chops, my hunting buddy is a compound only guy, and he is quite successful with it. He thinks I'm crazy with my interest in traditional gear, and especially hunting with it. I am pretty certain, though, that within a year or two the tide will have turned, and I will have persuaded him to hunt with a longbow or recurve. He doesn't think so, but we'll see.
I find the sense of satisfaction I get from seeing myself improve with my longbow to be more rewarding than the admittedly more reliably accurate (for now) work I can do with my compound bow. It's kind of a funny thing.
The benefits of trad vs. compound for hunting are several:
1. Considerably lighter gear to carry into the field.
2. Less complicated and therefore fewer things to break or go wrong.
3. Much faster to get a shot off (especially when one uses a mechanical release with a compound).
4. Typically no rangefinder needed when shooting with a traditional bow (also contributes to being faster to get a shot off).
5. Easier to see the target and shoot in low light or fading light.
I'm sure there are more good ones I'm not thinking of at the moment, but these are off the top of my head.
Honestly, the main reason I am happy about having a compound in addition to my long bow is that I can compete in more than one category in our local weekly matches. Most guys at my range and club are in one camp or the other, but there are a couple of people who dabble in both, like me.
pipebow88, I also want to thank you for starting this thread. How about we start including some pics of gear, etc.? I will try to take a few photographs this Sunday from the range and post them.