of choice.But hey that’s just my views and I’ve only been hunting with trad bows exclusively for 8 years now,But it has been like this is what I was always born to do,I’m a convert in the biggest way,It is no longer some thing I do but who I am.
One proud traditional bow hunter,Cheers Ken

As mentioned previously, I don’t think trad will shrink, but I don’t think it will take over compound bows.

I hate to say it, but the one problem with trad is time to shoot. I try to shoot 3-4 times a week. I can to this because I shoot right in my yard. Not everyone can that unfortunately and that lack of shooting time will keep many hunters sticking to compounds in my opinion.

No I do not think that there will be more people using “trad” bows than using compounds in the future for all of the reasons stated. If that ever happens it will be because the compound had to be pushed into its own season because of its ease to master and effective killing range – just as the other hunting tools.

Of course, I refer to the compound as a compound, a crossbow as a crossbow, and “trad bows” as bows. So for me, one using a compound during archery season is hunting with a compound not a bow. thus, I suppose that as far as I’m concerned only bowhunters use bows and the rest use something else.

I hunt with both longbow and compound. I shoot both year round and on any given day I will practice with both. I have no problem with those who like just compounds,but I love converting some to try trad gear. Shooting a compound gets boring,all else being equal it takes a few shots to bring gratification. A stick bow makes you work at what you want to achieve bringing a sweeter reward. Its not what you hold in your hand but what you hold in your heart,hunt ethically.

trad will never take over compound for one simple reason you have to be special and to belive in your self and commit to trad as you would to any martial art it is not a part time thing it is a way of life and a release from everyday life and the so called modenworld . If you look at any 2 trad archers-hunters none are truely alike it is atruely indervidual past time and that in it self brings many differant inerviduals together Oh by the way there is no such thing as trad archery its all archery

I drew a tag for a controlled hunt in a metropolitan park this past fall. The park didn’t want any ham and eggers so you had to qualify with your bow. The target was at 20 yards and pretty much down hill. When I showed up to qualify, I was the only one with a recurve. Everybody else was shooting compounds and cross-bows, the latter with scopes, of course. It was a little intimidating to line up with all eyes on the weirdo with the recurve and wooden arrows. I consider myself a fair shot, and to be sure, I practiced for several weeks. What I didn’t anticipate was the down hill shot, but it wasn’t completely strange to me since in the 2 years I’ve been shooting a recurve, I did a fair amount of hunting from tree stands. The target was a 8 1/2″ X 11″ sheet of paper tacked to a traditional archery target. To qualify, you had to get 4 out 5 arrows anywhere within the paper target. From 20 yards, it looked awfully small. My first practice shot was in the target; the second missed the whole thing and skipped into the chest high grass behind the target. Now I’m sweating and I don’t dare glance at the gallery because I can feel the smirks. I shot my other 3 arrows and they were all over the target, one or 2 inside the qualifying target. I retrieved my arrows from the target and made a quick entry into the weeds to look for my 5th arrow. Gone. So I climbed up to take my chances and put all 4 arrows within the paper target. The park ranger who checked me out said I was the first guy in 6 years to hit the target “with one of them.” I started traditional and in 3 hunting seasons I;ve had more fun than a man should have and made some great friends. I don’t begrudge the compound folks and their ability to reach out a lot farther than those who prefer the tradional gear. It’s just a matter of preference. Plenty of room in the woods for both of us.

I started out shooting my Grandfathers Bear Grizzly in ’82 & got my first bowkill deer with it in ’84 but in ’87 my uncle gave me a graduation gift “a Ben Pearson model 250 Compound.”

Since then I would occasionally shoot traditional but no where near what I should have till here recently when I said ENOUGH!

Now I’m on the road to the right path & hope that by October I’ll have the confidence in my self to take a Recurve into the woods again “I’ll hang on to my last hunting Compound till I have that confidence” but till then I have been shooting regularly videoing myself to catch any flaws I should address.

But to answer the question, unfortunatly no the Traditional Recurve/Long Bow will not be as popular as the modern Compound bow because of advertising, speed, & the ability to hold at a lighter weight but in contrast with many states allowing Cross Bows I see the trend to those as well making it ever more harder for us to bring in new faces to our side of the sport & way of life.

as has already been said many times, it’s doubtful that traditional tackle will ever overtake technological tackle. i started started shooting a 55# bear grizzly in 2002 at a 3-d shoot. definitely NOT the place for a beginner to start. i think i lost more arrows in that one day than i do in a year, now, 7 years later. in the seven years, i’ve killed 2 whitetail does, and taken shots at 4 others. sure, my connection ratio isn’t what compounders have, but i love the close encounters. i’ll stick with a recurve for hunting and stump-shooting. i may start shooting my dad’s old pse compound, but i’ll treat it as if it’s a recurve, as well. no sights, no release and no fancy-dancy arrow rest. and it will probably only be a target/back-up bow at the very most.

hey here is some hope i to am 15 the second 15 year old on here, and have the patience for traditional i think it will grow, but the compound will stay my mom shoots one and after a few hundred shots could hit a golfball 40 yards away,personally they are just to darn ugly for me i like curves and character

it’s good to see some “young blood” taking to traditional gear. a lot of the people i see at shoots tend to be over the age of 50, which means they were probably hunting with recurves and longbows when the first compounds came out. i applaud those folks that stuck with traditional gear in the technological age. and i applaud anybody that has the patience and determination to learn how to successfully and accurately shoot any traditional gear.

MontanaFord

“hey guys just kinda wondern what everybody thinks:
do you think that traditional bowhunting will pass up compound bowhunting in the future?”

Nope…Van

As president of the Tupper Lake Archers here in New York for the past 7 years I can tell from what I see here is that Traditional archery is alive strong and growing. 2 years ago we set aside one day of our shoot in June specificly for traditionalist. Not sorry we did. It is growing and we see everything from seasoned to kids 4-5yrs old. Great feeling.

After a few years of shoting with compound I bought a beautiful Martin Mounteer logbow at a garage sale for $50.00. The thing is in excellent shape. I don’t think they knew what they had there. Now after 5 years of shooting traditional, I have found that the hunt and the stalk and having to get closer to your target are more thrilling than being able to shoot a deer at 60 yards. After a great hunt and a good harvest I have the most satisfactory feeling that it was myself, a stick and string and arrow that harvested my game. Until you have felt that you may not know the extent to what I am talking about. For those of you who are new to this, just wait until you harvest your first deer, elk, or what ever you are hunting. Then you will know what I feel after a successful hunt. To me, that is why I choose to hunt in the tradional way of life. Good luck to you all.

Dan

I think that more and more people will be moving over towards traditional archery, for the simple fact that technology is overwhelming in our everyday lives, especially compounds, and eventually people are gonna get sick of the techno junk and want an escape, something simple with no stress, ie. traditional archery.

I am “new” to trad bowhunting, because I feel that sucsess(i dont spell well):lol:is in the hunt, and not the “kill”. I think that it will gain popularity with people that think the same way

I think traditional archery may not so much surpass hi-tech archery in popularity as survive it.

Personally, I am interested in archery from a historical standpoint, and the farther away I get from traditional wooden bows and arrows with real feathers for fletching and simple steel broad heads, the farther I am from what interested me about it in the first place.

Wheras I’m interested in archery because of its history, those high tech users aren’t really interested in archery in itself so much as hunting another season – in my view, they’re the same type of people as those who hunt “black powder” season with super modern guns with scopes and the whole shebang, which to me completely defies the whole purpose of doing it in the first place – which would be to experience hunting the way my ancestors did.

As the number of hunters wanes (we have seen a steep decline for several decades now) the number of bow hunters will also decrease, but the smaller subset of people into traditional archery will, I think, remain.

I’ve been at this a long time (since the mid 70s) The percentage of trad to compound has been the same (approx) since the mid 90s. You would think the numbers are increasing but we seem to loose as many as we gain. It’s about 10% nationwide with some areas very strong and others very weak. You will see some small areas with lots of traditional shooters due to either a strong trad shop or a club with a solid traditional foundation. As a whole though we are 10% and I don’t see much change from that. It takes a certain “personality” to make the decision to do everything the hard way.

hey i swithed…now it’s %10.1:lol::lol:

I started shooting a bear whitetail when I was about 13 at 41 I switched to a bear Montana longbow. Of all the bow hunters I know (compound/trad) both thought I was little whacko when I switched, but im happy I did I like it so much I sold my last compound bow. I dont think trad will ever outnumber the compound guys, hunting with a compound is too easy and not many people are willing to do things thats more dificult I think its our society everything we do is supposed to be easy and if it aint easy have someone else do it.

Sorry but YUCKKKK! to a compost bow! 🙄

Like many I started out with an old recurve then my dad got me a compound. I never did use a release always fingers – but all the other techno stuff really just turned me off of them. When I hunted with a compound I would not shott at a animal over 30 yards – I coul dshoot accurate to 75 on the range – With my curve my limit on critters is 25 with a 40 yard max on the range.
I truly beleive side by side a recurve is a better HUNTING weapon than a compost bow – albeit it has to be in the hands of someone with the deidication to make it so.

J

My dad gave me his old PSE Big Sky Magnum, along with all of his other archery gear, and I was fortunate enough to work a deal with the local bow shop to “traditionalize” that compound. I shoot the same arrows out of it that I shoot out of my Bear recurve, I shoot with fingers and no sights. Basically the only advantage I have over my recurve is the let-off that the cams give me. I had the compound set at the same draw weight as my recurve. Do I shoot one more than the other? Probably the recurve. I’ve taken the compound to one 3-d shoot this spring, and actually, my shooting wasn’t really any different than with my recurve. The main reason I shoot the compound is so that I can tell my dad this fall that I killed something with his bow WITHOUT sights or a release aid. An elk would be the best, but anything would suit me just fine.

Michael

My wife and I just spent the last weekend at the Michigan Longbow Association’s Great Lake Longbow Invitational for the first time. Boy was that a great time. I have never seen so many folks walking around with longbows in my life. I have to believe that when people discover tradtional shooting they will be hooked. My good friend and archery coach was a stedfast recurve shooter until he tried my longbow…now he has two longbow and is hooked. He too was a compound shooter for years after shooting recurves since he was 12 years old. Compound bow shooting will never disappear but then again neither will traditional shooting and hunting. Personally I love it so much that I shoot almost everyday. I recently bought a Martin Stick Bow for my wife and now she is hooked on traditional shooting. During the weekend she shot her first 3-D shoot and did very well. Traditional bows forever!!!!

Dan

this is a tricky one, I think the question is deeper than that, the real question is this, would hunters rather test there primeval hunting instincts or would they rather make things easy. There is a old saying that probably noone on this sight follows, “work smarter not harder” I think that is what the rest of the hunting community is doing, they are finding ways to make there hunt easier. Honestly I think it is ruining our sport. Let put all the new technologies into perspective:
A 200 yard rifle shot is short range anymore?
The great Uncle Ted Nugent says “if you arent baiting your hunting wrong”
Almost every “modern hunter” uses that scent blocker crap!
And most compounds are deadly out to at least 50 yards.
Bottom line is that I think in the near future DNR and Dept of fish and wildlife are going to have to define the word “bowhunting” because when you can shoot a animal with a arrow at 80 yards then that is considered a rifle shot in my neck of the woods? These new crossbows that are now legal in my state for anyone to hunt with are shooting almost faster than that old 30-30 my dad hunts with(dramatization):D. Personally I like to challenge myself because if I would hunt with a compound then my season could be over in the first two weeks!!! Recurve for me, longbow coming soon!!!!!:D

I am confident that trad will grow, but it will never “overtake” compound technology. Too many people are addicted to short cuts to success. But there is one complicating factor, and I’m surprised no one has mentioned it: the crossbow. PA and MI recently joined OH and several other major bowhunting states by legalizing crossbows during their archery seasons. A friend who works in a sporting goods store in OH told me that the year after this legislation passed, he sold ten crossbows for every compound. While this is obviously an unconscionable disaster for bowhunting in general, perhaps the day will come when the compound goes the way of the dinosaur, with no niche left between recurves and crossbows. Just a thought. Don

The crossbow is something that scares me. I think that the crossbow is a great management tool, however that does not mean that it should be classified as a legal bowhunting device. It is now legal for anyone to use in maryland, it used to be that you had to be disabled, then they changed it to anyone could use one but only during certain times of the bow season. Now people can use them basically all season. In my opinion a crossbow is just a silent rifle. They can do just as much at 100 yards as a rifle can!?

Hi all, I’ve been following this discussion not knowing which side of the fence to come down on (not really traditional all the way)

The question was Trad vs. Compound but no context.

We have all assumed that the context is hunting because amongst other things that’s what we are about, however consider accuracy, range, consistency, reliability, noise etc. all these things can be measured.

But if you use those criteria you miss the essence of hunting, the pursuit of wild game in their environment close up, smelling what they smell or even them and taking them in the same way our forefathers did, all with a bit of fancy wood and string. It’s almost magic closest I’ve got to a religious experience and addictive.

Rifle, compound and crossbow users will never have that experience so I just feel sorry for them.

There speaks a rifle and ex compound shooter, Mark.

I’ve shot both, and both have a place in bowhunting. However, I really like the feel of a stick and string. I also get a better feeling of success when I hit something using my eye/hand coordination and not sights.

I found a compound more accurate but boring.