It was at basecamp on the Rocky Mountain High slopes of the Uncompahgre National Forest in western Colorado on a beautiful 1973 September afternoon. I was bowhunting mule deer in the most phenomenal era of giant mule deer ever with a camp full of hardcore fellow Michigan arrow flingers.
Lead by the legendary Ron Chamberlain of Leslie, Michigan, dear friend and founder and president of the BlackHawk Archers, we were an old-school recurve and longbow army of serious backstrappers to reckon with.
Practicing with our bows midday, we would aim small and miss small at a distant little white Dixie cup on the sage-covered hillside at various ranges, occasionally even hitting the darn thing.

A fellow archer and schoolteacher from Wisconsin by the name of Ray Butterfield had joined our little camp and moseyed over to our makeshift shooting range to join in on the arrow fun.
In his hands was some sort of mechanical beast that many of us had never seen before. We were aware of the Allen and Jennings progress with the newfangled compound bow technology, but some of us had never seen one in action.
The compound bow first appeared around 1966 when Hollis Wilbur Allen originally introduced it. He got his patent for it in 1969, but it was a rare day that those early prototypes showed up at many deer hunting camps or at the range.
I don’t recall if we were more amazed at the unbelievable velocity of his arrows, the horrible clanging noise the bow made with each shot, or the phenomenal consistency with which Ray nailed that little cup, but it was quite the introduction to the tidal wave of things to come in our beloved archery and bowhunting world.
Having the distinct honor to bowhunt with the godfather of bowhunting, Fred Bear, each year, like Fred and so many of us, I too resisted the compound bow for a long time.
Fred and I would shoot the thing now and then, but it not only looked, sounded and felt weird, especially to the legion of instinctive archers, but the damn thing was completely opposite of the graceful, historical pieces of archery art we were used to all our lives. We built up a growing dislike, to put it mildly, of this new, anti-archery looking contraption.
On a fateful, never-to-be-forgotten October bowhunt in 1976, the hellish demons of target panic descended upon young Ted, and all bets were off.
Blessed once again to be able to turn to Fred Bear for advice, I implemented all the proven procedures this great man recommended, and slowly but surely, I learned to at least manage this dreadful affliction.
It was during these attempts at mitigating the treachery of target panic that a few bowhunting buddies pushed me to try the compound bow as just another remedy variation.
I must admit, that within a year of shooting my first Jennings Super-T compound, I was back at flinging some pretty consistent arrows, and the totally different, and rather distracting feel of the compound had a lot to do with it.
With my new Jennings, I went on to kill a nice moose in Alaska in 1977, lots of amazing big game in Africa in 1978, and a few years later, by the time I grabbed hold of my first Oneida bow, I was back on track.
There is no question how the let-off of the compound bow technology can simplify the archery experience, especially for the beginner, and that this technology has caught on like wildfire since those early years has been a wonderful boon to the bowhunting and archery world.
I readily admit, I am extremely impressed by archers who can shoot the old recurves and longbows with consistent accuracy. There is something primal and uniquely graceful about those beautiful bows being drawn in one fluid motion.

I still shoot my old, beautiful, amazing Bear recurves all the time, but when it comes to delivering a deadly arrow on the hunt, my confidence level with my amazing Mathews compounds eclipses that of my recurve prowess, and the compound is my go-to dream bowhunting tool to get the job done.

As I draw back various compounds from many different manufacturers on a regular basis, I am constantly amazed at the always-improving shootability, and yes, pure archery, of their constantly advancing engineering.
When I emphasize the grace with which old-fashioned bows are in action, I must say that the word graceful is more and more applicable to the archery experience with modern compound bows.
My belief remains, that if one hand holds the bow, and the other hand draws back the bowstring to release the arrow, we are experiencing and celebrating archery as pure as archery can be.

A big salute and thank you to all those clever engineers like Matt McPherson in the archery world who provide the most enjoyable and efficient bows ever to celebrate the eternal mystical flight of our arrows. Shootemup!
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