Tips for a new bow hunter

[RadSav]

Here is where you are going to get the most of your draw length back!  The green line represents the left side of the grip.  That line or grip edge should run down the Thenar Crease (red) between your thumb and your palm (between "line of life" and "line of fate").  The Hyperthenar or heal (moon) of your hand should never apply pressure to the flat surface of the grip facing the shooter.

This should bring the wrist down and forward slightly.  From what I see for you that might be as much as 1/2"!  All pressure should be evenly placed on the entire length of the Thenar meat of the thumb (Venus).  This will require you to rotate the elbow of the left arm out and up allowing the heal (blue circle) to also rotate to the left.

When placed correctly on the bow you will never need to grip the bow.  It is near impossible to grip the bow the same day in, day out, morning, noon, and night.  But, if you allow the bow to grip you that can be done the same every time as the force of the bow is a constant and the crease is a natural place for that edge to settle.

In this picture you will want to rotate the red line to intersect with the green line.

[RadSav]

Sorry if it seems I have rushed here at the end.  Maybe I can clarify better with a little sleep.

Best of luck, hope this helps.

[Muleyman27]

RadSav thank you for all of your help. this is the exact advice I was looking for!

to start out I haven't hit my forearm yet so lets hope it doesn't happen. but I have hit myself in the face drawing back and accidentaly hitting the release before full draw haha. when I am leaning foreward I am doing that on purpose because I thought I needed to! so that should be an easy fix. and I see what u mean about using your back because your right I use all the muscles I draw back with to hold at full draw like my forearm bicep shoulder instead of relaxing and using my back!! and I see where I need to place the bow in my hands now deffinetly very comfortable resting on that line between thumb and palm im gonna go outside in a bit and practice and have my wife take sum more pics to see if im doing it right. and do u think I need to lengthen the d loop still? or change my form first and see if that helps? im going to write down a checklist of all of these things and go over them before I shoot so I can get proper form down everytime!! thanks again for all your tips I feel like I could shoot for years and not shoot well without proper form so form to me is important and I want to start out doing it the right way.

[Muleyman27]

and do u think that I will be able to use that bow properly since draw length doesn't look long enough or change form first to see if that helps thanks again

[RadSav]

There is a fine line between making sure you develop good solid form and making sure you have a good time shooting the bow.  When my wife wanted me to teach her I asked the question, "Do you want to have fun or do you want to be the best?"  It's a legitimate question to ask.  And it can be both...just the time to get there is different.  As usual she wanted to be better than all the guys so she chose the class room first.

We had her set up with an Airbow for practice.  For the first 23 days she never shot an arrow.  We went through all the motions and mechanics of shooting with her eyes closed.  Once the mechanics of shooting were ingrained properly we moved on to aiming...still no arrows shot.

Then the day came almost two months later.  We hit the range with arrows in the quiver ready to have some fun.  And what fun it was!!!  She was awesome!  20 then 30, then 40, then 50...she was better than me!  And she liked that just a little too much

I still take some time each year to get back to basics and work on form.  It's really shocking how fast I can develop bad habits after a year of being lazy.  I try to make sure the first dozen arrows are shot without any concern for where I group.  Just concentrate on the mechanics and form.  Then I take a snack break and try to make that first arrow count.  I will shoot a dozen arrows one trip to the target at a time.  Shoot one, pull arrow, change yardage, shoot one, pull arrow.  If I feel I still need some work it's back to five yards and my eyes closed.  I myself find it fun, but wouldn't expect that to be for everyone.

[RadSav]

As far as changing the bow right now?  I don't have an answer for that.  If I were working with you in real time face to face that would be a quick answer.  Instructing this way I really need to be careful and not jump the gun.  So let's get that grip, balance and back tension addressed a little and take another look at it.  That will be more than enough to get you completely confused. 

It's likely to be really darn close!  So let's work through these things first and then worry about d-Loop and multiple reference points as we move along.  Don't shoot a lot of arrows as you don't want to fall into some bad habits while we wait.  But shoot enough to begin feeling comfortable with the changes before we evaluate for the next step.

This is sort of fun, isn't it?

[GBoyd]

Hey RadSav,

Thanks for the time and information you've put into this thread. It will give me something to think about when I'm practicing tomorrow. I'm planning on having someone take pictures so I can see how I am on all the points you've mentioned.

This thread inspired me to go get a lesson too and I learned a lot. Excellent advice for other beginners.

[Muleyman27]

yes this is fun and to answer your question I want both to shoot well and have fun, hunting is my main goal tho but if I get good enough I wouldnt mind going to sum archery competitions as well. when I stand up straight I cant see through the peep sight so I have to move my head foreward a bit. I ended up going and getting my d loop a lil longer yesterday too. im trying to use my back muscles once at full draw but it is difficult that will take sum getting used to. what do u think did lengthening the d loop make a difference or does it still look short?

[bowtechian]

Not sure if I missed it in some of the previous posts but bare bale shooting can really help work on your form. It's as simple as throwing a piece of blank cardboard over your target shoot like this for a week or so then shoot bare bale before you shoot target. if you find your form lacking go back to the bare bale again 

[Torrent50]

Take a look at the Elk Hunting section and check out the thread by Joel Turner on his podcasts.  I'm a newbie to the bowhunting  and shooting thing, but I have quite a bit of experience with Joel and his Mental Mechanics teaching as it relates to firearms shooting.  It really does work wonders.  When I listened to the second podcast it applies a lot of the same techniques to bowhunting and a light went off in my head.  I will be incorporating this in my shooting and would highly recommend others give it a listen.  I have personally used it and have seen it literally work miracles in the gun world.  Can't imagine it won't be just as applicable here. 

Just a thought to give the mental part of it some attention to go with all the hard work you are putting into the physical part.

[Muleyman27]

Well I changed it up! I went into ranch and home and talked to the department manager and they decided to return my bow. He said it wasn't a matter of draw length it was my bows axle to axle length the carbon knight had an axle length of 31" I ended up buying a Martin vulture and it has an axle to axle of 35.5". I noticed a big difference and don't have to lean foreword to get to the sights. This bow feels awesome when I shoot it definetly glad I made the change!!!

[Muleyman27]

I was wondering if I sight in my bow sights drawing 60# will the pins be off when I change it to 70# draw weight for hunting!?

[h20hunter]

I'm sure somebody that has a better explanation will chime in but....yeah...it should. More draw = faster = change in inpact. I would think it would take just a bit of tweeking to make the adjustments.

[Todd_ID]

I was wondering if I sight in my bow sights drawing 60# will the pins be off when I change it to 70# draw weight for hunting!?

Your point of impact does change for many different reasons based on the simple rules of physics. But don't worry yourself about the nuances of bows until you've got 10 years under your belt.

Your idea of turning up your bow for hunting is a bit troubling in my mind. You absolutely must be able to draw that bow at the critical time with as little motion as possible.  You're personally a big enough man to be able to pull off a 70 pound draw weight: I'm not. I can shoot 70 or 80 pounds day in and day out on my range at home, but I wouldn't want to try it when I have a bull at 15 yards, in the snow, at 4 below.  The test each archer needs to prove/pass is to sit in a chair,  lift your feet off the floor, and draw the bow as if you were going to shoot straight where the chair is pointing.  If you have to much movement affiliated with the draw, then you need to lower the draw weight.

[rtspring]

I shot mine at 64 for a year before I moved it up to 70..  I was more concerned with form than poundage and now everything feels good..