Making the switch – Compound to Trad!

I was fortunate enough to grow up in central Virginia in a very rural area in a family full of people who loved the outdoors. Surrounded by national forest, I spent most of my free time wandering the hardwoods and stalking brook trout and smallmouth bass in the streams and rivers. My first firearm was a single shot .410 that my father said I could take out when I was strong enough to thumb the hammer back. That day finally came about the age of twelve and off I went down a path that has taken me over many hills. I still haven’t reached the end.

A love for the outdoors and for hunting comes from different places for different people. For me it was all we talked about at the family dinner table. Other people come into the hunters fold from other directions, influenced by friends, books or an intrinsic curiosity with the natural world and our connection to it. For me it was the .410 and the stands of white oak and hickory I stalked looking for grey squirrels. In a few years the .410 was replaced with a 20 gauge and I walked the timber with eyes on the ground looking for turkey sign, a box call sticking out of the pocket of the army surplus fatigue jacket I had found at the thrift store. In high school I acquired a .270 and the opening of deer season became every holiday wrapped up in one. It wasn’t until I moved to Iowa to attend graduate school that a friend introduced me to bow hunting. He had a Bear compound bow and it didn’t take long before I had one too. His family owned a farm in northwest Iowa and I was soon infatuated with the intensity and personal nature of hunting with a bow. There was something magical about sitting in a tree stand while the forest awakened before slipping down to still hunt the edges of the corn fields and woodlots. I killed my first deer with a bow as it stepped from the standing corn into the open. The stand I’d chosen was hidden behind a cottonwood tree fifteen yards away. I was shaking so hard I could barely draw the bow. I think I may have closed my eyes when I released the arrow but, somehow, my arrow found it’s mark. My friend killed another buck that same morning and somewhere in a box at home there is a slightly out of focus picture of us sitting on the tailgate of a pickup grinning like jack o’ lanterns with the two deer between us.

My path then led me to Idaho and the gigantic scale and majesty of the intermountain west. I bought myself a better compound bow and used the skills I had developed since childhood to hunt elk for the first time. The learning curve was steep but I was confident in my woodcraft and I was soon successful. I would try to explain to friends and family back east the unbelievable rush of calling in a rutting bull elk but words can never do that justice. It’s just one of those things you’ve got to experience firsthand. For me it is an experience that grabs you by your very essence and grounds you to the Earth like nothing else. I have been bow hunting elk for fifteen years now and the connection it gives me to my primal being has not faded at all.

A few years ago I ran into some guys that were traditional bow hunters. I was intrigued by chasing deer and elk with those simple and elegant weapons. For me, the attraction was in the simplicity, a further distillation of the hunting experience unencumbered by the perfected trivia that so pervades the modern hunting culture. I did some reading and research but time caught up with me and when elk season rolled around, I grabbed the compound bow. Recently, I borrowed a recurve from one of my friends and took it home to try out. I cleanly missed the target from twelve yards, sending the arrow into the wheatgrass where it was soon joined by its siblings, a far cry from the mechanical lethality of my compound. I got some instruction from my friends and soon I was hitting the arrow stop, my groups getting tighter. I took a few steps back from the target and the wheatgrass claimed another victim; this was going to take a commitment. It was apparent I’d be learning to shoot a bow all over again. No peep sight, no release, no let off, no nothing. A bent stick, a string, me and a target. It is both simple and complex like life and death and all things in between. I was at a crossroads. I looked over my shoulder to see where I had come from, then looked forward and thought about where each fork may lead. What is more meaningful and rewarding? Where we go or how we get there? I walked into the wheatgrass to look for my arrow. I had chosen my path.

Author Bio
Chuck Boggs was raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and spent his youth hunting and fishing in its rolling hardwood forests. At the age of twelve, after volunteering with the state fish and game agency, he decided to pursue a career as a fisheries biologist. This decision led him to the Midwest for his undergraduate and graduate degrees before landing him in north Idaho where he has worked as a fisheries biologist for the University of Idaho for the last twenty years. An experienced outdoorsman, Chuck has logged many hours in the western US conducting fisheries research, chasing big game and trying to keep up with his bird dogs. This professional and personal passion for the wild edge has provided Chuck with extensive knowledge and experience in wildlife ecology and wilderness travel, hunting and safety.

A note from Clay: if you’re new to traditional bowhunting, or are thinking about making the switch from compound to trad, check out the Professional Bowhunters Society. They’re a group of hardcore, dedicated bowhunters that are happy to help. And don’t forget to check out the audio file at the top of the post.

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