Thought you might enjoy a little update on my archery endeavor.  The Brigham Bowmen have disassembled the indoor range and moved their operation up to Mantua at the outdoor range facility.  I have not enjoyed that range as yet but will some day soon.  What I have been doing is going down to the farm and doing some long range shooting in preparation for this weekends Formal Invitation.  When I first started taking archery lessons back in January, my mentor, Lynn Hayes told me that even though the instructions being given cover the basics of archery, everyone is different and to experiment on my own to find what feels and works best for me.  I’ve been on hundreds of websites and seen 10’s of videos on shooting recurve and long bows.  Shooting instinctively.  Walking the string.  Gap shooting etc. etc. etc.

When it all boils down, it comes to form and consistency, along with practice that makes that arrow go where you want it to go (most of the time).

So, I’ve been experimenting, like Lynn said.

I set myself up a chart for Gap Shooting and have been keeping track of my “gaps” at 5 yard increments.  Beginning on March 20 and going up through April 4th, my average gaps were these:

Gap shooting is standing at a given distance and pointing the tip of the arrow at a single place each time as you shoot from different distances.

5 Yd. 9 inches, 10 yd. 17 inches, 15 yd. 19 inches, 20 yd. 18 inches, 25 yd. 15 inches and here is where it gets interesting; 30 yd. point on for all days until the 4th of April when it went to 35 yards for point on.  I don’t fully understand that change.  But you get the drift of gap shooting.  At close ranges the arrow climb slowly as you back away from the target and then the arc of the arrow brings it back down until at some point away from the target the arrow hits where you have been pointing the tip the whole time.

On April 5th I decided to change my stance a little.  I have been using a somewhat open stance where my feet are shoulder width apart, forward foot slightly pointing toward the target and the rear foot slightly ahead of the forward foot and square with the target.  This is how I began shooting.  My anchor was with the string hand under and to the back of my jaw.  I would rotate the bow to the point the string touched my nose and then elevate or lower to where I felt the arrow would hit the target and then release.  This worked well, but not too consistent.  I’m sure it is in my release form and need to work on this.  The other thing about this form was my inability to stop the bow from moving all over the place as I held the string back.  I felt like I needed something more to stop the bow from moving.

So, I moved my feet to be square with the target.  When I draw the string back, my string hand rests under my jaw, just like before but the string automatically finds my nose AND I can feel the string touching my boob.  The bow does not move all around and when I want to elevate, all contact points are maintained and I pivot from the hip.  This has helped with my long range shooting and keeps my arrows going relatively toward the center line of the target.  Ya, I still under and over shoot the target, but the arrows seem to be hitting the ground in front of the center of the target, or going over it centered on it as well.  More practice is needed.

Back to the Gap!

With my new stance and 3 point anchor system my gaps have changed!

5 yd. 12 inches,  10 yd. 22 inches, 15 yd. 29 inches, 20 yd. 32 inches, 25 yd. 28 inches, 30 yd. 21 inches,  35 yd. 10 inches and 40 yd. point on!

I’ll have to do some checking on my draw length, but it seems possible that I have increased my draw length by changing my feet and squaring up to the target.  That is the only explanation I can come up with for the gap distances to have increased the way they have and my point on distance to have increased by 10 yards.

On a negative note, when I draw to full draw, I can only see what is directly in front of the bow with peripheral vision to my right.  Very little to my left.  My right eye is looking straight down the arrow shaft.  Is this good?  Someone who has been shooting a whole lot longer than me will have to comment on that.

Now let’s look at my long range shooting.

You’ve read that my goal in long range shooting is to “hit the bunk”….not to mean, hit the rack….The bunk is bigger than the target by a bunch but so is 60 yards as compared to 20 at the indoor facility.  Toss in a bit of a breeze nearly every evening, some late day sun in the eyes and whatever else presents itself during the practice sessions.  I have to admit these numbers are not a very big sample, but they are numbers and have to mean something at this point in the game.

I set up at 60, 50 and then 40 yards and shoot 5 ends of 6 arrows per end.  A tally at the end of the sessions looked like this:

Day one:  60 yd.  9 hits,  50 yd.  20 hits,  40 yd. 25 hits

Day two:  60 yd. 9 hits,  50 yd.  17 hits,  40 yd.  22 hits

Day three was the day I anchored with my 3 place anchor….jaw, nose, boob….

60 yd. 5 hits,  50 yd.  17 hits,  40 yd. 16 hits

Last night was day four of my practice and I was running really late and only had about an hour to play before the sun set.  I spent most of my time on the gap shooting but did manage to get two ends in at 60 and 50 yards.  My mind was on time and not so much on what I was doing with my shooting.  The results were these:

60 yd. 4 + 4 hits,  50 yds. 3 + 3 and the last 3 at 50 was only shooting 5 arrows instead of 6….you can see from this my mind was not on what I was doing.  But, should those numbers continued I could expect to have had a 20 hit session at 60 yards and 15 at 50 yards.  I really think that between the practice in and of itself and the 3 point anchor I should increase my hits substantially.

Oh, another thing I threw into the mix were string silencers….puffy strands of yarn….I know they slow the string down, but they also take some of the shock out of the bow hand.  It’s all good!

Bears Butt

April 8, 2015

WOW!  What a phenomenal day we have on our hands!  For some of you, you have ventured onto youtube.com and seen some amazing footage of videos people have taken and posted up.  One such person (people) has done such a great job at posting up personal experiences that he and his friends have landed a famous spot on Animal Planet, a series called “100 miles from nowhere”.  You can go to youtube.com and look up “Matt in the Wild”….he is the guy who does a BUNCH of very crazy stuff and a lot of what he has posted up actually scares me!  He rides a bike on the sharp edge of a rock with 100 or more feet of drop off on both sides.  That one made my butt pucker and my feet hurt from trying to stay on the bike!

Well, that’s one thing happening in our world, but the other MORE FAMOUS thing is the debut of “Weasel in the Wild dot com”……he has put up his very first video up and as I understand it, he had like 10 hours of video that he condensed down to 8 minutes.  He is asking for comments so he can refine his technique AND he is looking for ideas on what to post up next.  Give him a lookie-see and some comments!  Here is the link:

Enjoy!

On a side note, I’m working on that “gap shooting” information and will post up some stuff on that when I get it compiled.  Winemaker thinks I’m “obsessed” with this archery stuff.  Well, I’m just trying to be the best I can be and that takes experimentation and lots of practice.  Chris Barton posted up on Facebook a very good comment she found.  It goes something like this:  “It seems the more I practice, the luckier I get”.

Also, if you don’t benchmark yourself as you go along, you don’t really see any improvement (or lack of improvement) and this is what I’m doing in conjunction with the Gap stuff.  My clip board is getting full of papers as I progress…..and I must say, I am progressing.

I’m also running out of arrows.  I have 10 that are all the same…same length, same colors, same weight, same shaft spine.  But, now four of them don’t have nocks and one is being repaired with a broken fletching.  On order are 3 more arrows and 12 nocks.  I wouldn’t have this small issue IF I could hit the bunk each time I shoot.  But, the earth has a greater gravitational pull where I shoot than other places.  It also has quite a few rocks with minds of their own that jump up and grab at my arrows as they fly over top of them.  I shoot in a very spooky place.
Bears Butt
March 31, 2015

Went to the field last night and joined Weasel and Squirrel for a little “long range” practice.  My goal….hit the “bunk”…..The bunk is the big block of compressed foam that the target gets put on to stop the arrow.  It measures about 4 ft. long and 2 1/2 ft. tall.  I did place a target on it just because I had one, but my goal, like I said was just to hit the bunk.  As you know, I only have a 30 pound bow in my hands and that is if I could pull it back to 28 inches, but I don’t….my shortness comes into play and I only have a 26 inch draw….that makes my bow about a 25 pound one.  This is all just fine.  I’m working my way up to a 50 pound bow and will be pulling about 45 pounds when I get there.  Until then, I’ll learn to shoot this little guy and compete with others in my class.

So, looking at the bunk from 60 yards away is almost a ridiculous thing to be doing and planning on hitting that little thing is mostly just a dream.  When I first tried shooting an arrow down to hit it, the arrow hit the ground about 15 feet in front of it and bounced off the ground and hit it firmly in the center!  Will that work at a formal event and count?  I’m not sure, but it would be better if I could reach the target without using the forces of the ground to assist me.

So, how high do I have to aim that little pencil projectile in order to reach the bunk?  I have no references down range except a sage bush growing on top of the hill behind the bunk.  If I draw back, put the point of the arrow even with the top of the sage bush but in line with the bunk, maybe that will be high enough.  And that is what I did….The release went well and the arrow headed straight toward the bunk….and then it hit the ground at least 10 feet in front of the bunk…firmly bounced kicking up dust and planted itself into the bunk!  As long as I have hard dirt in front of the bunk maybe I could learn to “bark” (shooting squirrels from trees by hitting the bark of the tree, knocking the squirrel out and not damaging its little body) my arrows into the 10 ring.  But remembering the 3D arena we shot in a few weeks ago, the dirt there is very soft and not conducive to barking arrows into 10 rings.  I have to learn to do this another way.

So, what can I reference to now?  The sage bush isn’t going to work, not high enough.  What about the top of the barn?  That would work as long as I’m shooting down on the farm, but not anywhere else.  There must be a way.  I know the archers of way past (think of Sir Butt), used to stand and shoot hundreds of arrows at their enemies and some how get them to hit the guys down range and they were a lot farther away than 60 yards.  Heavier poundage draw weights no doubt played a part in that but still the same problem I am having right now.

Here is something that came to mind last night.  I could tie one end of a string to my leg and the other to my bow hand.  Drawing the bow up and shooting until the arrow finally hit the bunk.  The string would be adjusted as I continued my testing and once the arrow hit the bunk I would tie it off firmly.  That would be my 60 yard string length.  While lifting the bow to the proper height, as soon as the string was tight, the angle would be right for that shot…let er rip!  What a plan!  Is that legal in a Formal Invitational competition?  Maybe, but I doubt it, and besides I sure would look professional out on the line with a string tied to my leg and hand.  There has to be a better way.

Instinct shooting!  Sure, for you who have shot a million arrows and know your bow perfectly.  Just like throwing a baseball.  Look at the target and shoot!  Perfect shots every time.

I am becoming more and more familiar with my bow and I like it a lot, but I’m not an instinct shooter yet.  I want to play in the upcoming Formal and when I do I would like a few of the arrows to hit the target.  I’ve got to figure this thing out.

Well, before the night was over I actually did hit the bunk and I was doing it quite regularly…all six arrows in a few of the ends I shot actually stuck in the bunk without the aid of the ground bounce I was soooooo getting used to.  What I found might just help you when you take up shooting arrows with a bow.  My draw would begin level, as if the target was just 20 yards ahead of me, anchoring like I have learned to do.  Then I would bend my body from the waist up, like leaning back while holding my form.  I would lean back until the knuckle of my middle finger on my bow hand was even with the center of the bunk.  Then I would move my eye to the arrow itself, making sure it was in alignment with the bunk.  Of course the view showed the arrow pointing up at the moon, but that was ok, the elevation was right because my knuckle said it was.  Once I was happy with the alignment, a quick double check of the knuckle and I would release my draw….the arrow would arc up and away and fall right into the bunk!  Well, it would if I continued to keep the arrow in alignment, which didn’t happen all the time, but enough times that I came away feeling pretty good about it.  So, there is my reference point for a 60 yard shot….middle finger knuckle….I’m not so sure of this to go to a tattoo parlor and have a 60 tattooed on it, but I’ll continue to work on my shooting using the knuckle as my reference and see if things hold true.

At the 50 yard linemy reference point fell somewhere between my index finger knuckle and the curvature between it and my middle finger knuckle.  We were hurrying with our shooting at this point as the sun was going down and so I didn’t come away with the same feeling of “surety” as I did from the 60 yard line.  More practice is in order.  The biggest thing that I came away with was the movement of my upper body while holding my form from a level position.  My feet stayed where they always are and I wasn’t just aiming the bow up.  My body moved back from my hips, everything else remained the same.  I’ll continue to use this method.

My next practice session will again begin at 60 yards, move to 50 and then 40…just like the Formal is done.  April 11 will come too quickly.

Bears Butt

March 29, 2015

The next big shoot out with the Brigham Bowmen club is the Formal Invitational to be held April 11 and 12 in Tremonton.  The big boys and girls will be shooting at 60, 50 and 40 yards, while the 12 to 14 year olds will shoot 50, 40 and 30 yards and the 9 to 11 year olds cover 30, 20 and 10 yards.  Those younger than 9 will shoot 20, 14 and 10 (that is where I should be).  The targets look LARGE!  But I’m sure when one is on the line shooting it will be quite a different story.

So, Weasel had me convinced to go to the field and give it a go last night.  I didn’t have much time and so I only shot maybe 15 times and the big bale of foam.  No target was placed on it, just shooting at the bale.  I figured if I could hit the bale, which measures about 4 feet long by 2 feet high that would be a good start to my long range shooting.  Any practice is better than none.  I am going to have to get myself used to shooting every day that I can in order to do much of anything in the realm of archery.  My ultimate goal is to put a deer in the freezer using my recurve bow.  That will take a lot of range time.  I owe it to the deer to be as accurate as I can be.

As you can see in the picture, the target is quite large, but you can see also it is a long ways down to the 60 yard mark.

I shot a set of 6 arrows at the 60 yard mark last night and had arrows flinging all over the place, two completely over the target and the other 4 bouncing off the ground.  Not bad for my first time and I got the confidence that my bow will actually shoot farther than 60 yards….I had my doubts.

Weasel then convinced me I should move to the 40 yard line and give it a go from there.  His teaching said, shoot from there until you are confident you can hit the bale every time and shoot 50 or so shots.  Once all the arrows are hitting the bale, move back to 50 yards and do it all over again and then eventually you will be shooting at the 60 yard line.  OK!  I’m good with that.

Moving up to the 40 yard line I decided I needed to do some calculating in my head as to how high to aim the bow in order to hit the bale.  My bow will not shoot an arrow straight at the bale and hit it, however it will bounce an arrow off the ground and hit it….I did that several times last night.  I also employed the entire bale to stop the arrows….4 ft X 2 ft….Not too good of a group.  But like I said, I did end with all 6 arrows hitting the bale without bouncing off the ground to do it.  A start to my long range shooting.

I read a bit on the internet this morning about how a Formal Invitational tournament works and even though I watched as Weasel and Conner shot in last years, it was all new to me and I didn’t retain much of any of it.  The article I read did emphasize how taxing it is on the body.  You shoot 5 sets of 6 arrows per set at each of the target distances.  That is 30 arrows at 60 yards, 30 at 50 and then 30 at 40 yards.  90 arrows total!  That is a whole lot of pulling the bow back and letting the arrow fly!  And then….you have to walk down range and get your arrows and walk back.  5 X 60 yards, plus 5 X 50 yards, plus 5 X 40 yards……In comparison to a day of hunting that isn’t much walking, but for old people out of shape it is a lot of walking!

I’ll keep you all posted on my progress in the field before the big day.  I would like to do well in this shoot.

Bears Butt

March 27, 2015

My mentor and friend, Lynn Hayes, graciously leant me a book titled “Guide to the Longbow” by Brian Sorrells to read and glean what I could from its pages.  A very good book dedicated to shooting the longbow.  From my reading Brian Sorrells shoots a LOT!  A couple of times through the book he mentions having 3 bows near the door and ready for him to shoot should he get an inkling to do so, which is all the time.  If you are into longbow or any traditional bow shooting, do yourself a favor and pick up this book and read it….lots of good stuff in those pages.

So, what did I get from it?  A bunch of tips on how to actually shoot the bow and hit what is desired.  The very bottom line of all bottom lines comes back to the basics of proper form and lots of practice!

I found the arrow section the most interesting as that is where my biggest confusion is at this point in time.  I’ve been struggling with arrows and have finally found some I “believe in”.  Sure they are light and small, but they seem to fly pretty straight and hit the target without looking like the two arrows to the right in the picture above.  But from the book, he says that a proper arrow needs to weigh 8 grains per pound of draw weight of the shooter.  Not necessarily the draw weight of the bow itself.  With a few differences in manufacturers, draw weights are pretty much rated at 28 inches of draw distance and any difference plus or minus from that makes the draw weight different.  I draw at 26 inches and I lose about 2 1/2 pounds of draw weight per inch, so with my 30 pound rated bow, I am only drawing about 25 pounds.  So, under Mr. Sorrells guideline, my arrows should weigh 8 grains per inch of my 25 pound draw weight or 200 grains….this is his MINIMUM standard and makes a good starting point.

Next he talks about “spine” of the arrow.  Spine is the amount of flex the arrow has.  He (and others) says if the arrow has too stiff a spine it can’t flex around the handle (riser) of the bow and will hit the target with the back of the arrow to the right of the point end of the arrow.  The opposite is true if the back of the arrow hits to the left of the point, the spine is too light.  If you have little or no choice in your arrows spine you can alter the way the spine works, but adding weight to the point end of the arrow shaft if it’s too heavily spined.  There are arrow manufacturers that sell little weight discs that can be put on just in front of the arrow shaft and behind the point of the arrow, if they are screw on tips.  If your tips are glued on I have no idea what you would do in those cases.  Maybe try and pry the tip off and put on a heavier tip????

If your arrows are too lightly spined, you remove the tip and the insert and cut a fraction of the end off the arrow and replace the tip.  This shortens the arrow a bit, making the spine stiffer.  You can imagine if your arrow is say 5 feet long and it flexes pretty easily in the middle, you cut it down to one foot in length, it wouldn’t flex as much.  Remember, when cutting off your arrow at the tip end, don’t cut too much off because once it’s cut off, you can’t add it back.  A little goes a long way in effecting the spine flex.

Mr. Sorrells’ doesn’t say this, but I heard it from my mentor friend, you could add weight to the nock end of the arrow instead of cutting off the shaft to accomplish the same thing if your arrow spine is too light.  I suppose if your arrow shaft is too stiff, you could cut off the nock end of it instead of adding weight to the front….I’m guessing here, but it sort of makes sense to me.  If you try either of these to change your arrow and it blows up in your face, don’t blame me…remember, I’m guessing here!  Please read the fine print….(change font size to 2)….I ain’t responsible…..

He mentions something else that supposedly has just gotten into the Compound bow shooters vocabulary, but has been in the fore front of long bow and recurve shooters repertoire for a very long time and that is “Front of Center” (FOC).  I’m still trying to figure this one out, but it makes sense that it would figure into the whole arrow of choice scene.  An arrow with a FOC closer to the point would fly differently than one with its FOC closer to the nock.  My question to you at this time, without further explanation….Do you give a FOC?

Let’s look at this a little closer.  Your arrow is SOOOO long (outstretched arms).  If measured from just back of the tip, to the point of the nock where the string fits (inside part), the center of the arrow is in the middle of that measurement.  That is the Center of the arrow.  But, the tip weighs something and the nock weighs something, even it just a little and so the center of the arrow is not necessarily where the arrow will balance, if placed on the edge of a sturdy knife blade of something like that.  The balance point of the arrow is that FOC point, front of center.  If however your arrow balances behind the center point, more toward the nock end, you have a BOC…..Back of center is NOT a good thing.  I’m sure if you have a BOC arrow, it would tend to come back towards you should you shoot it.  Let’s say, for now, no arrows are made with BOC and that all arrows are FOCed.

As I study FOC more in depth I’ll report to you here what I find.  It makes sense (again) that adding a heavier tip to your arrow will force the FOC to move closer to the tip of the arrow.  Let’s think about what we just read about the spine of the arrow….adding weight to the front makes the spine weight go down….So, FOC and Spine weight are playing together here.  An arrow with a FOC closer to the tip has a less spine weight than one with a FOC closer to the nock.  It also makes sense to me that at some point between the center of the arrow and the point of FOC, your bow will like that arrow a whole lot better than one where the FOC is closer to the tip or closer to the nock.  That arrow needs to be FOC (spot) ON.  My goal now is to find out where the FOC my current “best” arrows is.  (Grammatically that does not sound proper….where my FOC is on my current best arrows, sounds better).  When I find that out I’ll report here.

Bears Butt

March 22, 2015

I just ran the test on my 10 “best” arrows and calculated the percent FOC for each:

1 = 8.95 %

2 = 8.14 %

3 = 8.29 %

4 = 8.49 %

5 = 8.47 %

6 = 8.14 %

7 = 8.70 %

8 = 8.47 %

9 = 8.47 %

10 = 8.84 %

So, as you can see, all my arrows are FOCed.

Butt