I have been bow hunting with traditional equipment for the last ten to twelve years. I do 99% of my hunting with a longbow, although I do have a recurve as well. My suggestion is to find a good used recurve or longbow in the 35-40 lb pull weight at your draw length. I believe that 35 lb draw weight is the minimum you can hunt with in Louisiana. The most important thing by far in traditional hunting, is proper form. If you begin with a heavy draw weight bow, you will handicap yourself significantly while trying to learn the correct form and technique to shoot well consistently. Initially, any bow with straight limbs, good construction, and consistent pull weight (you want the bow to smoothly add the pull weight as you draw, for example: the pull weight will increase 3 lbs for every inch of draw) will do to learn.. You can always upgrade in quality and poundage as you progress in the sport. By the way, I have had pass through shots on whitetail deer and one shot kills on hogs with a 35 lb recurve bow. It's where you put the arrow, not how hard the bow is to draw that kills them dead. That is why proper form and technique is critical when shooting without sights or other aids. My suggestion is to go online and check out some of the traditional bow hunting sites. There is a wealth of information available to every level of hunter, and some extremely knowledgeable people that are happy to help in any way they can. One of my favorites is tradgang.com. Register on the site and check out the shooting form section, the shooters clock is the best training aid I have seen. There are also videos that people submit that are critiqued by the other members so you can see virtually every mistake you can make while shooting a traditional bow, as well as helpful comments on how to correct the problems. There are also forums you can ask any question you can think of and get some very astute answers. You can google traditional bow hunting sites and spend the rest of your life checking them all out.
www.artofmanliness.com has a list of links for the beginner traditional archer to check out. Good luck. It is by far the most exciting way to hunt, especially when hunting on the ground, eye to eye with the animal you are hunting!!!!