Lessons forgotten - tip of the day

[Twanger]

I was shooting at the 3D deer in the back yard from the deck - about 30 yards and keeping them all in the kill zone but not at all pleased with the groups.
I was shooting "lazy" and having a hard time focusing. Starting a new group the arrow hit a few inches back and high, still a kill, but still sloppy.

Then from the dark recesses of my mind a hard earned lesson popped into conciousness.

"Focus on the target and let the pin float in front."

The next shot went exactly where I wanted. The next slapped that shaft. The third slapped in too, and the fourth busted a nock and chipped the back of one arrow. Sweet! I walked to the target and pulled all four at the same time. A sub-one inch group at 30 yards.

Now I'm afraid to shoot anymore tonight in case the spell is broken!

[GF.]

Always end on a high note, unless you're doing the infamous 'one shot in the morning and live with it all day' technique. You know you can shoot a lot worse than that, but why go and prove it to yourself every time out :confused:

But your story is exactly why the tradshooter's method of picking a hair works so well. If you're focused on a very small patch of the critter, you just can't pay any attention to anything else :D

Probably the time of year to air out a whole bunch of 'Valuable lessons re-learned too often' posts... Since the one on your 'Top Ten Ways to Heffup a Hunt' got et.

[Twanger]

That's exactly along the lines of what I was thinking GF.

Anybody else got any good shooting or hunting tips before the season rolls around?

[ncboman]

If you draw sittin down in the stand, doan cant the bow when you aim. ;)

[GF.]

And come to think of it, a TV Uber-hunter kinda reinforced the idea, since he did a hunt that was real hard on his gear....

It seems that sight pins occasionally get bent or broken during a hunt. (Tradshooter says 'Who knew?!?' :rolleyes: ) So whaddyagonnado? One answer seems to be that you set your go-to/#1 pin dead center in the sight housing for all of your shooting. That way, even if your pin is knocked out of the picture, you can center the sight housing ring in the peep and your arrow will end up right in the middle of whatever you're lined up on....

Damn.. That might be the secret to effective 'instinctive' shooting of a compound!:D

[ncboman]

before I got these super brite pins I kept a white line on the back of the riser that matched the elevation on the 20yd pin. ;)

[Twanger]

Almost anything will work in good light. Back when I had a 3 pin sight set for 20, 30, & 40 I sharpened the end of a long threaded screw to a point and made a 50 yard pin that was good for 5 inch groups (on the rare occasion that I was).