Are Crossbows Becoming Too Efficient for Archery Season?

They are not too to efficent to be in the general season were they belong.

 

I do not actively practice with my compound bow anymore due to the target panic issue I described earlier and the fact that crossbows are now legal during the archery season in Missouri. I keep my compound bow as a backup in case something happens to the crossbow or on the rare occasion that my stepson wants to go with us outside of gun season in which case I let him use my crossbow and I take the compound bow. Funny thing is, the target panic issue rarely happens when shooting at a deer or turkey. It also doesn't usually happen if I haven't shot my bow for awhile. The first 10-15 arrows I shoot after a long lay off of not shooting are usually good. After that, the target panic creeps back in and I can't seem to stop it. The more I shoot the worse it gets. To describe it the best I can, I draw the bow and try to draw so that I am as close to the center of the target as possible when I hit full draw. Even then, often times I am 6-8 inches off of center when I hit full draw. I look through the peep sight and at my pin for whatever yardage I am shooting at (usually just 20 yards in my back yard). I can see that the pin is off target and not centered on where I want to hit. I start moving the bow towards the center and for whatever reason, I end up punching the release too soon. When I try to keep shooting once it happens, I find myself trying to jerk the bow to the center quickly to offset this involuntary triggering of the release which sometimes works but most of the time doesn't. It's extremely frustrating. I have tried shooting at closer ranges (10 yards and even 5 yards), tried blind bale shooting which involves standing in front of a hay bale or other large target and shooting your bow when blindfolded so that you just concentrate on executing the shot without the visual aspect of it. I can do that but once the blindfold is off and I have to look through the peep and align the pin, the target panic creeps back. I have tried different releases including the ones that strap to your wrist and that you trigger with your index finger and the ones you hold in your hand that resemble a "T" that you trigger with your thumb. I turned my bow down from 60 lbs to 50 lbs to see if that made a difference. All that did was make my bow loud as hell. Things I haven't tried and decided not to pursue once the crossbow was an option is to try a back tension release (I think it would work for target shooting but see issues using it when hunting if you need to shoot from a less than perfect position or less than perfect form), shooting my compound with fingers like I used to shoot my recurve bow as a kid, removing the peep sight and just use a kisser button and use the pins without a peep, and removing the sights and peep and just shooting instinctive. The thing is, I consider myself a hunter period. Not just a bowhunter. I hunt deer to put meat in my freezer. I hunt archery season, gun season, and muzzleloader season. So spending a bunch more time trying to figure out the bow issue isn't that important to me. If a crossbow is legal and solves my issue and allows me to fill my freezer, then problem solved as far as I am concerned. I don't have this huge desire to be just a bowhunter. I have killed 5 deer and 1 turkey with my compound bow and I can't say I was any more jacked on those kills than I am when I kill a deer with my crossbow, rifle, or muzzleloader or a turkey with my shotgun. I'm sure the purists on here will blast me for that statement and that the bow kill is supposed to somehow be more sacred and revered but for me, each kill by whatever method is special and I don't assign importance to one over the other based on the weapon I happened to be using at the time. Do I wish I could shoot a compound bow consistently at even just 20 and 30 yards and would have been able to keep using it and not go to the crossbow? Yes. Is it so important to me to pass up the chance to use a crossbow that is now legal which puts fun back in practicing again and because of the ability to practice more makes me a more ethical hunter? No.

 

So, and I am not being a jerk, honestly. You have such a bad case of target panic that you can't overcome? I never had that issue, I have had periods where I don't shoot well of course, but I always correct it. But I think you said something that sums it all up. You said you are not just a bow hunter, you are a hunter. You were no more "jacked" with killing a deer with a compound than any other weapon..there is the answer. You simply do not have a passion for bowhunting. Nothing wrong with that. You made the right choice to hunt with a different weapon. I hunt with a shotgun, a lot. But for me, I would rather kill them with a bow because because the sense of accomplish is greater for me, but I still partake in the tradition of shotguns, buckshot and hounds here in the south I loved that too. So I do both. Nothing wrong with approach to how you want to hunt in my opinion.

 

To answer your question, yes. I started out shooting a recurve as a teenager with no sights, just instinctive. Everything was fine. Then in 1991, I got my first compound bow. First time I ever shot with a release and using a peep sight and pins. Every now and then, I would notice that while practicing that I would hit the release before the pin was where it was supposed to be on the target. It would happen about once every 8-10 shots. When it didn't happen I would be hitting where I was supposed to. Then I got talked into shooting a 3D tournament that I was not really experienced enough to be doing and it happened a lot during that tournament. I found myself struggling to move the pin to the right spot on the target before I would involuntarily hit the release. Score was horrible. Missed several targets altogether and lost several arrows. Pretty embarrassing. I used that bow and the T style release that you held in the palm of your hand and triggered with your thumb up until about 1998. I was hunting public land only during that time and never got a shot at a deer (with the bow). My practice sessions would consist of 2-5 good shots in a row followed by an errant shot that would sometimes be so far off I would miss the entire target. Using aluminum arrows back then and not having a lot of disposable income at the time, losing and/or bending arrows was costly. Which meant less practice. Probably best anyway as bad practice is worse than no practice. In 1998 I got rid of the bow and got out of archery altogether. A combination of the frustration with target panic, frustration with lack of success public land hunting, and a first wife who didn't want me to be gone hunting very often led to this decision.

Fast forward to 2012. New wife who actually hunts with me and her Dad has private land for us to hunt on. We had been gun hunting it only and my wife decides she wants to try archery hunting. We get two new bows in the spring of 2012 and practice through the summer. I was now using a release that straps to the wrist and triggers with the index finger. At first, I thought the 14 year lay off had cured my target panic. When we started shooting I was doing really well. But the more I shot, the more I would get that feeling to hit the release when I knew it wasn't right. Read where having too small of peep (target peep?) and trying to be too precise might cause this. I swapped out the peep for a bigger peep (hunting peep?) but that didn't seem to help. Tried the blind bale and close range shooting which would seem to help at first but ultimately the errant shots would start again. Read that too much poundage might be it and turned my bow down from 60 lbs to 50 lbs. Still happening. Not every single shot mind you. I could sometimes string together 5-10 shots in a row where I would be grooving them in there. Then I might miss the entire target with the next two shots. That's the frustration. I know how to shoot and can do it sometimes but with the target panic and not knowing when it would hit, there was no sustained consistency. Read where shooting small bullseyes can contribute to it by trying to be too precise. Tried shooting a 3D deer target. No bullseyes. Still happening. Luckily, I never glanced an arrow off of the target that left my yard. Buried several arrows in my 7ft privacy fence. Was lucky they didn't hit a crack in the fence and go all the way through and end up in the neighbor's yard. After several years, I had to stop shooting beyond 10 yards at the house for fear that my luck would run out and one of my errant shots would leave my yard. At 10 yards, my errant shots would at least stay on the target.

After battling this from 2012 to 2016, Missouri made crossbows legal. My wife wanted one as she had become more and more convinced that her 30 lb bow (no poundage limit in MO) wasn't sufficient and wanted to be able to reach out a little further than the self imposed 20 yard limit she had been adhering to with her light poundage bow. She hadn't got a deer with her bow and had passed 30 and 35 yard shots. She wanted to be able to take those shots with the crossbow. I had managed to get my first deer with a bow in 2012 and killed 4 more deer and a turkey between 2012 and 2016. I flat out missed several deer and turkey during this time and wounded two deer that weren't recovered. I would be lying if I said that target panic wasn't partially to blame on at least one of those. I resisted getting a crossbow that first season and hunted with the compound bow while she hunted with the crossbow. But after shooting her crossbow and actually enjoying being able to practice again without the worry of an errant shot, I got a crossbow for the 2017 season and haven't looked back.

Target panic for me is a lot like what Rick Ankiel went through a as (former) major league pitcher. If you aren't a baseball fan and don't know his story, Google Rick Ankiel Yips. Very promising pitcher for the Cardinals and got to the playoffs and suddenly would every so often lose control of his pitches. Fastballs over the catcher's head, hit batters, walks. It was the craziest thing to watch. Tried to come back as a pitcher the next year and it started up again. Could throw two 90+ mph fastballs in a row right down the center of the plate and the next one would go over the batters head to the backstop. They sent him down to the minors and tried to work it out but he eventually gave up on pitching and became an outfielder. Same concept for me and the compound bow.

 

well that sucks,,,,I have never had target panic.. maybe you can overcome that and hunt with the bow again...

 

Target panic is real, and it really sucks. I've struggled with it for probably a decade now. I've worked quite a bit on overcoming it and I am good most of the time, but it rears its ugly head every now and again. Two years ago at the LAS Classic, I had it so bad during my first round I didn't think I was going to make it through to the end. Thankfully I was able to settle down and finish without making a total ass of myself.

I can appreciate the self-awareness that shooting a compound isn't for you and having the opportunity to continue to hunt with a crossbow is awesome. Good for you and good luck this fall!

On a side note, and I may have said this before, but modern crossbows are extremely efficient killing machines. If everyone took up crossbow hunting instead of compounds, and used them responsibly, we'd have a lot less wounded and unrecovered deer out there. At 20 yards I'm pretty confident I could shoot a deer's eye out 9 of 10 times.

 

If the deer held still and you knew the exact range you could. Just this past Saturday, my wife missed a doe with her crossbow and it proves that crossbows are more archery like than gun like. Long story short, we were back at the truck getting ready to leave and this doe popped out of the woods about 70 yards away and started walking right to us down the mowed path that we had driven the truck in on. I had already decocked my crossbow but my wife hadn't decocked hers yet. We were just getting ready to do that. Anyway, my wife managed to load a bolt in her crossbow while the deer kept coming closer. It got to around 25 yards and was facing head on. My wife knows not to take a shot like that and patiently waited. The deer turned to our right broadside and started to walk into the woods. My wife thought the range was 25 yards and our crossbow sights have red dots for 20, 30, and 40 yards. She chose to use the 20 yard dot and put it at the top of the back. Our crossbows are not high speed top of the line crossbows. They are rated for 315 fps so the trajectory is very similar to what I used to get with my compound bow at 60 pounds. She takes the shot and the deer hears the crossbow (as the crossbows we have are louder than most vertical bows) and starts to duck before the bolt gets there. I watch the green nock of the bolt pass harmlessly about 2-3 inches over the deer's back and it trots off unharmed. We found the bolt and confirmed that there was no hair or blood on the bolt. The range was actually 22 yards not 25 yards. So the combination of range mis-estimation coupled with the deer dropping caused the miss. Sound familiar vertical bow guys? Gun guys don't understand the concept of a deer at 22 yards being able to hear the gun and drop before the bullet gets there causing a miss because they thought the range was actually 25 yards instead of 22 yards and they aimed a smidgeon too high. So while yes, modern crossbows are extremely efficient killing machines, they shouldn't be assigned gun like qualities.