Thought for several days about adding my comments to this thread, started 10 years ago. Finally made the call to proceed due to the fact that it remains active and I am a newcomer to the forum.
I started my hunting life very young as a waterfowl hunter, being born and bred in Southern Saskatchewan. My whole family hunts waterfowl, and I still have that passion in my life. Age 16 comes along, and with it my first big game licence for deer with my fathers rifle. Success came early as I was now in central and Northern Alberta. Moose, deer and bear were collected annually, along with the ducks, geese and grouse. At the age of 24 I realized that hunting was no longer challenging. Enter my first bow, PSE Fireflight. I practiced hard and became quite proficient, taking a black bear and 5x5 bull elk that first season. These were followed up with further successes until the call for challenge reared again. Age 31 a PSE takedown recurve entered life, much practice and success further followed. Deer, moose and a bear, then I lost a poorly hit bull elk and bull moose in the same season. Reality hit home hard! Life and work commitments had taken away valuable practice time, and a decision had to be made. Sold the recurve and stepped back from bows all together. Enter the muzzleloaders. First the inlines, but found them not so challenging, really no different than my rifles (we have no special season here, thus no incentive to use muzzleloaders outside personal preference.) Thats when traditional sidelocks entered, both flint and cap. Took lots of game, hunting became more challenging again as my practice time allotment hadn’t improved, and joy was restored. Last year I again invested in a bow, low poundage compound however due to health issues and muscle loss. I hope to once again be able to get back into archery but will have to see. Now as age is catching up and eyesight is starting to go, my sidelocks sights are becoming problematic in all but perfect lighting, thus back into an inline with a scope.
Long story short, been there and done that, lol.
Hope I didn’t bore ya’ll.
Walk