As I sit here looking at my green nock sticking out of the dirt 40 yards away an hour and a half after the doe was standing there before my arrow whizzed over her back by two inches, I'm smiling at my fathers text. "Why do you use that stick?" Granted I had to let a nice 8 walk 4 times yesterday chasing a doe because I didnt like the shot... My dad a die hard gun hunter gives me grief for handicapping myself so much.... But his remark today got me thinking... Why do I use this stick?

Like many of you I grew up an adivd gun hunter with several deer to my name, but something started to change in my teen years. I began to feel not like a cheater, but that I had the odds stacked in my favor too much.  When I was 14, I saw an interview of Fred Bear (one of his last) where he said when you see a deer with a gun the hunt is all but over, but when you see the same deer with a bow the hunt has just begun. To say I had a new hunting fire was an understatement! Fast forwards 3 years and I had that feeling of unfair odds again while using training wheels. Placing a pin on an animal and pulling a trigger became mundane. I was looking through the magazine rack one day and came across "Traditional Bowhunter" 6 months later I  ordered a martin mamba recurve. Two weeks of talking at the archery shop on form, arrows, and foam targets I had a new passion. Now nearly 10 years later looking at a green nock from the 3rd animal I've missed with traditional gear in nearly a decade, on a shot I could have made blindfolded with modern gear, I smile.... not because I know I could of had her, but that I now know no greater feeling than my fingers plucking one of my stick bow's string.  


Why do you do it?

It's all in the challenge for me! 1st getting stickbow close,then drawing the bow undetected and then trying to pic a spot when my heart is pounding so fast! any other weapon is no challenge to me!  It is the hunt I love and not about the kill, the kill with a stikbow is the ultimate bonus!

it (trad bowhunting) just feels like the right thing to do.

For me, it's the challenge, but after seeing my first deer at 15 yards, it became.........the RUSH!

As I said, for me, there is nothing exciting about seeing a deer at 200 yards, putting the crosshairs of the scope on the deer and slowly squeezing the trigger. The thrill for me was gone.

But, taking a deer or other animal by the use of a bow....got the juices flowing. My heart rate beat faster, my breathing rate increased, etc. It seemed all my senses were heightened. I felt a rush of adrenaline which doesn't occur with a rifle. With my low poundage bows, I can see the flight of the arrow on it's way to an animal. Last, but not least, I enjoy the track of a good or even a bad blood trail. It's all GOOD for me.      

These are the reasons I enjoy the simplicity of trad bowhunting.    

Because I am old and stupid...  LOL

Really... Its a mind set just like yours and many others here. It does seem right as Rob said above.

I enjoy, if that is the right term, the ebb and flow of the hunt and the time in the woods...

Makes me feel alive!

Your story mirrors mine, EXCEPT for the fact that I actually STARTED out hunting with an old dual shelf Bear bow.

A couple years after my bowhunting career started, I was old enough to hunt with a firearm. (12 for archery, 14 for firearm...back then)

By the age of 18, I was an accomplished whitetail hunter. I bowhunted alone for the most part with the latest and greatest equipment, and gun hunted with family.

The use of gadgets by everyone I knew, and the pressure to fill tags had me using every new product I could find...but SOMETHING was missing.

Just like you, Fred Bear was always an inspiration for me, so the "traditional" feeling was never far away.

One summer, after carp shooting with my brothers` old Bear Grizzly, instead of putting it away, I got some some Cedars matched for that little bow and proceeded to carry on with it, until missing a huge, late season doe with it. I can STILL see those big, fat, feathers spinning perfectly as the arrow passed inches over her back.(PICK A SPOT   :D  )

For the first few years "everybody" kind of made a joke of my equipment, but when they realized I punched nearly as many tags as they did, the jokes stopped.

For me, it`s the "fire" you mentioned, and the fact that I can look at MY nock and smile, just as you did. "It" is a warm, relaxing feeling...kinda like sitting around a campfire.      

Because the reward, from finally making it all happen, is like nothing else. Plus, the close range in which we work is so exciting!

My hunting "career" echos those above. My family didn't hunt at all, it was my friends family that took me under their wings. At first, it started as gun hunting. I just sat in the blind with no weapon, just to expeirence the hunt. My first bow was a Kmart wheel bow that I shot with fingers and no sights. One summer, up in Grayling, I found a copy of Fred Bear's feild notes. Wow, did that change everything for me. That same summer we found an old Indian longbow in the rafters of my buddy's grampa's garage. I was hooked at the age of 15. I really don't think of it as handicapping myself. I think it hightens the excitment level, and I just enjoy it so much more.

I have taken numerous deer with a rifle....often I have had an empty feeling after the kill--"Well, another one down that never knew I was here."  The other day I was standing on the ground at the edge of a field as a young spike came sauntering along the field's edge headed my way.  He stopped maybe 30 yards away and stood on his back legs and chewed on a licking branch for a few seconds then proceeded my way--my heart was pounding and my breaths came in quick succession. It turned out that he veered up the rise in the field quartering away but stopped about 25 yards out and slightly up hill.  I took aim and released only to see my arrow arc up and hit a small branch of a tree limb sticking out that I had been sure I would miss.  The little buck bounced away not realizing how close he had come.  I never get that rush with a firearm in my hands.

Like Rob said, "It just feels like the right thing to do."  I couldn't agree more.

I grew up a block from Hoyt.  They sold me a defective kids long bow for 75 cents and arrows for 15 cents in1955.  I hunted with that bow daily. I was hooked.  Graduated to an Indian recurve in college in WI, and got near but never killed a deer. When I came home from  RVN I called home for my recurve to hunt Catalina but the recurve delaminated in the attic so I went to a shop in San Diego and bought a compound- shutter.  I shot that that for the next 20 years, seeing it meant it was in the meat locker!  I retired from the Corps and my wife gave me a
Tim Miegs DuoFlex. I have 6 real bows now and I live to shoot them.  It is the challenge of stalking, positioning and taking the shot.  I feel like a hunter not a shooter
I also feel the support I get from here.  Thanks,  Brothers and Sisters

"I feel like a hunter not a shooter" - as good a reason as any to be a trad bowhunter.  

It's soo much fun!

I would have to say my feelings mirror everyone's above and probably all those that will answer this post after me, we must have been from the same tribe at one time.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And out of respect for the game I hunt..
Traditional bowhunting is the ultimate sport hunting in my eyes.

I have great reverence for the whitetail deer. I put out protein in the off season and plant food plots for them that never get hunted. These areas are for the deer, to provide not only supplemental feed but a safe haven for them.

I hate to be perceived as an elitist but I am always disturbed when gun season opens and rifle fire rings through the woods. What a sad ending for such an elegant animal. My feelings only and not meant to be confrontational..

I love everything about it, from getting a set-up tuned til it drives tacks to seeing an arrow spinning towards an animal almost like it's slow motion...the beautiful lines of a simple bow, how light in the hand, the quickness of getting off a shot in some situations and just the history of these deadly handmade tools does it for me. I think a hunter with a set-up that brings confidence actually may have an advantage in the field, at least within range (which of course is the fun part)...

Roadkill! ( I'm a hunter not a shooter) well said. Maxx

Its a sickness      

I get bored with easy.


Rob

Just think of all that quality time we could spend with the family if we didn't practice, make arrows, chase critters. Well that's enough for me.

Just think of all that quality time we could spend with the family if we didn't practice, make arrows, chase critters. Well that's enough for me.