Ep. 98: Fun Games for Archery Practice
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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.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. This week, I'm going to be going over what I think are six pretty fun archery practice games to make you a better hunter. Now with archery season just around the corner, there's a lot of start dates coming up August, September, and now's the time to kind of get in the repetitions, break the bow out and get in some practice. Because when it comes to bow hunting, you really need to make that one shot count.

If you think about it, there's all this energy difficulty just to get within bow range. And if you don't hit what you're aiming at, then it's all for naught. In real hunting situations, you can encounter a ton of different obstacles, pressure, different weather during that shot. So this summer, I'm going to give you six archery games that are going to kind of cover that gamut of what you might encounter. So when you draw back on a deer elk, the situation is not going to be new.

While shooting dots and 10 rings is fun, you know, if you're doing a league or something like that, it's really fun to just shoot for scores. But I'm going to mix it up on the range with some of my favorite archery games. But before we do that, I figured I'd share the story of a whitetail hunt and an awkward shot I really wasn't prepared for. This hunt takes place in northern Wyoming. I actually had an archery tag and a friend who had a ranch kind of down there, run some cattle. He's like, yeah, you can come down and

he's got some stands set up and hunt some white tails. And I was like, sweet. I've actually, this was like the first time I ever hunted out of a tree stand. Well, I take that back. I'd hunted out of a tree stand before. I'd never shot anything out of a tree stand. Um,

And I was like, okay, cool. So before I went down there, I was like, man, I better put up this ladder stand in the backyard. And I was like, man, I'm just going to practice shooting from this stand because it was like, it was foreign to me. And I thought, I don't know. I mean, I always have this mentality of like, I need to practice shooting like I'm going to shoot. So I was like, sweet.

So I just put the target out there, a little 3D target, went up in the ladder stand and shot quite a few rounds. I was like quite a few arrows and I'm like feeling good. I was like, sweet. Okay. I got this like pretty simple and they're probably going to be pretty close. So it's not really going to be a big difference. So anyways, I'm out there and the first day I get set up, I'm like sitting in the tree stand and it's like this area where they move off the feeding and they're moving into bedding. So we kind of like are cutting them off in between the bedding. So I'm sitting there and I'm like,

All right. Seeing nothing. And then all of a sudden it's like the deer definitely, it's that time of morning deer leaving the feed and they're moving through these thicker areas. It's like, all right, deer funneling by. And there was a lot of deer move by. I was like, this is pretty awesome. If this was, if my tree stand hunting experiences were always like this, it's like a caribou migration under my stand. Does small box, you know, bucks moving. I'm like, Oh, okay. And so this is early September. So there's no rutting action. It's not like I'm going to be able to call them or anything. You just got to be in the right spot.

And so this one buck comes out and I was like, is it a nice, you know what? I'll do it. I'll go white tail talk lingo. It was a nice 10 point. I would call it a four point. That means it has brow tines and four points off the main beam. I call that a four point on both sides. But just to build a picture for everybody that white tail hunts, it's the 10 point. So he's coming like right down the same trail that some other deer did. And I was like, this would be the best white tail I've ever taken with a bow. And he,

off and like takes this trail on the backside of the tree. And he's like going, he starts feeding like right behind. I'm in this big cottonwood. I'm like, dang it. And I've got like all my stuff on, you know, I'm sure many white tail hunters have experienced this. I've got this big old cottonwood and I'm like, yeah, he's behind this tree and he's on the, so like I'm shoot right hand, but he's on the side where I can't really get around like the trees in the way. And

And me being someone that is like, nah, he's close. I'm going to get him, but there's going to be no opportunity once he walks past this. So I like somehow like duck down real quiet, get the harness around where I think I could draw back. I'm like, okay, I don't want my string to hit the safety harness that's into the tree.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to get this. This thing's harness is pretty tight. So I can kind of like lean out. And I'm like in the most awkward angle. And I've got to like wrench my body around this tree. And I'm thinking to myself, it didn't even cross my mind to practice this weird twisted around the tree shot angle. Like this is...

probably the closest I've ever shot a deer. And I'm thinking it's probably the hardest shot I've ever had to make. It was like leaning out completely off balance, twisted around the tree, aiming down. I picked the spot, let the arrow go. Perfect shot. I'm like, sweet. The deer like jumps, looks around and then goes back to feeding. And I was like,

What is going on? Did I miss that deer? No way I missed that deer. But I was at like such a weird angle that I was like, man, maybe I just like torqued the bow weird or something happened. And I'm like watching him and the deer's just like, nothing's wrong. Like, huh. And he's like looking, he looks around and he just like starts walking out. He's feeding away perfectly fine. Like nothing touched him.

And I'm like, okay, what? And I can't see him that well. Cause now he's like behind the, so I'm leaning out the other side. I've got my binoculars and I look and I see where the arrow hit. I'm like, that's perfect. It's like, what happened? I cannot figure it out. And the deer's just like, yeah, no big deal. I'm thinking at any second, like that, that should have been, that deer should have just run off and fell over dead. And he just goes back to feeding, twitching his tail. I'm like, all right. So I just keep watching him, watching him. And like,

A few minutes later, I don't know, maybe it seemed like forever. I felt like it was forever. The deer just normal falls over stone dead. I was like, oh, okay. I think what had happened was like the arrow just zipped through him is so close and it just zipped right through him. It didn't hit any ribs or anything. He heard the arrow hit the ground. Maybe the bogo off jumped out 20, 30 yards. And then just was like, well, it was nothing had no clues even shot and then fell over.

I went down. This is my best buck. My, at that point, this is my best archery white tail buck. I was super stoked. And I remember thinking like, well, I definitely didn't practice that acrobatic shot trying to shoot around the tree. But I thought to myself, if I ever know I'm going to hunt from a tree stand again, I'm definitely going to set the target behind the tree that I'm sitting in because that's probably the most likely option of going to have to shoot in a really awkward position. They never come in where you want them to.

So from that point on, I kind of changed my mindset to thinking, okay, just getting up in the tree stand, but just trying to kind of change my practice to the ways that I might encounter things or the more realistic ways of things go crazy when you're hunting. And I need to practice that way as well. One of my favorite parts about summertime is really just this prepping for bow season. I mean, I definitely shoot year round, but when summer hits, it's like everything kicks into gear. I start visualizing those tags that I've got in my pocket and I really start amping up my practice and

no matter how long I've been bow hunting, hunting, whatever, there's always this kind of feeling of that awesome, excited anticipation. And then that slight feeling of unpreparedness, especially when it comes like, okay, I've got a new bow or something that I'm trying to get ready this season. You know, I've got some great tags and there's always those times where maybe you drew a limited entry tag. And it's like, this is a once in a life that, that reality of like, this might be the only chance I get at something like this, or even, um,

You're planning a, I don't know, uh, uh, over the counter elk archery hunt. It's like, this is my chance to be successful, or this is going to be my hunt. And of course, uh,

Things go wrong, things go right. But one thing I always don't want to happen is the thing that go wrong be me having the perfect shot and doing something that messes it up or getting into a situation where I did everything right. Now it's time to draw back and I can't get comfortable. I can't make the shot. There's, I don't have enough time. Something goes wrong and it's like, well, it was maybe something that I could have fixed in my preparedness during the summer. So I really like to just kind of start shooting things

I mean, during the summertime, I really ramp it up and it's fun to just kind of create ways that my shooting really mimics my hunting scenarios. This year I've got

I actually got pretty lucky and drew a tag in New Mexico for elk. I got a deer tag in my home state in Nevada. I also kind of picked up a couple of different over the counter tags, not knowing what was going to go on, but I have a general Montana tag and then ended up getting a later season Idaho general deer tag and then a California general deer tag. So my season's pretty full up. Now, if Canada opens its borders, man, I might actually be on a sheep hunt of a lifetime.

And who knows if I would ever get the same kind of opportunity again. So time to put in the work, put in the practice and do what I do every summer. Just like get out there and have fun, shoot my bow, but also do a lot of training that's very similar to what I might encounter in the field.

You know, it's like one of those things where you can incorporate it into camping trips. You can incorporate it into a lot of different things that you do, but also, you know, just your day-to-day practice. There's a lot of different games and other things that I like to do, especially when it comes to like with friends or even out on the range.

Maybe you got a 3D league where you live and it's like, that's your way of getting ready, getting prepared. You can shoot at some 3D targets or going to one of these events. Just a little bit of a different way to kind of play the score game to kind of mimic a more realistic hunting scenario than just shooting at foam, shooting at dots or some tactics that kind of build on that idea of there's pressure or you've got to make that one arrow count.

This first game I like to call kill wound or miss. This is done with a 3d target. So whether you've got your own or you're shooting it like a, an event, or maybe you've got like a close by league that does like 3d shoots every Thursday or something like that. This is a really fun game because the design of this game is to practice shooting at various 3d target positions. Now,

and not shooting necessarily right behind the shoulder. So there's the 10 ring on a standard scoring target or whatever, but that's not always where you should be aiming. So what this game is trying to do is really get you thinking about the body position of the animal, how you should aim in a field situation, and it's to get you to think about hunting or think about shooting for hunting. This is also a really good game to play for like angled animals. So if I've got my 3D target, I can

I can do this in my backyard or wherever too. I just reposition the target in a different angle. So I might have a quartering too. I might have a full broadside. I might have a quartering away. Try to get angles that are very realistic to a hunting scenario. Now you think like, oh yeah, well, I just always shoot right behind the shoulder, but that's not always the case. You got to think about the body position and the vitals of the animal. And this game really kind of

benefits that thought process that gets you in that mindset of thinking, hunting, thinking, shooting, and practicing like you will when you're out in the field. So when that deer steps out, he's walking broadside and he takes one step to the right as he's walking away. And now he's quartering away. You had that pin right on the corner of the shoulder. Now you adjust and move back because if you shoot for that animal broadside, it's not going to be as lethal of a shot as if you shot further back as he's quartering away.

So this game is going to kind of play to that and how it works is you get a score so you can, you can choose however you guys want to score it. So you can do this with friends or if you want to just do it on your own, maybe take 20 arrows, 20 shots, and then you kind of tally up your score throughout the summer, keep track and track your progress that way.

just to kind of pick the whatever scoring system you want to do. But what it's supposed to do is reward a point for a kill, negative point for a wound, and you can decide whether a zero or a negative point for a miss. So kind of the thinking behind it is you're rewarded for a kill, you're penalized for wounding an animal because that's the worst possible scenario, and then you're definitely bummed about a miss. So one of the ways that I'll do it is like a one score for a kill, a negative one for a

a wound or zero for a miss. Another great way to do it is even add more emphasis on how bad the wound is. So you've got one point for a kill, negative two points for wound, negative one point for a miss. Uh, so if you're doing this with friends, what you'll do, everyone will line up to the target. You'll shoot the target, but you'll shoot the target. Like you're trying to kill it. Like it was a real animal, not you're, you're completely ignoring where the scoring rings are on that deer. So if it's quartering away, you're going to think, okay,

Where is the best spot for this arrow to go through the vital? So on a quartering away shot, obviously you're going to be aiming further back than you would wherever that 10 ring is on that shot. If you're shooting from above, you know, maybe you're going to be, you've got a steep downhill angle. You just got to think about how that arrow is traveling through the vitals. Now everyone will go to the target and then you'll analyze your shot. Some 3d targets. I've got this one here. It's a

It's actually pretty cheap. It's a solid deal. What is it? A Reinhardt Backyard Buck or something like that. It's like a little whitetail. The thing I like about this one, though, is on the backside of the Vital that I shoot at, there's actually like this foam thing.

It's got like the vitals foamed out in there. So you can see like, oh, here's the heart, here's the lungs, whatever. But now that I've shot it enough, my tips start poking through and it's sweet because you can see like, okay, here you can look at the backside and say, this is the better shot. This went straight through the center of the lungs. This went through the heart. This did this. Oh, this was the liver, whatever. But what everyone will do, you'll gather up at the target and you'll say like, okay, you'll analyze it and say, yeah, this is the better shot. If I was shooting a deer to

to kill a deer, this is where I would shoot. Yeah, I was quartering too. So I put it further forward. I tried to get on the inside of that shoulder that went straight through the vitals that way. Oh, it looks like this guy shot it behind the shoulder. Yeah. It still would kill it, you know, but it's not as good of a shot. It's more of like a liver shot, uh,

Whereas this is the better shot. And then, oh man, this other guy, he shot way too far back or hit it high, hit it in the shoulder, whatever. That's a wound. We're going to negate points for that. And just kind of a consensus. And it's more along the lines of just really getting your mind thinking about shot placement. So when you're out hunting, I think that's one problem that a lot of people have. They practice all summer shooting at that foam target, shooting 3Ds. They're like, yeah, I'm dialed in. And they're always aiming for that spot right behind the shoulder. But

That's not always the optimal spot. It'll probably work in many cases, but depending on the animal position, you want to really start getting your mind thinking about, okay, I'm shooting downhill. I'm shooting uphill. I'm shooting at a quartering downhill, uphill. Like I'm really trying to find the optimal, perfect shot to make a perfect quick, clean kill on this animal and get your mind thinking in that realm, not just the realm of, okay, I'm just shooting for that 10 ring, shooting for that 10 ring. Because when it comes hunting time, you want that practice to be so ingrained in you

that when that animal moves in a different position or whatever, you're already triggered in your mind to thinking that's the right angle. That's the right shot. That's right. Aim letter rip. The next game is one that I like to call one arrow practice. So if you think about a hunting scenario, you go out there, you're hunting all week, right? You've just hiked 20, 30, 40, however many miles you're

You've crawled over countless rocks, maybe got a couple of cactuses in your knee. Who knows what, man? You've just been, you've been living off dehydrated meals. You've been, you've been grinding and now you've stocked in your 40 yards from a buck and you get one shot. You might get, you're working your butt off traveling thousands of miles maybe for that one shot.

Now, when you go out in your backyard and you practice, you get as many shots as you want. Your first shot might be perfect. It might be a little off and now you're going to shoot a group and

And then at the end of your shooting session, you're gonna be like, yeah, man, I shot great today because you shot a hundred arrows. So this is kind of really trying to account for that cold bore type shot. You get a one and done. So imagine, imagine archery practice where you drive out, like, let's say you can't even shoot in your backyard. You got to drive somewhere. You got to drive out to some public land. Maybe you've got to drive to an archery range. Maybe it takes you 10, 15 minutes, whatever.

You got to drive out there. You got to take your target out of the truck. You got to go set it up. And then you get one shot.

from whatever range you know maybe it's a 40 yard downhill shot maybe it's a 50 yard flat broadside shot maybe it's a slightly quartering away shot and you kind of incorporate the the kill wound miss type strategy to this of like okay i'm shooting for not necessarily the perfect place where the target says to shoot but based on how the target's set up now you get one shot

And after that one shot, you've got to live with that shot till tomorrow, till the next day, till the other time you go out and you got to pack it back up and drive back home thinking about, man, I really, I killed that deer. That was perfect. Or,

That could have been better. And then you think about it and then you can go home. You can do whatever, you know, if you need more practice or what have you. But the point is being like, look, you're putting in effort. You're putting in time. You want to be practicing with that one arrow mentality. It's like, you're going to get one shot and you need to make that one shot count. There's a lot more pressure on that one arrow to say, okay,

Yeah, I don't get to shoot a group here today. I just get to shoot one arrow at that target. I'll do that quite often. I'll pick a few days and I'll say, this is my one arrow day. I'm not shooting any more than one arrow today. And I'm going to, whatever, I'm going to randomize that shot. I'm going to make it very realistic to a hunting scenario is what I like to do. And then I go out and I take that shot. And if that shot sucked,

Man, that's very indicative of a hunting scenario. That's very indicative of like, this is exactly what I'm going to encounter in the field. And so it puts a lot more pressure, a lot more practice, a lot more focus on that single arrow, because I'll tell you what, there's been times where I was like, okay, I carried the target all the way up the hill. I'm going to make this like off the cliff shot.

And I shoot and it's not where I want it to be. And then I got to think about that. And I'm like, man, everything in me wants to shoot one more arrow at it and be like, nope. Okay. I redo. But my mind, you know, cause once you do that, once you correct it and redo it, your mind's like, oh, okay, that was good. But I like to just leave it at that one arrow and say it was either good or it was bad. You don't get any more redos. And that mentality of building your mind like that really helps you when you go into the field and you might only get one shot.

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Now, this third game is a game that probably everybody knows. It's a game of horse. I like to play this game, especially when shooting with friends, because what it does is it really creates these shots where it's like,

Very, I would say like more realistic to hunting scenarios because you're in an awkward position. You're probably shooting through or over or under something and you're making the shot more difficult. You're trying to make the shot so difficult that somebody else isn't going to be able to shoot it as well. So the way that I play this game, just like you play a horse with basketball is.

You know, first person's up, you go, okay, cool. They call the shot. Okay. It's a one knee up 40 yard shot. You got to shoot under this limb and it's the closest one to the best kill zone. If you've got like a scoring target, you could even do it where it's like,

10 ring type shots. So 10 ring, 12 ring standard 3d scoring, or you could even do it on a block closest one to the bullseye, whatever. But the point of this is to get those awkward shot positions to kind of think on your feet and do things different, mix it up where it's not just the static, uh,

backyard flat shooting at spot shooting at spot shooting at spots that's great and it's really good to have that knowledge and comfort with your bow and shooting consistently like that is good but when you go into the field I like to practice like I'm gonna hunt so I

So this game is, it's fun. It's something really fun to do. You can, I picture it like grilling up some elk burgers in the backyard. We've got the target and now we're playing a game of archery horse where you're getting some pretty crazy shots. It's like, Hey, we're, our legs are here. We're leaning back out around this tree or you're shooting through these limbs or you're doing something. And it's a really fun way to get in a lot of realistic real life practice.

All right. So the fourth game, I call this the perfect run game. And this is a good one. Like if you just have a, you know, spot target or whatever, a block, a Reinhardt, you know, just like a bag target, it doesn't really matter. What this is, is this game's designed to kind of put emphasis on making every shot count and there's consequences, but

If you don't make that shot count. So the way that I play it, you can, you can decide however many arrows you want. And this is a really fun game to play. Like if it's just in your backyard, you've got some backyard practice to kind of spice it up a bit. So it's not just shooting groups, shooting groups, shooting groups. This is one that you can do alone or you can do against someone. I kind of like the little competition aspect of it as well. Or you guys could, you know, you can call a friend up and be like, Hey,

They can do it in their backyard. You can do it in your backyard. You could see how many tries it takes you to run it, run the course. So the way this works is you either start out, you can say three to five arrows, five arrows is going to be more difficult. Three arrows is going to be a little bit easier. And what you do is you start at a close range and you pick a final distance. So let's say the final distance is going to be 50 yards and I'm running it with three arrows. Okay.

So what I do is you start at your closest pin, let's say it's 20 yards. So I start 20 yards and you have to shoot the spots 100%. So all three arrows have to be in the circle of the target. So like three different spots. I generally don't shoot at the same one. So I pick three different spots.

spots on the target. Like imagine a block target. It's got the side that's got, I don't know, whatever circles on it. So I picked three circles, top left, top, right center. And every arrow has to be within the circle. At some point you can decide how you count it, whatever. I mean, I generally do it like scoring system. As long as it breaks the line, it's good.

So if you, let's say you're running three arrows, boom, boom, boom, perfect shot. Okay. Now you run it back. So we started 20. Now we're going 25. Now we're at 30. We shoot. Okay. Perfect. We go pick up our arrows. Now we go to 35. Let's say we shot one. We shot two. Now our third one is out of that, that circle. Now we got to start back over. We start back at 20 yards and we try to walk our way all the way out to 50 yards, running that perfect run.

run. Sometimes that can take, you'll, I mean, you might run it in your first try and that's what you want. You want to be able to just like make every shot count and know that there's consequences. So when you get out to 45 yards and you're like, okay, I'm almost there. I've got three more arrows and you shoot and you miss one at 45. Now you've got to start that course over. Um,

Um, you got to start back at 20 and you can do it in different increments, you know, depending on how much time you have, you can go every 10 yards, you can go every five yards, you can bust it out to further distances. And it's a fun way to kind of gauge your progress and say, okay, well, it took me 10. I got, I messed up five times. I had to redo it or I got to this one and it gives you a good gauge, but also kind of gets you thinking of like, there's that perfect run and you're just trying for that, um,

really consistent shot after shot, picking that spot and being able to make the shot. And then it also kind of adds, even when you're by yourself, a little bit of that angst of like, man, something you can kind of get in your own head. Like, man, I'm at 55 yards. I've run this thing. Perfect. I'm almost whatever. And you can kind of start getting your own personal records and just, it's a good way to record your progress. And it's a fun game to play. It's something that I play a lot when I'm shooting at like spot targets or block targets. I

especially if I've got like a good flat area where I can go out to some distance or all I have is flat, like don't have like a lot of other options. It's a really fun one to play. Now, if you don't have as much room, maybe you can only shoot so far in your backyard. You can do the same thing, but just increase the difficulty by increasing the number of arrows, start closer and then keep moving back.

It doesn't necessarily matter how far you're going. It's just to try to build up consistency. And it's also a really fun game to play to just kind of be like, okay, you get so far and you can kind of track your progress.

And then it's also one that you can do with friends or with friends that are in different areas. Like your, your buddy could live completely across the country, but every day you can say, Hey, all right, here's how many, here's how long it took me, or here's how far I got. Let's say you set yourself up a 20 minute timer. I can shoot for 20 minutes. Okay. Here's how far I got to walk out running it. Perfect. Or that's my last one or whatever.

Number five, this is probably my least, well, I don't know if it's my least favorite game. It's a tough game, but it's the no range finder game. It's like 3d targets, uh, without using the range finder. And I know a lot of people are like, well, you have your range finder hunting and that is true, but a lot of stuff happens when you're at full draw animals bounce out, or there's times where, man, I've, I've raised up clowns.

clicked on the deer. I'm like, okay, it says it's 25 yards ago. It looks further than that. And it was catching the brush in between. So this is a really good game to play because it's difficult and it puts a lot of pressure on not only guessing, but making a good shot. Uh, the way that I can, I'll do it is either at like a, a league or a, a 3d kind of set up

course. You could just run that thing with your friends or whatever without range finders. A lot of competitions actually do it that way. But I think a lot of people now like they trust the range finder so much that people just like, I'm just not going to do that because it's a good way to break arrows. Now, another way that I do this, if I not at a 3d range or anything like that is I just got like a, you can do it either by roving. So you're just like walking through the woods. If you're in an area that has some softer, I get like a plastic rubber blunt tip that

screw that in and shoot pine cones and other stuff. Or another way that I found doing it, there's these little target balls that you can throw. So I'll throw the ball. You can throw the balls out. You can roll them down the hill, rolling targets, whatever, pick them up,

pick them up or you'll like, sometimes I'll roll the target down the hill or throw it out, shoot it, pick up the arrow, then just kind of like try not to pay attention and walk out certain distance or pick a spot. Like it's always better before, instead of walking to the target, like pick three spots. So you put the target out, then you've got like, Oh, I've got the spot over here up on the hill. I've got the spot down here. So you can go to the spots before you actually go pick up your other arrows. Um,

So that's another great way to do it. Or just with any target, you set out a 3D target and then just pick some spots ahead of time. Like, okay, I'm going to go up there, there and there. And then don't range it. Don't kind of do like a walk around so you don't know how far it is. And then just let your eyes and everything kind of adjust to this is how far it is. Guess it, shoot it and see if you're right.

It's a really, it's really good practice for those kinds of hunting scenarios where you're, you might be moving through, especially still hunting, man, you're moving through and there's a deer. It's like, okay, how far is he? Because the difference between maybe putting an arrow on ranging it, putting the range finder down, drawing back, settling in that animal's gone. There's many times where I might be still hunting through some timber or I'm stocking in. I've got an arrow knocked. I'm stocking in and that deer stands up and it's like, okay, action time.

time. I know that if I range it, I got to decide what would be better. Would I rather not get a shot at this deer because I'm messing around with my range finder, or would I rather get a shot and potentially miss range? But the best case scenario is I would rather have been well-practiced

just not have to worry about it, draw back and shoot the deer and be successful. And that's what happens most of the time. So, um, that's a really, that's a really good game to play. I know I do that a lot too, just, just in the summertime for fun, I take my trad bow out. It's a good way to just kind of gauge, like build that confidence with more instinctive shooting. But, um,

Um, it's also, I think by doing that a lot more, it's helped with whatever bow I have. It doesn't really matter. It's just helped my gauging the distance and letting my brain just decide, okay, that's how far it is. And I've talked about that in the past, but it's definitely a good tactic and a good skill to have to be a competent archery hunter, kind of picking up some of those old school skills and practicing those things that I think people don't really talk about as much anymore. So it's a, it's a really good game and it's a difficult game, but it's definitely beneficial in the long run.

Now, this last game, game number six, we're going to call this game knockout. And it's just like you might've played in PE on the basketball court. It's a good pressure game. It's a fun one with friends, especially during the summer, get some friends together, get your bows out and play this knockout game. It's a good game. You don't have to have a 3d target or you can't have a 3d target. You're pretty much center of the bullseye or whatever the

not center of the bullseye, but just within whatever your target is. So maybe it's a kill zone on a deer 3d target. Maybe it's the white spot on a block target. Maybe it's the spot on a bag target, whatever you pick your range, you line up,

the guy behind has to out shoot the guy in front of him. So it's a little bit different because you can do it a couple of different ways. You can line up like side by side and it's like, okay, maybe you get two arrows. So the first guy can shoot. If he hits the

the bull, then the next guy shoots, hits the bull, whatever. And then once that person misses, the person behind him has to shoot it before they shoot it. So they've got two arrows. You line up side by side. The first person shoots after that first person shoots, the next person can then immediately shoot. If they missed the center of the, whatever needed to be to move on. So let's just call it like a four inch circle. Okay. We're at 30 yards. We've got a four inch circle. The first person shoots,

hits the four inch circle. Next person shoots, hits the four inch circle. Third person shoots, you know, you kind of start rotating in positions. Next person shoots, misses the four inch circle. The person that's shooting after them has to shoot that four inch circle before they get another arrow in it. Once that happens, then they're knocked out. And then you go through until there's only two guys going head to head. And it's kind of like whoever

Whoever can shoot the most consistent wins. It's a really fun game to play. It's awesome because it adds a little bit of pressure, a little bit of excitement. It's a good game to just kind of gather up some friends, enjoy the summer, talk about your tags, talk about your hunt plans and all prepare to be successful.

and get better with your bows and build up that pressure of like, yeah, when you're in a hunting scenario, pressure happens. There's a lot more pressure obviously than backyard knockout, but it's a good way to kind of have to think fast to kind of get under the pressure of shooting around people and building that something similar where you've got an excitement level, you're trying to do something and you've got a bow in your hand and a target that you need to be precise on.

I hope this gets some people excited, gets them out with their bows. You know, maybe you've got an archery tag coming up. Think about these ways of practicing that are a little bit different that kind of play towards something you might encounter just as kind of like a last thought. It's really good to do these as well in inclement weather, in wind, in rain. Any of these times you can go out and practice in some kind of elements, man, that's really good practice. And it's really good to kind of add those same types of elements

you know, precision ideas and goals and whatever, when there's kind of inclement weather, wind, other things. I'm fortunate where I practice, it's always windy. So I'm like, man, I don't even know how to shoot when it's calm, but it's really good ways to practice and get you out there. Maybe you don't have an archery tag and you're just thinking about getting into bow hunting or whatever. These are fun games to play, good ways to kind of keep archery fun and also kind of build up those skills for when you do go out in the field and hunt.

I think one of the fun things about archery, about bow hunting is just the fact that you can enjoy it and like go out and have fun shooting. I mean, archery is a great sport on its own.

It doesn't even compare to bow hunting, but it is really fun. So you can do these kinds of fun things in the summer when you're out camping, when you're hanging out with friends, or even just throughout your backyard every day, or however often you can shoot. Just different ways to mix it up and really try to match some of the things that you might encounter into the field. Speaking of archery hunting, I actually am going to be at the Pope and Young Club Convention. It's going to be in Reno, Nevada this year. I know a lot of like hunting shows and other things have been

canceled because of COVID. So it's been a while since any of us have been to anything, but if you want to check that out, I'll be there Wednesday, July 14th at the pint night kickoff. So you can find me there. And then I've also got a live Q and a Friday, the 16th. I think it's, um,

It's tentative on the time, but I think it's like around 3 p.m., something like that. So it'll be very similar to the Q&As I do on this podcast. If you enjoy that or have a question and you can make it to Reno, sweet. Check that out. I'll be there. I'm not super tech savvy, but it would be pretty cool if I could do my podcast Q&A at that live event. I don't know. That just popped in my head. Maybe I'll see if I can make that happen. That'd be cool. So I'd be stoked to talk with you guys and

If you see me there, come say hi. I'm pretty relatable. Love just talking hunting. And the Q&A is a really good way to kind of talk about some tactics and some other things if anybody has questions. So if you can make it to that, sweet. And then on the vein of Q&A, start sending your questions because we're going to be having a Q&A here coming up pretty soon. But next week, I'm going to be doing a...

a podcast on this idea of butchering with limited space. So it's like, you've, you've gone out, you're successful, but maybe you, who knows? It's like, maybe you've got,

Very limited space at your house. Maybe I've talked to people. It's like, hey, man, I live in an apartment or I've got roommates and we don't really have anywhere to hang a deer. Like, what do I do? So just an idea of how to kind of butcher with limited space and what I do. There's been many times where I've like legitimately butchered a couple deer in a hotel room. It's like, it sounds...

horrible but it's yeah i mean or like at camp or in the back of my truck out and somewhere just like because i didn't have time or i didn't have like adequate space so kind of this idea of butchering with limited space and some really good tips and tactics to help you out with that so until next week keep shooting and hopefully by this fall you'll be cutting the distance oh it's starting it's starting to feel good all right see you guys

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