Was curious as to what everyone does here in order to practice their archery skills for a hunting situation. In my opinion, shooting at a bag 20 yards away is good... but we should always be looking to push our failure points. A deer moves. He comes from the left, and the right, and sharp downward angles. Archery Tips To Bring Success From The Range To The Field Here is an article I wrote on the topic of practicing for a real life hunting situation. What do you think? -Robert
You sir are correct, but where I live it is illegal to shoot my bow in my backyard(I live on Long Island, my street propbly has more people on it then most people have in their towns!) and the local shooting range is 100 yards long, open 365, dusk til dawn but we arent even allowed to bring animal shaped targets. Its rough but I`ll take shooting from the ground all day practicing then not shooting at all. GROMMEL.
It makes me look like a fool, but I think standing in perfect form at perfectly marked yardage markers is for sighting in your bow and getting warmed up. Where I hunt, there's no stand or blind set up, so I practice stalking and shooting from weird positions. Yeah I look strange sneaking up quietly on a target and drawing from a kneel, or some awkward sitting position between trees next to the lane etc but I find it extremely rare that you can saunter on up to a trophy buck, take your sweet time drawing in perfect standing form, take aim and fire a couple off. In real life, you'll be creeping up on him, stepping over leaves and twigs, crouching down to stay still and small when he's in range and firing when you get a shot at vitals as he walks between trees.
Also If you can do it without getting arrested, go hunt squirrels! The fields by my house have tons of squirrels rabbits & birds. Nothing will make you more aware of how bad you are at stalking game than this bunch. The rabbits can hear you a hundred yards away and spook the squirrels, who chirp and suddenly every critter is gone. Or you'll scare the birds, who then spook the squirrels, chirping, game over. Then you'll move quieter and slower only to find they see you before you're in range, chirping, you're in time out. Luckily they forget what the problem was pretty quick & come back out so your time out for making mistakes isn't too long- but great practice trying to get in range, let alone hit the little things once you are!
