I don’t know if it counts as a switch. I bought my wife a compound for her birthday the year we got married because she said she missed shooting a bow like when she was a kid. I never had an interest in archery before. I quickly developed an interest, but I also immediately felt like a compound bow with a peep sight and a mechanical release was nothing more than a very cumbersome and inefficient firearm. I liked the flight of the arrow, but the apparatus seemed quite inappropriate. I made a handful of board bows and really enjoy shooting them.
Last fall was the first time I really tried bow hunting, even though I’ve shot a bow casually(in the backyard when bored) for almost ten years. Before the season opened I decided that I would shoot my FIL’s compound if I had a bead on a great buck but couldn’t get it done with a longbow as I would still consider my first archery kill to be quite the accomplishment regardless of what kind of bow I used. I actually didn’t choose a longbow out of any sense of purity or accomplishment, I just felt like it was what should shoot arrows. For me that’s completely separate from hunting. When the season opened and I actually started hunting I never felt a need yo switch to a compound. Although I technically got within a range that some consider to be in range for a compound shooter, I never felt like my problem was my bow. My problems were me. Would I have gotten the job done with a compound? Maybe. It would have been an advantage on at least three occasions. It may have resulted in my first archery kill. I don’t look back and wish I’d carried a compound. I plan to use a long bow this season as well.
