Counting down the days

It is almost September and hunting season is looming large.  In light of this, practicing is pretty much an every day occurrence.  If it's 4 arrows or 40, it helps.  As I continue my strength training, I am also making sure to train my bow technique.  As with strength training though, you need a rest day every now and then.

Today was a 3 set day of arrows and everything looked great, from 15 yards to 30 yards.  The last set of the day I posted, because it was my first set where all 4 are just about within an inch of each other.  Usually I'll get 3 together and one outlier.  Today marks a good day in my progress.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.  Also check out the photos page for my camo gear.  Everything came in last week and I finally got some good pictures of it (minus the boots).

The long way around.

After my humbling experience yesterday, I figured I really needed to start shooting again.  Consistently and constantly or else I may not be ready for bow season.  My groups got better, ending with a solid group of 3 touching, which is on the picture page.  I have a long way to go to be anywhere close to being ready though as all this time off has not been good for me.  'Til next time.

Thanks for reading.

A little bit farther now, a little bit farther now

If you don't get the reference of the title I feel bad for you.  But as it suggests I'm moving back!  I think the top sight pin is almost exactly dialed in for 15 yards, only I don't measure out with a tape every time, so it's unfortunately approximate.  But it should be close.

I did take a round from 30 yards (32 paces or so, long legs = long strides).  I got a picture of it, but I did not upload it last night.  I'll get to it this evening.  I thought it was a pretty darn good group for being the last round after an upper body workout day.  I think with a day of rest and a few warm up shots and I can close it down a lot.  Even still the group was 3 in the 6 to 8 inch diameter circle (again I haven't measured it, but now that I think of it that's a great idea).  The first one was way off because I was using the wrong pin.  I wasn't sure if my 30 yard pin was the last one or the middle one.  Turns out it was the middle.  I was about an inch away from sending that arrow over the target.  But the fact that the others were in the 6 to 8 inch circle was great.  Not as consistent as I would like to see, but again I had already shot a few rounds and it was an upper body day.

It is good that I had a hard time yesterday, though.  I tried to focus on making sure I was against the wall and I tried to keep good form even while I was fatigued.  I think this represents a similar situation if you were hunting and had several tree stands.  If you were going up and down all day and had walked a ways to your stand, you would probably be fatigued.  As long as I keep practicing and working out, when hunting season comes I won't even have to try when drawing the bow.  Everything will be second nature and I won't have to think about anything.

Pictures will be up later.  If you are following this, here's a great blog post about keeping your form: Olympic Archer/Hunter.  It is not just about form, but some great info from some pros.  Also a good resource in general.  Thanks for reading.

It's like riding a bike...

When your parents taught you to ride a bike, hopefully it was a good experience.  Honestly, I don't remember learning to ride my first bike.  But it is true that no matter how long I go without riding a bike, getting back on one is easy.  You never forget how, hence the phrase.  But is it because riding a bike is easy?

The reason you never forget how to ride a bike is because you (usually) went through a long process to learn the balance and motions for riding a bike (except those of you freaks of nature out there).  The many repetitions that you went through, trained the motions and balance into your muscle memory.  I read somewhere (for those of you skeptics) that it takes some ridiculous number [5000] of repetitions to commit a certain motion to muscle memory.  That's where the phrase "practice makes perfect" springs from.  Now personally I like the phrase "perfect practice makes perfect" a little better because you can develop bad habits very quickly, but I digress.

So 5000 repetitions eh?  That's a lot.  How many things do you think you have done, or want to do 5000 times?

I just got my first compound hunting bow yesterday and let me tell you, it was quite the experience.  I used to shoot kids bows and small compound bows back when I was in Cub Scouts and in Boy Scouts.  My sister even got a compound bow when she was younger and we all got to use it as kids.  But that was a long time ago.  I hadn't shot a bow in years (probably over a decade), let alone drawn back a full size compound bow.  Now I consider myself a pretty fit individual.  Definitely not a bulky, strong he-man, but I grew up a farmer and I play hockey so I've got a little meat on my bones.  But this bow kicked my butt.  I shot 10 or 12 arrows in total and the placement wasn't bad for an amateur, but it's going to be a while before I'm shooting 50 in a row, let alone 2 inch groups at 20 yards.

Hunting is a great pastime.  It puts you out in nature and it is a great way to practice conservation.  I'm a hunter and I've gone hunting for deer, squirrels, woodchucks, and the like with shotguns and rifles.  Bow hunting was always another genre I wanted to get involved in for various reasons: you have to get closer to the animal, it doesn't disrupt all of nature with its noise, there is a greater challenge from the variable of the bow, and let's be honest it's badass.  Don't get me wrong, hunting is hard no matter how you skin it (get it?).  It's called hunting, not killing.  This blog will follow my journey into this newest aspect of hunting which I hope will be a large part of the rest of my life.

Thanks for joining me.