iDoHunting.com: How to make the most shooting winter leagues.

Having a blast while sharpening your skills

The 2010 Archery Season Begins!!!!!

For most folks, shooting your bow never ends. It seems like a person no more hangs up the tree stand and the next thing you find yourself taking part in a winter archery league, shooting at animal targets or even the higher disciplined spot targets. This is a perfect opportunity to excel in your skills shooting and having a great time doing this with others. You will increase your ability to shoot tighter groups as well as conditioning and strengthening the correct muscles used to shoot your bow. Winter archery leagues are very common across the country and this is a prime opportunity to get familiar with your equipment.

As we venture into the coming weeks, we will address some issues to help you understand what makes your equipment work and how your everyday life can affect your ability to shoot well.

As we move into the beginning of another archery season, there’s a lot of questioning and anticipation in ones mind about the correct way of setting up a release and the firing of it.

Many issues become a heated debate such as the issue of back tension and the proper methods of using it or with the fact that some folks are fighting target panic. A lot of us become unnecessarily carried away with being too technical. So many people get too busy picking everything apart versus using the proven basics like setting your equipment up properly and just start shooting. There are many shortcut tips to help speed this process along and we will walk through most of them.

Learning the basics of setting up your equipment can be a major advantage for yourself. This allows one to be able to understand what makes your bow and your release tick. When needed you will be capable to correct a small problem when disaster arrives during a hunting trip or at a tournament.

At times, I may check the Axle to Axle measurement on a bow as well as the brace height. It should always be checked with the limb bolts tight versus backed out for when using a lower poundage. Most of the time as you back out the limb bolts the A/A doesn’t change much if any, but you will gain more brace height. This here is different from one model to the next. This is also affected by the amount of preload on your limbs and the design of the limbs.

A perfect way to build self-confidence

I usually don’t worry about getting all technical with the brace height. You should have an idea of what it is by the model purchased and if it fluctuates a little so be it.

The only time the axle to axle and brace height need to be addressed is when swapping out strings and cables. Before doing this, mark your cams with a ultra fine point marker or even a pencil. Mark a line on the cam using your limb as a straight edge. This will always be a reference mark now (this step is a must when your bow is setup and shooting sweet). Reason being is if you ever question your strings or cable stretching, you can check your mark which should run along the edge of the limb. If you ever have to change the cable because of damage, all you have to do is press it, take off the damaged one, put on the new one, shoot a couple times to get the new cable or string seated, and then check your mark and twist your new string or cable until you're back at your old reference mark. Now you'll be darn close after the quick rebuild as far as bow performance and sight marks.

As stated, when you start to question something going wrong because of a couple of flyers, you can always glance at your reference marks on your cam and either put your paranoia to rest or address the problem if the mark has changed.

Nock position on the bow string usually sits between being square or a ¼” high. This all reflects to shooting release or fingers and what type of arrow rest you’re using. I know a lot of drop-away arrow rests favor running them square and when using the 2 prongs, a little lift with a medium amount of spring tension works well. When using the blades, you can normally give them a little lift in the back and you can also rock the rest up in the back and then lower your blade to flatten the pitch a little. This works great with the TT spring steel 1s or the prong style rest. From there you can float the lower limb bolt ¼ turn at a time and find your sweet spot. Mark a line on the lower limb bolt and only float it a ½ turn max one way or the other. This works great because you're always able to bring it back to exactly where it was (if needed) versus trying to find that perfect sweet spot adjusting the rest. Backing out the lower limb bolt will raise your nock point. Don’t change your nock or rest when doing this tuning method. Just shoot and check your grouping or arrow impact consistency.

Winter leagues are a great time

We will discuss releases more in depth later.

I prefer mine set “Hard” be it the Hinge, Thumb release, Evo or trigger style. Setting it up so it fires without much effort – a “hair trigger” works fine for a while but usually tends to make a person anticipate the shot, builds paranoia over miss fires while drawing back/letting down and it causes some shots to be premature - firing very quickly while settling into the target.

When setting up a thumb triggered release that has more hang time or travel, pulling through the shot helps a person stay stronger through the aiming process of the shot. This helps a person from having a “weak shot due to pre-relaxing of the muscles while still aiming” versus staying strong and somewhat stable through the whole shot process.

You will see at times when some of us shoot under pressure during a shoot off, where we have to let down because of the shot not going off as wanted. "We will then switch to a Harder release - more travel or effort needed before it fires” in order to stay stronger in that high pressure shot thus scoring better under pressure. Most people think that we are switching to an easier release when it’s actually the opposite.

Have you heard the saying, "No two people are ever alike; everyone does have their own unique personality." This statement carries a lot of weight when it comes to one being able to understand and repeat in a physical manner what he or she has been taught. My old saying here is Archery is 95% mental and I still say this is close to being true yet today. Truly the only obstacle that most of us have to get by is to achieve what we all desire, comes down to the space between our ears. Being that we all have our own unique personality affects on how we interpret a command, how our mind reacts to pressure, how we stay focused, and most of all how each and every one of us can try to stay relaxed (versus being nervous).

We all have the desire to shoot well. One simple step will turn an individual into a shooting machine where as this won’t do diddly for the rest of the archers that are working their way up. Many years ago, I shot back to back 55x -300s at the nationals and I did this with my hunting target release - a Scott Mongoose caliper release triggered with the finger. I went to a back tension to try to get the last couple Xs more consistent. The main key to shooting well is finding a way to train yourself to stay relaxed and calm. For some, this is real easy and for others, it’s the hardest darn thing ever. What affects this???

A-Your Personality trait! You're stuck with it – but you can learn how to work with it.

B- Your everyday life! People who have a daily life in a quiet atmosphere will be able to stay relaxed fairly easy.
People who have to be in a high stress/high tense type of atmosphere will tend to have a harder time relaxing while shooting under pressure.

C-What you eat and drink! Never change your eating habits the day of a shoot and try to be healthy. If you tend to intake a lot of caffeine and sugars, just back off of them some and don’t go healthy and cold turkey. This will cause your body to crash and you will struggle shooting – heck you probably shot great back home at league with all those bad habits.

There are a lot of times where you hear of individuals getting all disgusted because they tend to get all rattled up and nervous when trying to do something that they have fun at. This has actually caused some to walk away from the sport because they have been told day in and day out that it will all go away in time as you shoot more. I say "BS" - it may lessen some and that’s usually when you're around your buds shooting an event where there’s a lot of joking going around. But if you talk to any of the upper level folks that been around forever, they will tell you that they still get nervous sometimes. It just affects them less than others. It all comes back to their personal traits again on how they can handle pressure.

So if you're one who gets frustrated because you’re not able to shake the nerves and be more relaxed, you're not alone. We will discuss nerves, shooting while under pressure and how to stay calm & strong through the shot later.

Good Luck Everyone! I hope these tips will help you during your 2010 archery league or in the woods!

Jeff Heeg