I’ve been working on the farm too much lately and have forgotten my friends out there!  HELLO FRIENDS!!!!!

In the archery world it is important to keep your bow in your hand but sometimes when you grip the handle too tightly you will throw off your shots…they call it “torquing” the bow.  My bow hand (the one that holds the bow) is notoriously bad for torquing, even though I try my best not to grip it to tightly, I still do not want to drop the bow.  And so, as a result, I grab it just before I make my shot and that causes my arrows to do all sorts of bad stuff.  Actually they aren’t “bad”, they just go where I don’t really want them to go.

So, they (the archers that preceded me in my quest) have developed (invented) things that will keep the bow from falling to the ground after the shot is made.  I noticed early on in my archery days folks had really cool looking straps going around their wrists that were attached to the bows with a bolt.  When they made the shot it bow would be hanging from their wrist and not hit the floor.  I thought, “Hey that’s cool!  Maybe I need one of those”.  But then none of my “traditional” archer guys had one and so I bagged the idea.

Then one day I was watching an Olympic archery shooting event and noticed the guys and gals shooting with traditional type bows had something else they were wearing that kept the bow from falling to the ground.  It’s called a “finger sling”….now this bad boy item was small, concealed (well not to notice too much anyway) and kept the bow from falling to the ground, unlike in this video:

I began searching the web for ideas on how to make one for myself.  I’m all over this “Do It Yourself” stuff…always have, always will.  Sort of like my sandwich last night, I call it “I’m all over you ketchup man”!

That picture doesn’t have anything to do with this post except maybe pique your interest.

Well, Winemaker had some paracord laying around and I took a few feet of it.  I knew I needed a slip knot or two to attach the thing to my middle finger and thumb of my bow hand.  A simple devise and made out of cheap material, I can throw it in the trash if it doesn’t work or if I don’t like it.  Another great aspect of DIY stuff.  You spend little and if it doesn’t work, you are not out much.  After all, the archery supply places want like $6 for one of these things.  That’s the price of one of my arrows!  I’d rather buy an arrow then spend that on a piece of string.

Well, here is the one I made:

The book behind the picture of my finger sling is “Guide to the longbow” by Brian Sorrells….A perfect book for those getting into traditional archery shooting!  This guy is amazing.

So, you see it is just what it is, a piece of string with two slip knot loops on it.  The length of the string between the loops has to be sort of short to accomodate wrapping around the bow and then fitting over your thumb comfortably.  There is nothing worse than going shooting and having something like a “too tight string” cutting off the circulation to one of your fingers.  Not a fun day of shooting, besides having to cut the string off with your too dull knife when you are done shooting.

So, the first loop goes on your bow hand finger.  I haven’t figured out which finger is best as yet, so I figured I’d start with my middle finger.  It just made sense to do that.

It’s kind of hard to see it, but you get the idea.  By the way, that elk head mount was put together by none other than White Trapper!  Best taxidermist in Northern Utah!

Next you grab up your bow and put the second loop around your thumb

You can see that this string is going to keep your bow “near you” once you let go of the string while shooting your arrows.  Once you have exhausted all your arrows in your quiver, you simply remove the string from your thumb, put the bow down and go retrieve your arrows.  You can even drink a beer while that string hangs off your middle finger.  Other archers will wonder to themselves just what on earth you have on your hand, but they won’t say anything and will go home, address their computer and try to find out for themselves just what it was you had on your finger.

Well, I wasn’t sure about this finger sling idea.  Would I even use it or not.  Well, I attached it to my bow with the idea that the next time I ventured out to practice I would give it a try.  The whole idea behind this is that you can forget about having to hold onto your bow at all while shooting.  Outstretch your fingers, point them in the direction of the target and let it rip!  Your bow hand will not be affecting the shot in any way.

So, let me say this about that!  The damn thing works!  Not only can I now NOT think about my anchor points, I have them pretty much engraved in my form, I can now forget about the bow at all.   The pressure of the string being pulled back toward my face keeps the bow tight against my hand (the web of the hand between thumb and first finger).  I have no worry about the bow going anywhere near the ground once I release the string and so, I can totally concentrate on the target.  Here was my first end after using my new finger sling.

Man!  I was quite surprised.

Later in my practice session I took a picture of another end.  Please notice I’m missing one arrow of my eight…I hit a nail holding one of the corners and the nock popped off.

Still, 6 out of 7 arrows in the target…not the rings, but the whole white square thing.  That’s my goal, hit the square thing.  Counting rings are bonus even though I am concentrating on the yellow part of it, that is just my focus spot.

And after about an hour and a half of shooting my arrows were starting to fly all over the place, which is normal after shooting 100 times or more.  This is my last end and MaPa’s was ready to get out of the mosquitos.

So, what I’m saying here is that the finger sling actually works.

Bears Butt

June 3, 2015