What % of your "hunting time" is spent shooting/practicing?

I was sitting here leafing through some trailcam pics and digging through my shed pile when I felt compelled to perform a little calculation. Ya see, my homeboy was sweating me about never wanting to go out with him and shoot bow at the 3d course. Maybe it's just me, but that's just not what I'm into.

He says "how in the hell do you expect to go out and shoot a big buck if you never practice?"

My response? "The same way I always do."

Shooting a compound bow isn't rocket science. It's just not.

This is a guy who (in my opinion) wastes way too much time worrying about tuning his bow and the nuiances of his equipment, and not nearly enough time actually out in the woods finding deer. IMO, that's probably why Clinton was in office the last time he actually shot a deer with his bow.

You guys would probably be shocked to know how little time I actually spend shooting or working on my bow/arrows/etc., as compared to the amount of time I put into other hunting activities.

I'd bet the farm that it's less than 1%.

Calculation is as follows:

In an average season, I'll log about 130 stand hours.
This shed season, I averaged about 3 hours per shed, and I bagged 27, so let's say that I put 80 hours in this spring.
Trailcamming will eat up 8 hours/week for the next 2 months, so that's another 60 hours.

In sum, I spend about 250-300 hours scouting/hunting, but I'll be lucky if I spend 2 hours total shooting or fumbling around with my bow. It shoots fine, so I have no need to waste time messing around with it.

In all honesty, I should probably get out a few more times and work on my situational shooting, but it just never works out that way.

I guess it's a situation of two extremes, both of which are subject to the law of diminishing returns. I'm WAY out at the end of the spectrum, so I thought it would be interesting to see where the rest of y'all lie.

 

Quick, whatever works for you, do it!

I spend too much time on my equipment during the off season. But I do quite a bit of shed hunting, scouting, etc as well. I believe the combination I have been doing is what makes me successful each fall.

I love bow tuning and shooting. I shoot enough that I usually shoot a set of strings out by this time next year. It's my release from every day stresses and when I have my bow shooting to the highest degree of accuracy I can personally obtain, it really helps my confidence in the woods when I do drop the string on a deer.

It's all about confidence and what you like to do. For me knowing my bow was driving tacks the day before I hunt helps my confidence greatly.

 

I'd say 25-30% but not because I really think I need it. I can shoot in the evenings when my wife is at work and I am watching our son, but he's not old enough to drag in the woods yet. In a few years, I'll be able to take him with me, then my shooting while go down I suspect.

 

Over 60% I shoot a bow every day of the year. I usually average about 4,000-5,000 arrows a year

 

I would say about 30%...mostly out of convenience...I find it hard to break away from other projects during the winter and summer to shed hunt, glass, run tons of trail cams, etc. However, I can shoot my bow for 20 minutes or so at the end of the day.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk

 

You guys will be shocked at how many arrows I launched last year in preparation for my first recurve season. I was so worried about putting a bad shot on a deer that I shot waaaay more than I needed to and it negatively affected my shooting accuracy. From March-August last year I averaged around 3,000-4,000 shots a month. I am not kidding. My shooting time nearly equaled my total hunting/scouting time in the woods last year which was around 200-250 hours.

This year, I am shooting less and concentrating on being perfect. Quality takes precedent over quantity. I am shooting 5-6 days a week, and launching maybe 30-40 arrows each of those days. So I shooting about 25% of what I did last year, but I am shooting better.

I scouted around 50 hours this off-season (light for me) and more than likely will get 50 hours in the woods to hunt this year for a total of 100 hours. I bet I put in that much time shooting from January to September. So I am at a 1:1 ratio of shooting hours to hunting hours, so I am at 50%.

 

Very little these days. I spent years shooting 1000 arrows a week, and just hit the point where I burned out with competitive shooting, and getting OCD over shooting and equipment. I've literally not touched the bow for months now, and 99% of the time I spend during the offseason is now spent in the woods, hanging stands, or looking at maps.

 

This is what I do.

 

I just shoot my Bow about 1/2 hour on Saturday evenings and a 1/2 hour on Sunday , i dont go crazy like i use to , i got it tuned and shooting good , i found the more i shoot it the more i mess with it ............i've been spending more time on getting all my other equiptment ready , like repainting my stands , scouting for my hot spots , making my scent eliminator , making my scrape mix ......stuff like that

 

I put down 5-10% and that is probably pushing it on the average. July and August are really the only months I practice a few times a week. August I switch to broadhead only for the most part. I practice to stay confident out to 30 yards. My average kill shot on a deer is under 12 yards.

I practice by shooting groups of 2-3 arrows in July. I practice with 1 arrow in August. I am not shooting just to be shooting a bunch of arrows in August. I am practicing with hunting in mind. 1 arrow... make it count. It keeps me from getting sloppy.

If I feel I am not shooting as good as I should be... I just practice more. I guage the time I need to practice by that.

Tim

 

New to the sport and trying to increase my range beyond the 20 yard mark. i spend probably an hour averaging about 50 arrows every other day. I took the time to tune my bow really well in spring so now its just improving accuracy.My confidence has gone up quite a bit.

I have also taken more time with trail cams this season and am currently working on planting a little over an acre worth of food plot. The effort i have put in without a bow in my hand so far has about equaled my shooting habits for now.

 

I shoot and practice because I like to. I try different things to see what happens and just shoot for the fun of it.

None of my hunting time is spent shooting or practicing. Some of my outdoor time is used by it but I am outdoors most of the time anyway.

 

Interesting thought.
I like to shoot every night. Not because I feel I need to so that I am better, but just because I enjoy doing so. I try not to tinker with the tuning at all. I have it set where I want, now I just play (practice).
My situation is nice becasue I have the land that my kids can be out playing and I can shoot at the same time.
However I still have projects that keep me from doing so. I didn't shoot for a week (last week) because I was working on a thinning out some trees.

 

Shooting a compound or any bow for that matter, well, has a lot to do with muscle memory and of course mental preperation. Anyone that says they can pick up a bow a few times a year and shoot it as well as someone who shoots a lot is mistaken IMO.

Now, I know a lot of guys who only shoot a bit right before season, head to the woods and kill a deer. Nothing wrong with that. It works for them and thats great.

I look at it this way. I can only bow hunt 3 months out of the year. I love shooting a bow both in the back yard and competitively. I love tuning bows and trying to get every last bit of accuracy and performance out of the bow and myself. It makes me more confident when I hit the woods each fall, knowing that I can hit the hair I'm aiming at.

 

Back in the day I never shot much. Just a few days a week a month before the season.

Then in preparation to hunt out west, I shot a ton. Daily for almost a whole year, certainly daily in warmer months.

Since then I've backed off some. Currently I haven't touched my bow since my last hunt last fall.

Shooting a compound is not something I do for fun.

 

I practice quit a bit because I'm new at bow hunting and to hone my skills and, because my hunting areas are hours away. I'll practice 20yd shots in my back yard morning and some evenings and 30yd shots inside my warehouse. Thats all I got.

Some people (myself included) also like the tweeking and customizing their bow and their equipment. I get a lot of pleasure out of that as well.

I guess it's like wanting to spend your time racing your car or waxing it. I like both.

 

0-5% for me. I shoot quite a bit, but I do it after work or other times when heading into the mountains just isn't an option. So very little of my time in the woods is spent shooting or messing with my bow. This would probably be different if, like some of you, I lived on land or had land close by. But as it is, I have a 2 hour drive to get to my hunting grounds.

 

I spend about 10% tuning and shooting. Once bow is tuned then shoot once a week for 15 mins.

 

.0001

I am that damn good

 

I am in the 5-10% range but that is 'cause I am constantly changing something in my set-up it seems like. For example, just purchased a helical mini-fletch which will most likely cause me to tweak my pins (versus my straight vanes currently) as I am expecting some differences at 30 yards and out. Plus, the muscle memory that someone listed above. My buddy (you on here today JR?) shoots a 15+ year old 80# PSE. Last year after bragging all Summer that he could outshoot me without even touching his bow all year he was unable to even draw it. He ended up NOT bow hunting for that reason.