Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance. ♪
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're enjoying this series that we have, Becoming a Bowhunter. This is Becoming a Bowhunter 102. Last week we talked about gear getting set up. This week we're going to be kicking it up a notch in the knowledge department and covering all things shooting.
So we're going to be discussing and breaking down the shot process, what it takes to be accurate and precise, how to obtain repeatable consistency. I'm also going to cover my theory on practice and what it means to have a bow in tune. We also have our first ever surprise guest lecturer on Cutting the Distance podcast. So grab your release, grab your bow, gather up your arrows, because hunting school is now in session. Now when it comes to shooting, I am of the thought that...
You should shoot all year. I personally shoot constantly. I always have. There's quite a few reasons for that. One, I don't think that there's such thing as too much practice. And two, I just love the act of shooting my bow. So
So as I got more and more into archery, I would shoot more and more, you know, growing up, it was pretty much my entire summer was spent shooting a bow in my parents' backyard. I remember my brother or whatever, he would always be at the lakes, water skiing, wakeboarding, whatever. And I've just always been a very singularly focused individual. Hunting has always been my thing.
and bow hunting especially. So as soon as school ended, it was like in the backyard shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting. And then every Tuesday or Thursday, I would go do a summer 3D league, shooting 3D targets at different ranges. Often as I could take my targets out somewhere else, get a little bit different angle practice or whatever, but just obsessed with shooting as much as I could, as often as I could. And because of it, I got really good at shooting. I actually...
it wasn't something that I ever thought I would do tournament type shooting because I thought it was ridiculous that archery tournaments went during hunting season. My, my sole reason for shooting a bow was hunting, but I really enjoyed the aspect of shooting. I actually did shoot a couple tournaments just for fun in the winter. Uh,
kind of in the off season. I did pretty well when I started. I mean, I got first or second place in most little local tournaments. I never traveled for anything, but just for fun, just to see how I would do, see how I would stack up. In many of those tournaments, I shot a lot different than most of the people because I was very self-taught, but I did pretty well. Now, if I was thinking about what was my best shot ever, you know, spending all summer practicing and my friends would come out, we would shoot,
And I'll never forget this one day, my buddy Brett and I would pretty much spend most of our summer shooting our bows. And I kind of got him into archery. So we spent a lot of time together, not just hunting, but also practicing as well in the off season. And we had the targets set up.
And I'd been just on fire. So we kept moving back and moving back. And it was about 30 yards. And I had a, I like to place a golf tee on my target. Like my thought was aim small, miss small. So I'd put a golf tee out on the target and then try to, you know, hit the golf tee. And I could hit it pretty much a hundred percent of the time at varying ranges. So I was telling him that, you know, I've been practicing at further ranges. This was a lot kind of before people really started shooting at further distances, but
I shot the golf tee. I think it was 50 yards. So I just drew back, shot the golf tee, like center punch this golf tee. He's like, oh, wow, crap. That was a really good shot. I was just feeling cocky. I was just feeling good. And so I was like, he's like, I bet you can't do that again. And I said, I bet I can hit my own arrow.
He's like, no way, no way. 50 yards. He's like, I'd put 20 bucks on that. So I drew back in a hundred percent full confidence, let the arrow fly and no joke, Robin Hood, Robin Hooded my same arrow. I still have those arrows in my cabin. I've got a deer skull and above the bed there. And I still have that arrow right above that. I mean,
I played it off like it was a hundred percent. I mean, I called the shot. I was like, I bet you 20 bucks. I could do it. Um, probably a one in a million shot. You know, I could probably never do it again. If I tried, that was the last time I tried to Robin hood and arrow at 50 yards, but it gave me a lot of confidence going into the hunting season and will forever go down in my memory is the best shot I've ever made. As we jump into this one Oh two portion of becoming a bow hunter, um,
really shooting is one of the more important fundamentals that you need to be a successful bow hunter because the art and skill of being able to successfully harvest game with a bow and arrow takes a lot of practice. It takes knowing your bow very well and being able to put that arrow where you want it to go, no matter the kind of bow you use, whether it's traditional gear or a compound bow, it's practice, practice, practice. And for me, I think that
one of the fun things about getting into archery is the fact that it becomes a, almost a year round endeavor where you grow your skills by going out to the range, by shooting your bow and you get better and better. Oh, hopefully you get better and better over time. So when you go out into the field, when you are presented with that, maybe one opportunity in a season, that really hard earned opportunity, you make that one shot count. Now, growing up, I was, uh,
Aside from hunting, the other thing that I was very into was martial arts. I obtained my black belt in Taekwondo. I think one thing that always stuck with me, aside from a lot of the other lessons you learn, was that one saying that we would always have, perfect practice makes perfect. I kind of carried that same philosophy into archery.
And it's so true because if you're making bad habits, doing bad things, then you're going to make bad shots. And if you keep practicing that every single time you shoot, then you're going to develop bad habits and you aren't going to be
as efficient as you can be. So I think what I want to talk about today is really the shooting basics and what it means to be a good shot. I think when it comes for any kind of bow shooting, what you're striving for or what I like to think of is I'm striving for repeatable consistency because with that repeatable consistency, I'm going to be both accurate and precise. And we'll get into the details of that a little bit later.
what I want to start with is really just starting through the basics and explaining a shot process. Let's say you've never shot a bow or you've shot a bow your whole life. It doesn't really matter. I'm going to break down the practice of shooting a bow into this process. And I guess it's really, for me, I see it as a five-step process. Maybe people have other processes, but
It goes like this, draw, anchor, aim, release. And then the final one would be again. I like to think of it like karate kid, you know, Mr. Miyagi going again, again, again, Danielson, you know, just like repeating the motions to build that muscle memory, to allow yourself to be able to shoot no matter the situation, no matter the pressure, no matter what's in front of you, building that same shot,
going through the draw, anchor, aim, release in a correct way that then you can repeat it again and again and again. And you build that muscle memory. You build that comfortability with it through practice. So just like last week, we went through and talked about the gear you need. I mean, some of the things you need
to be an archer would be a range somewhere. A lot of people set up ranges in their backyard. And I'm not even saying just starting out, you don't need to be shooting 60, 70 yards. You could be shooting, uh,
five feet as long as it's a safe direction you're gonna shoot through wall or something like that you've got a target the can stop an arrow you just need to be able to go through this process a shooting the boss work we're gonna taking it from the basics and then building that out so its tips that pretty much anybody can use but especially those starting out so let's go through the first step the draw so the draw is the point where your arrow knocked on the string and you're pulling the bow back
Why does the draw come into this process is because when you think of it like hunting, there's a proper way to draw your bow and there's an improper way to draw your bow. And if you draw your bow improperly over and over and over, your muscle memory is going to draw your bow improperly over and over. When I think about hunting,
The little things are what lead to success. So if you have to hold your bow up high, what I call sky drawing, where your bow's in there and you struggle to pull it back, and then you arc it down as this big motion, and then you're at full draw, there's a lot of things wrong with that. The first is in a hunting situation, it can cause attention to the shooter, which can cause the animal to jump, which could spook the animal, which could
lose your opportunity at success by the way that you draw. What I like to do is draw in a fashion where I could hold the bow out where it's going to be for my shot and draw straight back. It also, I believe, does other things because it helps you with your anchor. So that whole process of developing that muscle where your bow is already almost on target and you draw straight back to your anchor point, then you have less movement. You're more likely to
settle that pin where you need it in a quicker amount of time. You're less likely to be moving a lot and get a lot of motion in your bow. You're already in position to make a good shot. So I think that the draw is the first portion of this entire process that needs to be done right. So I like to practice in a way where I can draw straight back in a smooth, fluid motion and get to full draw. So that's when the bow's drawn fully back.
Now, the second point is going to be your anchor. So the anchor is where you're going to build consistency. I think that, like we said, we want to build repeatable consistency. So that repeatable consistency means doing the same thing over and over.
If you think about a rifle or a bow or anything you shoot, shotgun, doesn't really matter. You need to have everything in line correctly. Now, when you're looking through a rifle scope, the stock's up, your hand's on the stock, your finger would be on the trigger when you're ready to shoot, your cheek's on the stock, you're looking down the rifle scope and it's got a crosshair that you can put on the animal.
I think of a bow more like open sights where you say a traditional open sight where you've got a bead at the front, maybe a little V notch in the back and you have to line those two things up. But it's a lot easier in a rifle because you have the stock and something as a point of reference that touches your face, touches your body, touches your shoulders stationary. If you think about the sight of a bow, you've got it way out on your front arm and you have to make sure that you're looking through it at the same exact place because it's
single point you could put your finger up with an eye closed and you could move your head and all over the place and that single point might not line up with where that arrow is gonna go so your anchor is probably the most important thing when it comes to building consistency now if you're shooting compound bow you're gonna have a peep sight which allows you to kind of peep through the string and with
When you anchor, you're going to want your hand, your string, your eye, everything in the same place every time. So in order to do that, you need to find something that's comfortable where you can remember, where you can lock in and it's the same. For me, I actually use multiple different anchor points. So I use on my hand or my releases, I lock my thumb into a certain place below my ear. I've got the string touching my nose in a certain place. I used to always anchor with the
arrow fletching in the corner of my mouth. I think I just developed a habit of that when I was shooting traditional and then just continued it with
compound bows but now I've adjusted that so I get a little bit more sight travel out of my bow but you're going to want something where it's it's in the same place every time and then you're going to be looking through your peep at the same time and then I center through concentric circles my sight housing I like around sight housing personally you know obviously all the peeps around so I can line up those concentric circles so I know everything is exactly the same every time so
My hands in the same place, my eyes in the same place, the peep is in the same place. I'm looking through that site in the same place. The string is in the same place.
Now I'm ready to go. I'm going to build consistency. One thing if you're getting started, when you try to find that anchor point, you know, you can mess around a little bit with what feels comfortable. I like it where my head can be in a natural position. And then I'm also looking for that arrow to be in what I would consider the cradle of my face where there's not a lot of pressure on the string hard against your face.
So that's something that I think some people do because they've got like this great anchor point way back here and the bow might not fit them right and the string cutting through their cheek real hard. Well, that puts pressure on the string and you can never consistently put that pressure the same. So you don't want that pressure on your string. So you're going to try to find a place where the arrow is
does not touch any part of your face. Like it's in that cradle between your nose and your chin maybe. And everybody's face is a little bit different. Longer faces, maybe they're anchored a little bit lower. Shorter faces a little bit higher. But what feels good to you where you're not putting a lot of string pressure and then you can make it repeatable. And that repetition and consistency is going to make your shots a lot more consistent. So now the third stage of the shot is going to be aiming.
I didn't cover some of this last week because I thought I'd talk about it this week. But if you're new to archery, I really believe that you're going to be best shooting with both eyes open. And there's a reason for that is because you can simultaneously see the target and focus on your pin. And it's going to make you more accurate in the long run. It also, I feel like, relaxes you.
When you're squinting and looking, you're really trying to hone in on something, but it kind of has, for me at least, especially when I'm rifle shooting or whatever, I notice if I shoot with both eyes open, I'm more relaxed, I'm a better shot, I'm more aware, and I just am able to focus on the target and my sight at the same time. So in order to do that, you need to actually choose a bow for your dominant eye as opposed to your dominant hand. This is especially if you're getting started for the first time.
So how do you do that? What you're going to do if you put your hands in like a
together, out in front of you, stretch both arms out, make a hole in your hands where you could see through it and then focus on an object in the distance. Close one eye. So like say close your left eye. And if the object stays there, then the eye that's with the eye that's open, then that's your dominant eye. So right now I'm right eye dominant. I know that, but I've got my arms stretched out. I'm looking through the little hole in my hands between my, so I got like my index finger and thumbs kind of together, making a hole in my hands. Um,
I close my left eye, the object I'm looking at is there. I close my right eye, the object moves. So my right eye is my dominant eye. If you're left eye dominant, then when you close your right eye, when you're looking through your left eye, the object will stay there. And when you close the other eye, it'll move. So you want to make sure that you're, in order to shoot with both eyes open, you're going to be having to shoot a bow that's designed for that dominant eye. So a little side note.
And now we'll get back to aiming. So when I'm aiming, aiming is a very, very important process. What it is, is it's putting the pin where you want the arrow to go, but it's also figuring out a couple other things. So am I in my consistent spot? Is my peep centered with my sight housing? Is my bubble level? And then is the pin on the spot I want to shoot? Once all those things check out, then we're ready to shoot. So
I'll kind of break down the things that I think of when I draw back. So I'm in my backyard, I'm practicing or I'm shooting at a deer or an elk or whatever.
I put my bow out to where I'm going to draw back. I draw back in a smooth, fluid fashion. I find my anchor point. I anchor and then I, what I call settle in. I look through the site. Everything's lined up. I level my bow, make sure that, so almost every site has a level in there. And the reason for that is as you go out to distance, if your bow's canted in one way or another, that moves those pins in a different direction and it will change the point of impact. So
making it left or right. You would think, oh, I can tell if my bow's level, but when you're on unlevel terrain, like a hillside, a slope, other things, or shooting downhill or shooting uphill, it's very hard to decipher whether that bow's level, because what feels level may not actually be level.
So it's very important to have that bow level, especially as you move back. Maybe if you're shooting real close, it might not make as big of a difference or not as drastic movements, but it does make a difference. So I draw back, I anchor, I level, and then I focus in. And the way that I focus in is I pick a spot on the target. I focus on that spot and I kind of let my brain do the rest. That's the part where the actual aiming portion, instead of focusing so much on
and where it's at. I just look at the spot that I want to shoot. I let that pin hover in that spot. And then I hope that the bow goes off while it's in that spot. And that's the release portion. So I'm going to release...
a perfect archery shot, the bow goes off as you aim in almost a subconscious release. So you might hear people talking about a surprise release. That's the best. If you drew back and you're just focusing on the point and then the bow goes off when it's there, oh, it surprised you. That's great. So I kind of pull through my shot. So I'm focused in, I'm aiming. And as I'm aiming, things are happening in the background where that release then goes off while that pin is on the point that I want it
to go off and it just somehow happens by itself. I know that sounds really strange. You're like, well, how do I practice that? You know, you'll, you'll, as you start to figure that out, you'll start to practice. I think one thing that's really important, whether no matter what kind of release you have. So there's a lot of, as we talked about before, back tension style releases, I use a trigger release, but I shoot it in a back tension way. So what back tension is, is as I'm pulling through my shot,
I'm allowing that bow to go off and I'm just trying to hold the pin where I know it needs to be. So I like to center...
whatever it is. I think sometimes we get too wrapped up on putting our pin on the target. I just kind of, whatever I'm shooting at, and this is one of the reasons I use a single pin, but I like to center whatever I'm shooting at in the center of the sight housing. So I can just make like many, many concentric circles. It doesn't matter if it's a deer or whatever, you know, deer is not a circle, but I've got my peep, then I've got my sight. And then I just put whatever I'm shooting at straight in the middle or where I want to hit straight in the
and it's all good things from there. I don't have to try to push up and pick a different pin or whatever. It's just a little bit easier, a little bit smoother. If you're just a beginner, that's not going to really make any sense. But if you shoot a lot, that should make a little bit more sense to you. Now, the release portion is something that I think...
You can definitely practice without even using your bow. What I do sometimes is if I get a new release or I'm going to, maybe I'm like shooting really bad one day and it's okay. It's because I'm punching my trigger. I'm, I'm getting too excited. And I'm, instead of subconsciously letting that bow go off as I pull through the shot, I'm just, uh, I'm letting that bow. I'm just telling that bow when to go. And when I do that, I'm not as accurate. So what I'll do is I grab some paracord and
like a length of paracord. I tie a loop, so it's a loop of paracord, enough to where it'd be like full draw position. And I just loop it in my thumb and I go where it's tight and I got my release on and I just find my anchor point and I just keep pulling. So I just essentially stretch my
shoulder blades together. It's kind of the way I have learned to do it. Keep pulling straight back, straight back, focusing on whatever's ahead and that release will go off. Then reset the paracord. Keep doing the same thing, practicing that release. So in each one of these, I'd say stages of shooting has its own little nuances and things you need to learn to make that perfect shot.
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When you're just getting started bowhunting or it doesn't matter, guys that are really good bowhunters, really good archers, I think what you're looking for is both high accuracy and high precision. And I think it's important to kind of talk about accuracy versus precision. So accuracy is the measurement of closeness of a specific value. So it's like accuracy would be hitting the bullseye.
And then precision would be the closeness of measurements to each other. So a good group. So you could be very precise. So like low accuracy and high precision would be, let's say, let's just picture a standard circular target. You got the bullseye in the center and then you've got another ring outside and another ring outside. So low accuracy, high precision would be like a really tight group, say top left corner. That means it's not in the bullseye, but all your shots are together.
Now, low accuracy and low precision would be you're looking at the bullseye and there's just it's spray and pray. There's one in the bullseye. There's one up high. There's one right. There's one low. There's one left. There's just all over the place.
Then you could have maybe something like high accuracy, low precision, where that's all the shots are kind of around the bullseye, but it's a spread out group. Some guys, this is one thing that I've seen over the years is, oh, I can hit a pie plate at 30 yards. That's the pie plate mentality. Like I'm just trying to hit the pie plate. You know, I put them all within the pie plate at whatever range and that's good enough. Yeah, I mean, maybe, but I kind of like the idea of not necessarily...
hitting that pipe late, but saying, okay, I'm at that certain yardage. I want high accuracy, high precision. So that's all my shots in a tight group in the bullseye.
And by being able to do that, you're going to be a lot more successful in the field or even just on the range. So I think that the goal is to become both accurate and precise. But if you're just starting out a new bow hunter, you're the first time you're starting to shoot. I think that we start with precision first. And it might seem strange, like, oh, I'm not hitting the bullseye.
But that's not necessarily the point. We want to first build out precision. And I think that that is, you know, getting those tight groups because you're getting the tight group by doing the same thing over and over. And it comes down to, I'll just say the same thing three times, form, form, and form.
It also comes down to a bow that shoots straight. But precision comes from making something repeatable. So you first want, before you do anything else, you want to work on your form. And form is everything. It is your grip, your stance, your anchor point, your draw cycle, and the way that you release. If you can do everything the same every time, you're going to have more precision.
And those are the things that you want to work on starting out. And those are the things that I work on as a lifelong bow hunter, uh,
pretty much every day. If I'm not in the field, I'm shooting. And I, and I've actually noticed the more that I shoot, sometimes you'd think the better you get, but sometimes you start develop bad habits and other things. So then you got to go back and say, what my form is the, is the weak link? What am I missing? What am I not doing the same? Where am I maybe pulling the shot? Where am I maybe hitting the trigger too soon? Where am I maybe thinking too much and not aiming and following through with my shot?
Where is the part of my form that's causing my precision to degrade?
And working on your precision doesn't have to happen at any certain yardage because we're just working on building out that form, building out the same thing over and over. So we're going to set our stance. This is backyard practice, but it does translate into hunting in many ways. So we're setting our stance. We've got our grip. You want to make sure your grip is the same every time. So some people grab the, you don't want to grab the bow tight. You want a loose grip. I like to let it cradle between my
thumb and index finger. And then I kind of put the tips of all my fingers on the riser of the bow. I feel like that's a shot that I can reproduce with heavy gloves because I, like I said, everything I do is built for hunting. So I try to find a grip that even with gloves, I can try to make it consistent. I would say probably in the long run, the grip is the thing that adjusts like messes up your shot more than anything, the grip and then the release.
Not the physical release, but the way you release. Then, you know, make sure I've got a good anchor. I've got the stance. I've got my draw cycle down. I've got my shot process. And then I release. And building that, that could happen at four feet. That could happen at whatever. Just getting that form down and shooting the same every time. So that's our precision. Now we're going to work on our accuracy. And the reason I say accuracy second is
is because accuracy could come in as, okay, maybe my bow is not shooting, like my sight isn't right. So now we're going to sight in our bow. We're going to move our bow. If you're new to bow hunting, you follow your arrow. So if I'm aiming at the target,
I've got my pin out there, I shoot, and my arrow hits low and right. Originally, when I had nobody to tell me how to do this, I did not understand this concept, but you follow your arrow. So I'm going to now move my sight housing down and to the right, because what I'm doing is I'm trying to match my pin to where my arrow actually is, because I'm not going to be moving the rest to match my arrow to where my sight is. I hope that makes sense.
So once we've got that, then we can start to build our accuracy. Now, the other thing that might affect accuracy would be the way that you're looking at the target, maybe not holding in the right spot. So once you've got your bow sighted in, everything's hitting where it's supposed to, we walk out our different ranges, everything's right. Now, what's one other thing that affects accuracy? And that is holding steady, holding on target, and then releasing and not, I mean, I've been guilty of this many times in the past where I've
They call it target panic. You almost, your body almost instinctively jerks in one direction or another before releasing the arrow, trying to will it into the spot. And you might, you might find this where you draw back and it's like your pin is just nestling low on the target. And it's no matter what you do, you cannot will that pin high enough into the spot. So right before you shoot, you just slap the trigger and move your hand up and get it in there. That's a bad way to shoot. And that's actually how I started shooting. Um,
Um, I was very, very efficient with it though. And I, and then somebody pointed out that I was shooting bad that way. And then I developed a bad habit trying to fix my bad habits. Now I don't shoot like that, but, um, I would say getting started, it's, it's a really bad way to learn to shoot. So what you want to do is you want to be settled in. Now, if you have the, some kind of problem where you're
You aren't able to settle that pin. Don't even focus on the pin, but focus on the spot of the target and let your pin naturally be in there. You don't have to get so precise with it. That's why if you actually move your sight housing closer to your bow, it's, if you move it out, it's a little more precise because you can see exactly where the pin is. But I think most people shoot better, especially beginners when that site is close enough.
to the riser of the bow because it's more blurred. It's in your peripheral vision and you're just getting the color of that pin on where you're looking on the target. And when that bow goes off, that arrow magically goes there. That's in my opinion, what you want, especially for hunting.
Now we talked a little bit about accuracy. We talked a little bit about precision. I think one thing that really lends itself into having a precise bow, especially when it comes to hunting is, is the bow itself and whether that bow is in tune. Now that's some terminology that you'll definitely hear. If you're a new bow hunter, you might not understand what's what's in tune. And what that means is that's the straightness of which your arrow flies through the air. So
As we go from our shooting setup, our practice, we're probably using field tips, which is just essentially a tip that is the diameter of the arrow it's pointed. And your arrow flies very true like that. Now to go from a practice setup to a hunting setup, we're going to have to put on a broadhead. A broadhead could be a fixed blade. It could be a mechanical blade. It could be
a two blade fixed blade, a three blade fixed blade, a four blade fixed blade, a replaceable blade fixed blade, a expandable blade with three blades, two blades, whatever. What's going to happen is it's going to change the aerodynamics of that arrow. So your arrow might fly different than your field tip. What really affects how that arrow flies different than your field tip
is going to be the straightness at which that arrow is leaving your bow. And the straightness at which that arrow is leaving your bow has a lot to do with a lot of factors. The cams, the timing of your cams, the way your rest is set up on your bow, the way that the string is touching any points in your draw cycle, and also the way that you're holding or gripping the bow. So what we're going to want to do is we want that arrow to be flying out of the bow straight. And in order to do that,
There's ways to check the tune of the bow. And so if the bow's in tune, many times your broadheads like might fly the same as your field tips or in very well-tuned bow. That is often the case. I have bows that I could shoot any tip and they pretty much fly the same place, aside from minor changes in drag curve, you know, like might be a little bit slower or whatever. But for the most part, they're flying in the same place for all intents and purposes, or at least for my
ability to tell based on my skill level. And there's a lot that goes into tuning a bow. So I figured this week, I might as well bring in a guest lecturer, a really good friend of mine,
Tim Brunette. He's done Solo Hunters with. He's the other guy on Solo Hunters, but he also owns an online bow shop. He tunes a lot. I don't think I know anyone that's tuned more of the same bow that I shoot than Tim. So he's got a lot of experience tuning, and I thought it'd be cool to bring someone else in here, hear a little bit different voice on my podcast, and talk about different kinds of tuning and how to know if your bow's in tune. When you first get your bow...
No matter how it came from the shop, the tech at the shop is going to shoot the bow one way, but ultimately the bow has to perform the best in your hands. So when you get a bow home, you really should shoot it through paper. You should set up paper at five yards, shoot a fletched arrow through it, and see how that arrow reacts as it's going through the paper.
you'll be able to know from the direction of where the fletching hits versus where the tip of the arrow hits. So for example, if you shoot the arrow through the paper and you can see the impact of the field tip on the left and the fletchings are on the right, then you've got to adjust your rest accordingly. And the same thing would go as if your fletching was high, you have to adjust your rest accordingly.
The next step I like to do is I like to bear shaft tune that. And in order to do that, to make sure that your arrow is going to fly like your fletched arrow is, is I act, I put wraps on the back of the arrow so that the arrow is weighted exactly the same. A fletched arrow is going to weigh the exact same as a bear shaft arrow.
Then you shoot and get a good bullet hole with the bear shaft. Again, by the same manipulations, you can tell through the paper if the butt end of the arrow, the knock of the arrow, is hitting to the right or to the left, and you make those adjustments accordingly until you get a perfect arrow flight. Then when you go out into the field, you want to have...
A fletched arrow with a field tip is not going to fly the same as a fletched arrow with a broadhead. So end goal is to get your broadheads to fly perfectly out of your bow and to hit exactly where you're aiming, right? So technically, in theory, if you were to paper tune with a broadhead on your arrow and tune your bow to a broadhead and then sight it into the broadhead, that's really kind of what your end goal is.
But by the time you get to that point, you've chewed your target to pieces and maybe gone through a bunch of different broadheads. So a good way to do that is through a series of tuning with a bear shaft, fletch shaft, and manipulation on your rest or your knocking point and getting those to fly true. If in theory, and all this is in theory because there's still the component of the shooter, right? Yeah.
if you have a bare shaft that can fly through the air perfectly and fly through paper perfectly at five yards and then hit you know the target in a straight angle then in theory your bow's in tune so a broadhead should fly correctly but it doesn't it's not always the case you still have to validate it right you can't just print your dope chart off the internet and then slap it to your rifle and go and expect that all that works you have to validate everything um
The way I do it is I go out once I've paper tuned with a bare shaft, I'm out shooting at 20 yards and I'll shoot a fletched arrow and then I'll shoot a bare shaft arrow.
And then I'll, and I'll shoot them both at the same spot and I'll look at those and I want those to be perfectly parallel coming out of the target. So if it's not, if the bear shaft arrow, let's say that the knock end is kicked to the right, then I know that my bow is not perfectly in tune. Even though at five yards, I may shoot bullet holes with both of those arrows at 20 yards, that shaft could be off just a little bit. So that's just a micro tune adjustment on that rest until I can shoot at 20 or 30 yards of bear shaft and a fletch shaft and
and they're hitting perfectly parallel vertically and perfectly parallel horizontally into that target. Then I know that my bow is in tune. Then more times than not, when I screw a broadhead onto that arrow and I shoot a field tip and a broadhead, they're hitting almost perfectly.
Thanks, Tim. I think that that was something that was needed, especially for people understanding. And some of that's even more advanced. So I think that's a really good that we can take some of that tuning stuff that you and I do and give it to guys that are just starting out because you know, okay, this is how far I can take this. And guys that there's a lot of guys that have shot their whole life and they go to the bow shop and they don't understand that.
once you get out and start shooting further distances, 20, 30, 40 yards to get those broadheads to fly right, to get that pinpoint accuracy, especially when you're talking about practicing day in, day out, and you're in your backyard shooting your field tip. Now it's hunting season. I want to be able to screw on what I'm going to hunt with and know that that bow is exactly where I've been shooting the entire season. So thanks for that. You are, you will forever go down in history as cutting the distance first guest lecturer.
And if you guys want to find more information about Tim, I mean, he's got the online bow shop. It's called huntandhouse.com. He sells older model bows at discounted prices. So it's the, as a new model comes in, he gets the old models and sells them. So it's a, it's a really good entry point to get into archery with a high performance bow at a lower price. He's got everything he needs. And then there's also options where you,
You can have a pro tune done on it where Tim will take the bow and actually do what he's just talking about here. Someone will do that, take that bow and get it all tuned up. And then still, you know, like we talked about, every bow is custom specific to the individual shooter. So you'll still have to take it, but it'll put it at that point where it's a lot easier to understand and get to that point than if you were to just start from scratch.
I hope you guys really enjoy this series so far. I actually don't think there's any way that I can cram more pertinent facts into this amount of time. It's like, this is concentrated orange juice. I'm just like squeezing knowledge into a jar and then you're just getting it very concentrated. So it might be something that if you're new, go back and listen a couple of times and get that bow out, start to start to get some practice and some stuff in the field. I think
If you've shot a lot, a lot of these things may be something, maybe you're like me and you didn't have a teacher or you didn't have somebody that kind of led you through this process. So I think it's good stuff to hear. And I also think it's good stuff to kind of start researching and thinking about as you develop into archery and just understanding archery.
kind of the process of shooting, what it means to practice, practice, practice, how to make perfect practice and how to be repeatably consistent. And I think once you've figured those things out and once you start doing it, these things are going to start like light bulbs are going to be going off in your head and you're going to be like, oh, okay, this is what he means. This is what he means. And that really is going to play a huge factor. And when we get into the field, so that is going to be
episode three of this. This is going to be becoming a successful bow hunter. So we're going to take what we learned at the range, you know, starting out, we're even just a new hunter, starting out, getting a bow, getting to the range, now becoming repeatably consistent, increasing our precision and our accuracy. And now we're going to go into, like everybody's graduated, we're going into the 201 portion of becoming a successful bow hunter. So
So next week, I'm going to jump into the things of what it takes to actually put an arrow on target and get close to an animal. So we're going to be covering things like getting close shots on game, picking the right spot, drawing unnoticed, all the little nuances to becoming a successful bow hunter, because I don't want you to just be a good at shooting targets in the backyard. I want you to take that into the field and find success. So until next week,
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