Extend Your Archery Comfort Range
The common archery hunter practices three to four nights a week shooting 20 and 30 yard distances. Practicing these ranges night after night can make you feel comfortable in making a good clean shot at 30yrds. However, have you ever had a big shooter buck just outside of your comfort zone and had to watch it walk on past hoping he would turn to give you a close enough shot. Here are a few tips to help extend your comfort level.
Form & Grip
Form and grip are two of the most important factors in shooting better groups. It doesn’t matter who you talk to or how often you shoot you will always find someone with a different form. The main key to your form is find something comfortable and stick with it. As for your grip, you need to hold your bow in a way that when you release the arrow you’re not worrying about catching your bow as the arrow leaves the rest. Worrying about catching your bow or having a tight grip is going to make you torque your wrist, thus making your arrow fly just a little differently on each release making for wider grouping.
Site Brackets
Pay attention to your sight bracket, pins, and level is another helpful hint. Most sight brackets are designed for the outer ring to fill up your peep sight allowing you to line up the peep sight with the outer bracket which helps with consistent centering of your pins in your peep sight. Also most sights now come with a level on them which many shooters don’t pay attention to. This level is a very important part of your equipment. Straightening this level will help you increase your accuracy.
Take your practice shots well past your comfort level. Don’t be afraid to practice at 50, 60, even 70 yards. You may never want to shoot at an animal this far, but by practicing at these distances you will become a much better shot at 20 and 30 yards. It will help you increase your comfortable range to 40, maybe even 50, yards. When starting out you may lose a couple arrows, but when that buck of a lifetime is standing at 40 yards and you settle that pin on it comfortably a few lost arrows will be well worth that monster buck on the wall…
Matt Brunet
Last Updated: August 28th, 2022
Excellent advise…I work at Bass Pro Shops in Atlanta…and give some of the same advise to beginning Archers….
Thanks Derric you know what they say it’s the little things in archery hunting that make a big difference…
we have been shooting at farther distances for past week doing exactly what you have mentioned in your post…Bobby and I will see you first week in October