Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Shooting and Hunting => Topic started by: hedgeapple on February 09, 2009, 01:36:04 am
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From what I'm gathering from here is intuitive shooting is a very individual shooting style. I'm new this type of shooting. Right now I'm practicing with a cheap fiberglass, Wally World special I bought for my son years ago to bowfish with. I am building a boardbow, and have staves to begin other bows as soon as I learn from the first.
My question: Do any of you shoot with the bow at about a 45 degree angle? I shool my wheelie vertically, but somehow the diagonal hold just seem right for me to shoot intuitively. I've read that many Native American tribe shot that way. But most shot from the chest. I do bring the bow to an anchor point at my face. Since I'm still learning, should I give up on this seemly natural way to hold a bow and learn to shoot it verticaly?
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i am by no means an expert but i can tell you this. the angle you are talking about is called a cant. i think it would be safe to safe that most people shooting any kind of selfbow shoot this way. when shooting of your hand or off a small arrow shelf this angle keeps the arrow in place. i believe also that you should try different angles to find which gives you the best arrow flight. buy a good book and do some research on the net. before you even start try to hit any kind of mark on a target shoot very close to the target and develop good form. good form is the basis of good instinctive shooting. good luck hope some of this helped. keep at it, and practice as much as you can.
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Oops I should have put this in "shooting and hunting" Moderator please move. thanks
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Hedgeapple, it's whatever works for you. Most people cant the bow to some extent. I cant mine about as far as it will go, I usually shoot with my bow almost horizontal. Works for me. I could never shoot worth a crap with a vertical bow.
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G. Fred Asbell's book, "Instinctive Shooting" gives a good explanation about the how-to's of instinctive shooting. It is part of my library and I read it occasionally still and get something out of it each time.
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Byrion Ferguson's "Become the Arrow" and the DVD "Hitting 'Em like Howard Hill" will teach you how to shoot well enough- especially the DVD. It covers form in depth, and good consistent form is necessary to shoot consistently. That DVD is worht more, in my opinion, than the best bow and set of arrows out there.
I had to "unlearn" alot of bad habbits I developed from shooting Asbell's "No form, point and shoot" style.
Canting the bow is beneficial in that it allows you to 'channel' the arrow, remove the bow from your sight line, and sort of cushion the archers paradox. Holding it vertically isn't a very good idea, but it's completely possible.
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If my shooting is off I will sometimes shoot using a classical form with the bow held vertical, rigid stance and pull straight back to my anchor, hold for a second and release. This will tell me if it is me or the arrows. Generally it is me! ;D
Once you get your fundamentals down to where you don't have to think about them your style really doesn't matter as long as you are consistent.
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Thanks, Hillbilly, Troutbum, Pat B and Kegan for your wealth of knowledge. I'll check out the books and DVD.
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Hey Hedge apple,Something else you might consider ,when in hunting situations,the position which the shot opportunity demands,requires different body position,thus,may require a different angle of cant to line the arrow up with your line of sight.So,rather than have a"hard and fast" cant angle,be prepared to rotate your wrist,one way or the other,to line up the arrow under your eye.Hope this makes sense to you. God Bless
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PeteC, it makes sense to me.
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Flexibility is the secret. You have to start with the fundamentals but once you get those down anything goes...and in some hunting situations you have to shoot from weird angles and if the fundamentals are in place, you can make the shot.
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I agree completely with Pete and Pat...gat the basics down to a science, then practice from every possible position and angle. when that huge bull elk walks by at ten yards directly below you between two rimrocks on a steep mountainside... you will be able to make the shot with confidence..Hawk a/ho
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I work a 3 or 4 days a month delivering office furniture for a friends company. Many of the more expensive office chairs are packed with scrap pieces of form, some are 24" x 24" x 4". I've been saving those large piece to set up for a walking course around my farm. This way I can practice alot of differnet elevations and angles.
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Take every shot opportunity and situation you can imagine while practicing. Take long shots, lay down flat on your belly and shoot, shoot through a small hole in a bush or try to sneak one along side a tree without hitting the tree. Use your imagination. You may never use most of these situations in a real hunting situation but if it shows up, you've been there. Getting good at long shots will really help your hunting distance shots.
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Some things to consider...
When you pracitce form, make sure it's the most comfortable and easily reproduceable. It will be easier to ingrain itno your muscle memory, and will allow you to shoot mroe quickly in the actual instance, and will still be ingrained (at least in your upper body) every time you make a shot- standard position or not.
A bow, with properly tuned arrows, shoots straight. Not at an angle, not off to the side. Just straight. Even the ones that aren't centershot.
So if you make a point to note the arrow in your peripheral vision (gap shooting and split-vision), you will be able to "map" the arrow's flight before you shoot it. And if you miss, you have something to imporve upon next shot.
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Kegan, that sounds like great advice. That's what I've been doing actually. Most of my practice has been at 10 yards. After 4 or 5 shots to get zoned in, I consistantly shoot an apple size group. While roving the other day, I started shooting at mole hills from 20 to 30 yards. Again after 4 or 5 shots, I was zoned in and hitting. I'm hoping the more I practice, build the muscle memory and sight memory, I won't need the 4 or 5 shots. Whitetails won't give me practice shots. haha
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Kegan, that sounds like great advice. That's what I've been doing actually. Most of my practice has been at 10 yards. After 4 or 5 shots to get zoned in, I consistantly shoot an apple size group. While roving the other day, I started shooting at mole hills from 20 to 30 yards. Again after 4 or 5 shots, I was zoned in and hitting. I'm hoping the more I practice, build the muscle memory and sight memory, I won't need the 4 or 5 shots. Whitetails won't give me practice shots. haha
That's excellent! Along with muscle memory is subconscious mapping- the ingraining of the arrow's flight in your mind. It's what lets you make those quick shots at unknown distances. It seems you have muscle memory down, and with more practice you'll get that arrow flight ingrained into your mind. At that point, even your misses will be close to the target.
Best of luck!
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Thanks Kegan, This might sound somewhat crazy and metaphysical, but I'm a big believer in visualization. I add physical movement to my visualization practices, also.
Explaination and examples:
While in middle school I came down with the flu and couldn't practice or play basketball in for nearly 2 weeks. While in bed I would visualize my shooting jump shots. When I was able to get out of bed, I would visualize and actually practice jump shots in the house without a ball of course. My first day back to school was a game day. Since I had been absent, I did get to start and came in half way through the first quarter. I scored 18 points in the game, my career high to that point. Since then I've used that technique with a lot of things I do.
I've shot wheelie bows on and off for the last 15 years. Usually, I viewed hunting with a bow (compound) as way to scout deer for gun season. This season I got serious about bow hunting. There was a span of about 3 weeks that I couldn't practice shooting this season. I did however keep practicing and visualizing finding my anchor points (I use 3--chin anchored in the crease of my hand and thumb, string to the corner of my mouth and the string slightly touching just off the center of my nose) and smooth release. I was getting concerned because I hadn't actually shot my bow. I had just a few minutes one evening to shoot. I planned to hunt the next morning. At 15 yards I grouped 5 arrows in a silver dollar size group. At 25 yards 5 arrows could be covered by the bottom of a coke can. I felt pretty confident of my abilities for the next mornings hunt.
The chills forced me to leave my stand a bit earlier than I had planned the next morning, about 8:30. Walking back to my house I caught the movement of deer on the other hillside moving toward me. It was a 6 pointer with an ugly rack. I quickly moved back the way I had come then dropped over the hill. If the deer stayed on course it should cross a path I kept mowed across the the drainage of my pond. I no sooner got positioned next to a cedar than I saw the deer crossing the drainage right where I'd hoped it would. At 12 yards it was broadside to me. There was no cover between him and me. All I could hope for was for him to turn his head so I could draw. He turned his head straight to me and bolted. Instinctively I came to full draw as he passed behind another cedar. There was too brush on the edge of the thicket where I was standing for a shot.
But, young buck stopped at about 40 yard to turn and look at me. He did his pawing, head bob thing but was walking toward. Come on one more step. Ok, one more step. I coud begin to feel some pain in my arms as he stepped into an opening. He was staring straight at me, slightly quartered. I don't like head on shots even with a scoped rifle. But, I knew he wasn't coming any closed and that I would have to let my draw down in another 15 or 20 seconds. That movement would send him running.
I inventoried my anchor points. Everything felt perfect. My 25 yard pin was in the middle of his throat/chest about 4 inche below the horizontal line of his spine. I was as confident as any sight picture I'd ever had on any animal with any weapon. I took a breath and released. I saw the fletching flash into my pariphrial vision as I concentrated on the spot. The flight looked good. Thud. The deer jumped the fence onto my neighbors farm, crashing into a small tree when he landed then he was out of sight. There was some crashing, then all was quiet. The shot had been 32 paces.
I went to house for coffee. An hour later I went to look for deer. He had made it only another 20 yards. The arrow struck him just above the wishbone severing both coradid arteries and his windpipe then slice the top of his left lung before the broadhead lodged in his shoulder blade.
I'm convinced visualization works. Or, at least it does for me.
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Good luck on traditional bow hunting. It really is very challenging in my opinion, that's why most folks hunting with traditional equipment like it I guess.
Most of my shots while deer hunting are 15 yards or less. You have to think ahead and quickly determine where you're going to take your shot. I position my body as soon as I can when I've decided where the shot will occur so that the only movement I have to make when the deer iis near is drawing my bow. You draw your bow only when you're going to shoot...no drawing and holding as can be done with a compound. That's part of the challenge, making the movement required to get the shot at extremely close range without the deer catching you! It's important to wear quiet clothing, and to have a quiet bow. An alerted deer can easily jump the string even at five yards.
In our part of the country the vast majority of bowhunters hunt from a stand. We put a lot of time and thought into the best stand location to get a shot. Cover of some type for the hunter comes into play...sometimes we hang a stand in a large cedar tree to break up our outline. Often a double or triple trunked tree is used for the same reason. At the very least we will pull up cover such as beach branches that will keep their leaves through hunting season, and tie those to the tree behind the stand.
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Thanks Kegan, This might sound somewhat crazy and metaphysical, but I'm a big believer in visualization. I add physical movement to my visualization practices, also.
Not at all- we all do it from time to time. Howard Hill would shoot imaginary arrows form imaginary bows at moving targets to get it ingrained (I do the same- however I still miss alot; those darn imaginary arrows must not be spined properly ;)).
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Hey, I can do that every shot too with an imaginary bow and arrow. A imaginary world record elk too! ;)
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Kegan, I nearly blew soda out my nose reading your post. :D Sounds like you need to visualize how to image. haha haha
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That is nothing bro, I have been doing this so long, now I track imaginary blood trails, and leave imaginary gut piles ;D ;) those imaginay elk quarters are definately lighter than the real ones :o Hawk
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Kegan, I nearly blew soda out my nose reading your post. :D Sounds like you need to visualize how to image. haha haha
I think I do! I've missed more crows with imaginary arrows than I can count :o :-X
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you have to become the arrow, grasshopper! ::)