With just over a week left until the opening of my hunting season, I’m now putting the finishing touches on my 2010 preseason preparations. And the most important of those right now is practicing with my bow. This certainly isn’t the beginning of my practice, as I’ve practiced with my bow more this year than ever before. But even so, the practice can’t stop just before the season or once the season has started. With my consistent practice over the course of the year I’ve extended my effective range by about 20 yards and I feel more confident in my shot than ever before. But as we’re getting closer to the season, I’ve been trying out some creative variations on my practice routine to help better prepare me for hunting situations. Take a look at these different exercises that will better help you practice for real life hunting situations and try them out next time you practice!

• Draw back your bow and force yourself to hold it back for a minute or longer before firing. This is a situation that often can occur while hunting, as I’m sure many of you have experienced, and it’s always a good idea to prepare for the worst and feel comfortable shooting under those circumstances. Strengthen those muscles now, so that you’re not shaking even more with a buck down range!
• Try shooting with your body at odd angles and  positions. In real hunting situations you almost never have the perfect standing shot, so obviously  practicing in odd ways will better prepare you and your muscles for when that kind of situation arises . I practice sitting, standing against trees, bending down, leaning back, turning completely behind me, crouching and kneeling.
• Try firing from unknown distances and different angles. Its nice to practice at paced off distances of 20, 30, 40 yards, etc,  but thats not always what happens when you’re hunting. I’ll try and shoot from all sorts of random distances and angles, just trying to estimate the distance by eye.
• This is preached a lot, but make sure to practice while wearing your actual hunting gear and all of your layers. It makes a big difference. It’s better to notice a problem now, rather than when that Booner walks in front of you.
• Practice immediately after running or working out in order to get practice controlling your heart beat. If you havent seen it yet, check out my video about this!
• Practice at longer ranges than you actually plan on shooting at a deer. Get comfortable shooting at 50, 60 or 70 yards and then that 30 yard shot at a buck will be a piece of cake.

You guys have any other good ways to prepare for real life hunting situations with your bow? Share them in the comments!

It’s the end of the line for college basketball teams, but just the beginning for baseball. And somewhere in between there lies the bowhunters, because ideally our practice should never end! But I know thats not realistic for many, as most people ( those that  aren’t as crazy as I) don’t like to practice shooting their bows in frigid, snowy weather! Luckily winter doesn’t last forever and the glory days of spring are now upon us. For those of us who are cold weather adverse, now is the perfect time to wipe the dust off your axe and start throwing some arrows.

Although I’ve been shooting all winter, the warm weather has gotten me outside even more. It’s hard to beat a sunny day, a cold beer, country music and the twang of my string after sinking an arrow through the bull. It’s really a great way to enjoy the weather, while also getting in valuable practice and conditioning.  Today I got another treat when I glanced out to my right before shooting  and saw brown. Across the dirt road, over in one of the soy bean fields I spotted a deer. I quickly dropped to my knees and scooted over to the edge of my garage. There I sat as I watched three nice healthy doe slowly feed across in front of me at about 40 yards. What a great way to end my night of shooting.

But back to my target practice. As I was practicing today, I caught myself dropping my bow on occasion after releasing and this seemed to be causing me to pull my shot just a little bit. After noticing this, I made a concerted effort to follow through with my shot and keep my bow on target until after the arrow hit. With a little extra attention to detail, I was able to improve my groups.

This is a great example of a strategy I like to take when practicing. I will try and focus on one element of my form to focus on and then work on that during my session. This helps keep my mind clear and focused on one specific task while shooting, letting my instincts take care of the rest. Hopefully after doing this many times, with different aspects of my shot being worked on, I will be able to pull everything together automatically when I’m shooting in a tournament or at a deer.

So now that spring has sprung, I’d encourage you all to grab your bows and enjoy the fresh spring air while peppering your favorite archery target with arrows. Try improving one aspect of your form every time you go out and most importantly have fun!

This concept is no different when shooting a bow with a release. You similarly must train yourself to slowly squeeze the trigger, until it releases.

Remember, SQUEEZE, not punch! This one small tweak in your shot process can pay dividends out in the field, when every small mistake is magnified.

Here is a video from Bowhunting.com explaining the basics of the surprise release and how to train yourself to do this.

For another video explaining the training process of the “assisted release” follow this link.