"HOW
TO SHOOT YOUR BOW BETTER"
Practice Judging Yardage, Don’t Just Shoot Dots,
and Learn to Shoot Under Pressure
EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen Conners of Gadsden, Alabama, the
winner of the title of World Champion Target Archer
numerous times, the Archery Shooters Association Shooter
of the Year award, the Cabela’s Championship and
the Buckmasters World Championship, Conners also loves
to bowhunt. He originally became a target archer to
improve his bowhunting skills and shoots target archery
when he can't go bowhunting, his first and foremost
priority. Hunting with a bow requires a great amount
of precision. To make an accurate bow shot, you have
to have your bow, arrows, broadheads and shooting skills
all finely-tuned, as John Stiff mentioned yesterday.
Conners says that over the years he’s learned
that the little things, the forgotten or overlooked
aspects of bowhunting, often cause archers to miss their
shots when they have bucks in front of their broadheads.
Practice Judging Yardage:
Use
a rangefinder to check your ability to guess yardage.
Try to judge yardage in either 5- or 10-yard increments.
Remember, even if you shoot more accurately than anyone
else in your town and you misjudge your yardage from
the buck, you will miss the deer. To shoot better, learn
to judge yardage very accurately. Most hunters don't
spend enough time practicing how to judge yardage consistently
to determine their distance from the deer. Oftentimes
when a buck comes in and your adrenaline begins pumping,
you'll misjudge the yardage. To solve this problem,
I carry a rangefinder with me when I hunt. I range the
distance to several landmarks in front of me. Then when
a buck comes in, I'll know his exact distance from my
tree stand. If a buck is about 5 yards closer to me
than a tree I've ranged at 20 yards, I know the buck
is about 15 yards from me. With that information, I
understand how to aim. By using a rangefinder to determine
known distances to certain spots in the woods, then
you usually only have to judge 5 to 10 yards or 1 to
2 yards from that known object. If you utilize this
practice, you will become a very precise shooter. But,
you can't totally rely on a rangefinder. On a hunt to
Canada a couple of years ago, I had ranged my distance
to the edge of a grain field. When a buck came out in
the field, I knew he was at 50 yards. I used my 50-yard
pin, and even though daylight had nearly faded, I shot
accurately. When I stepped the distance off, I found
the buck actually had been at 51 yards. I only had misjudged
the distance by one yard. Had I not used the rangefinder
to pre-determine the distance, I might not have shot
as accurately.
Don’t Shoot Just Dots:
When
many hunters practice shooting their bows, they will
shoot at targets that have dots or bull's-eyes marked
on them. These hunters believe the smaller the dot they
can hit, then the more accurately they will shoot when
they bowhunt. However, I've bowhunted most of my life,
and I never have seen a deer in the woods that has a
dot on his side to indicate a kill zone. To affect a
lethal shot, you need to practice shooting life-size
targets to know how to target the kill zone and where
you must place the arrow on the animal when it turns
different ways. Most of us want to have broadside shots
at deer like the targets we have standing in our backyards.
But in fact, a quartering-away shot may provide a better
hit in many instances than a broadside shot. When a
deer quarters away from you, place your arrow further
back on the animal's body than you will when the deer
is standing broadside to you. The more severe the angle
of the shot, the smaller the target will be. Then your
aiming point must change. When you shoot dot targets
in your backyard, you won't learn how to shoot through
an animal like you will if you use full-bodied realistic-looking
animal targets. Most 3D targets also have the deer's
kill zone impregnated on the side of the target. When
you use these types of targets, you'll have a much better
reference of knowing where to place the arrow than if
you shoot flat dot targets.
Learn to Shoot under Pressure:
You
shoot like you practice. Most bowhunters completely
overlook one of the key elements of practice and don't
prepare for the mental pressure of having to move quietly
while taking a shot at a buck of a lifetime or a buck
of a season. To learn to shoot under pressure, invite
three or four of your buddies to practice with you.
Have them watch you and your shots. With someone staring
at you, ready to criticize your shot, you're under pressure
to make a good shot. This pressure simulates the same
type of mental pressure you'll face when you must execute
a shot properly as a nice-sized buck comes within your
bow's range. If you don't have 3D tournaments close
to your home before bow season, create them. Invite
a group of archers over to your house to shoot, and
set up as a prize that the losing archer has to buy
dinner for the others. Anytime you can add a prize to
a practice session, you'll increase the pressure you
must face to shoot accurately. If you learn to shoot
under pressure in your backyard or at an archery tournament,
you more likely will deal with that pressure better
and shoot much more accurately when a buck walks within
your bow's range during the season.
TOMORROW: USE CARBON ARROWS,
KEEP YOUR BOW AT ARM'S LENGTH, AND DON'T LET YOUR EGO
CAUSE YOU TO MISS DEER
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