Coastey, I have found it to be more sastifying to hunt with than a compound, to me it is more of a challenge to get a deer with. I have tried both but went back to the recurve bow years ago and enjoy still today.
If you put a recurve against compound at a 3-D shoot scenerio being log in front of animal with vital just showing a little bit majority of time the recurve shooter will hit the vitals while the compound shooter will hit the log or they will not take the shot, why because the compound is almost alway flatter, while the recurve shots are lobed (that trajectory type of up and over the log into the kill zone type of flight pattern of the arrow) into the kill zone. with practice you can shoot just as good with recurve bow as you can with compound bow. they have less maintness, just remember to wax the string, keep-em sharp shoot-em straight. You will enjoy it.