Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan,
Speaker 1: and tall In the show, I'm joined by bow hunting
Speaker 1: legend and world champion tournament archer Randy Almer to discuss
Speaker 1: everything you need to know to take your archery accuracy
Speaker 1: and effectiveness to the next level. All right, welcome to
Speaker 1: the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light,
Speaker 1: and today we're kicking off Shooting Month. All this month
Speaker 1: of July, we're gonna be chatting with the best bow
Speaker 1: hunters and shooters in the world about different ways to
Speaker 1: improve our accuracy and effectiveness, both with a bow and
Speaker 1: with a firearm, all with the goal of making this
Speaker 1: next season are very best. Today, no more mrs, no
Speaker 1: more shank shots or wounded deer. I'm sick of it.
Speaker 1: I bet you're sick of it too. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be the year that we can all take a significant
Speaker 1: step towards becoming a better shot than ever before. That's
Speaker 1: my goal, and today we're gonna kick things off in
Speaker 1: about the best possible way that I can think of.
Speaker 1: With Randy Almer. He's on the show of Me and
Speaker 1: Tony today. If you're not familiar with Randy, he is
Speaker 1: a long time outdoor writer and television personality. He's a
Speaker 1: world champion ternment archer and one of the very most
Speaker 1: regarded and most successful bow hunters in the country, if
Speaker 1: if not the world. He's truly one of the best
Speaker 1: has ever been and I'm thrilled he was willing to
Speaker 1: join us today to dive deep into all things archery.
Speaker 1: Today's episode it's it's really a masterclass, I gotta say
Speaker 1: for taking your archery skills to the next level. We
Speaker 1: cover some of the most important gear upgrades to improve
Speaker 1: your accuracy, and whether or not gear is really all
Speaker 1: that important these days when it comes to accuracy. We
Speaker 1: cover uh target panic, we cover buck fever. We talked
Speaker 1: about the keys to improving your archery form, Randy's step
Speaker 1: by step shot process, a series of in depth instructions
Speaker 1: for creating a perfect archery practice regiment, and a whole
Speaker 1: lot more. I mean, this is, without a doubt, one
Speaker 1: of the very best podcasts we've ever done about archery
Speaker 1: and the skills necessary to become a more effective bow
Speaker 1: hunn So sit back, and get ready to be inspired
Speaker 1: to grab that bowl and hit the range, because that's
Speaker 1: at least what it did to me. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was fired up to get out there and do some shooting.
Speaker 1: So I hope you feel the same way and hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this one. Here we go all right here
Speaker 1: with me and Tony on the line, we have the
Speaker 1: one and only Randy Almer. Randy, thanks for being on
Speaker 1: the show. Hell, thanks for having me. We are we're
Speaker 1: excited for this one. We've got a new series kick
Speaker 1: and off this month. It's all about shooting, all about
Speaker 1: taking our you know, skill set with a bow or
Speaker 1: a firearm to that next level. And I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anyone else we could kick this off that would
Speaker 1: be better at this to help us talk about these
Speaker 1: topics than you, Randy. So the pressure is on though,
Speaker 1: because you're you're leading us off. Can you can you?
Speaker 1: Can you care that? Okay? From everything I've seen of yours,
Speaker 1: read of yours, heard of yours, I don't think we're
Speaker 1: we're gonna be in trouble of of missing expectations. But
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you this, Randy, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to start with a low point with a missed expectation.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm curious about. Can you remember the
Speaker 1: course of your illustrious hunting and archery career. Is there
Speaker 1: any moment in your past that you can remember some
Speaker 1: kind of breaking point or some kind of fork in
Speaker 1: the road low moment where you said to yourself, I
Speaker 1: gotta fix this, or I gotta get better at this,
Speaker 1: or I got to crank this up to a new
Speaker 1: level when it comes to your shooting, has there ever
Speaker 1: been that moment where you had that conversation, well, how
Speaker 1: many hours do we have? Yes? Always? It's the thing
Speaker 1: um about archery. It's a lot like golf. You can
Speaker 1: never perfected and and you have always got to be
Speaker 1: working on on issues that you have. Um. And if
Speaker 1: if anyone ever tells you, any professional archer or any
Speaker 1: really good shot tells you that they don't have any issues, uh,
Speaker 1: they're lying here because um, it's it's a constant, constant struggle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you can you think of any specific example or
Speaker 1: story of one of those moments that you could could
Speaker 1: share with us both like what that what that incident
Speaker 1: or moment was that kind of caught you or shook you?
Speaker 1: And then what did to try to address it. Is
Speaker 1: there anything that stands out over there, bed? Um, I'll
Speaker 1: just I'll just start with the most recent one. Last year. Um,
Speaker 1: I had to have last spring, not this this spring,
Speaker 1: but the spring before two thousand twenty one, I had
Speaker 1: to have cataract surgery and they didn't get my eyes
Speaker 1: quite right, and my right eye was the worst. Well.
Speaker 1: I Uh, my first hunt was a deer hunt in
Speaker 1: Colorado in the high country, and we backpacked in about
Speaker 1: seven miles and uh, this deer lived in the in
Speaker 1: in in cliffs like goat cliffs and just about the
Speaker 1: toughest country you could imagine. And I had snuck up
Speaker 1: on this deer several times, uh, you know, within a
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards, and he was just never in a
Speaker 1: place where I could get up through the cliffs or
Speaker 1: the wind wasn't right. About the fourth day, I was
Speaker 1: able to get into position and I had a good shot.
Speaker 1: It was fifty yard broadside shot, and I pulled back
Speaker 1: my bow and was pretty steady, and I shot well,
Speaker 1: I missed the buck about twenty to the left and
Speaker 1: I had and he ran off, obviously, and I had
Speaker 1: absolutely no idea what had happened. So I thought you know,
Speaker 1: maybe my arrow had come off the arrow rest, maybe
Speaker 1: my arrow was banned something. I didn't think much about
Speaker 1: it other than I was very disappointed. Um. It was
Speaker 1: the last night that we could the last day we
Speaker 1: could stay, and I had to have I had to
Speaker 1: go back to to Arizona to to get some things
Speaker 1: done and the hike out. We we got out about
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning, and I had to drive
Speaker 1: home that night. And I just thought about it, thought
Speaker 1: about it, thought about it. Couldn't think why I missed. Um,
Speaker 1: Sometimes things just go wrong and you really don't know why. Well,
Speaker 1: fast forward, UM, I had an Arizona elk tag and
Speaker 1: there had been a bull that I knew about, uh
Speaker 1: for a couple of years in the unit. I got
Speaker 1: drawn and we couldn't find the bull, and my son
Speaker 1: and I climbed up to the top this giant mountain
Speaker 1: where we could last for three or four miles in
Speaker 1: every direction, and we finally found the bull. Long story short,
Speaker 1: about three or four days later, I was able to
Speaker 1: get on the bull. And again it was a is
Speaker 1: that easy shot? Well it should have been an easy shot.
Speaker 1: It was forty forty yards shot broadside. He didn't know
Speaker 1: I was there. And I shot, and I missed him
Speaker 1: about fifteen ft to the left, and he ran off,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I thought, wow, this something's
Speaker 1: going on. Well, what I did not realize is, in
Speaker 1: the heat of the moment, I practiced all summer with
Speaker 1: my bad right eye, and and and I was able
Speaker 1: to shoot. But what I didn't realize is both of
Speaker 1: these shots were in low light. Uh. And what I
Speaker 1: didn't realize is in the heat of the moment, my
Speaker 1: left eye had taken over and I was actually sighting
Speaker 1: with my left eye, and that's why I had missed
Speaker 1: fifteen ft to the left. And I'm sitting there, and
Speaker 1: I actually sat on the ground. It was. It was
Speaker 1: raining in Arizona, and I was sitting on the ground,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it dawned on me what
Speaker 1: had happened. And so I I always keep some duct
Speaker 1: tape on my walking sticks, and so I underrolled some
Speaker 1: of the duct tape. I made a little patch that
Speaker 1: I attached to my hat for my left eye so
Speaker 1: that when I drew back, um, I couldn't see through
Speaker 1: my left eye when I was at full draw, and
Speaker 1: it blocked my left eyes vision and the bull didn't
Speaker 1: know really what happened. It was lighting and raining when
Speaker 1: I shot, and he just ran off. And so I
Speaker 1: thought I knew which group of trees he was in, uh,
Speaker 1: several hundred yards away. So I waited there and and
Speaker 1: that later that evening, Um, I heard him bugle, and
Speaker 1: I snuck in. And I wasn't a hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: that it was my eyes, but I was pretty sure.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I snuck in as as absolutely close as
Speaker 1: I could, while I ended up sneaking into about ten
Speaker 1: yards and uh, and I and I shot him, and
Speaker 1: and uh it turned out that that was what the
Speaker 1: issue was. So um, yeah, you're kind of always trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what what's going wrong and why and
Speaker 1: and with our archery, archery, just like golf, there's just
Speaker 1: so many mental and physical as well as equipment issues
Speaker 1: that it's just a constant battle. So so we're Randy
Speaker 1: Kent on that at first encounter with that high country buck,
Speaker 1: when you missed that far or missed by that much,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you went and shot, and when you shot,
Speaker 1: you know, target practice, you didn't have that adrenaline going
Speaker 1: and your eye didn't you know, your non dominant. I
Speaker 1: didn't take over. So did you just kind of get
Speaker 1: to a point where You're like, this had to be
Speaker 1: just an anomaly with with my gear because I had
Speaker 1: been literally climbing through cliffs and and brush. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of brush in the cliffs, and I've been dragging
Speaker 1: my bow, plus I had backpacked it in um So
Speaker 1: you know, I thought, what, you know, maybe the air arrest,
Speaker 1: maybe the maybe what I really thought happened is that
Speaker 1: the arrow had had not come up with the air
Speaker 1: arrest because I missed by so far, and so you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of have to just let it go otherwise
Speaker 1: you know it's going to affect your confidence on the
Speaker 1: next shot. So yeah, I shot. I shot a lot
Speaker 1: between the deer season and the elk season, and ever
Speaker 1: had an issue because you know, I'm one of those
Speaker 1: fair weather practicers. I always practice when I'm hunting in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, when you know there's plenty
Speaker 1: of sunshine and and and you know it's not raining,
Speaker 1: nothing's going wrong, and and and so when I practiced
Speaker 1: in the middle day, I was just fine. I was
Speaker 1: completely confident until I missed that out at fifteen feet
Speaker 1: or missed him by fifteen feet at forty yards. Then
Speaker 1: I knew something was wrong. So just ballparking fourth quick?
Speaker 1: How many big game animals heavy shot with archery tackle brandy?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I have no idea. I've been hunting for
Speaker 1: forty five years with the bow, so I don't know
Speaker 1: a couple right, Oh yeah, yeah. And yet you still
Speaker 1: had a situation where shooting, you know, no pressure target practice,
Speaker 1: you were dead on, and then something happened to you
Speaker 1: in the excitement of the moment where you changed you know,
Speaker 1: you changed your shot process in a way that probably
Speaker 1: be like if we would have told you that beforehand,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, no way would I do that. But
Speaker 1: it still happens, No, exactly. And and the thing is
Speaker 1: is is in the heat of the moment is when
Speaker 1: everything goes wrong. Um And And that's why I kind
Speaker 1: of changed the subject a little bit. That's why I
Speaker 1: discourage people from shooting long distant shots, because you'll get
Speaker 1: a false sense of confidence at the range or in
Speaker 1: your backyard. Um. I I like to tell people that.
Speaker 1: And and and for me personally, I think my effective
Speaker 1: range in the field in in true hunting conditions, especially
Speaker 1: in the West, may not be true so much for
Speaker 1: white til hunters, but for hunting in the west. Um,
Speaker 1: in true hunting conditions where you're hanging from the side
Speaker 1: of a mountain, the winds blow and could be raining,
Speaker 1: and your adrenaline is all kicked up. I think your
Speaker 1: effective range is about half what it is at the
Speaker 1: shooting ranger in your backyard, so I can insistently hit
Speaker 1: you know, uh, vitals of a deer hundred twenty yards.
Speaker 1: Well that's with you know, with with no win, no nothing,
Speaker 1: sitting in my backyard, warmed up, very comfortable. Um. And
Speaker 1: but I will not shoot um at game past sixty yards.
Speaker 1: That's my dead stop limit. Yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: a This is a really good place to start with
Speaker 1: with a lot of what I was wondering about, because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of folks, you know, coming into
Speaker 1: the new year or maybe even they'll have this kind
Speaker 1: of moment in season, but they'll have this realization like
Speaker 1: I've got a problem or I'm not doing this well enough,
Speaker 1: or something's not quite right, or I know I can
Speaker 1: do better. But that next step of figuring out, like
Speaker 1: what's the thing I need to do to get better
Speaker 1: is a lot harder, Like how you diagnose what your
Speaker 1: problem is, like what your issue is, or where your
Speaker 1: opportunities for improvement are so randy, like what's your what's
Speaker 1: either your process or your recommendation for someone else to
Speaker 1: go about trying to diagnose, like what your issue is
Speaker 1: or what your weak spots are so that then you
Speaker 1: can start addressing them. How do you figure that problem out? Well,
Speaker 1: I've had just about every problem there is to have,
Speaker 1: so most of the time I've had the issue before,
Speaker 1: just because I've been doing it so long. But the
Speaker 1: the you end up having a lot more problems early
Speaker 1: on in your archery career than you do later because
Speaker 1: later you've kind of figured most things out and and
Speaker 1: when things start going wrong, you oh, I've seen this before.
Speaker 1: But what I really encourage UM beginners to do is
Speaker 1: if they're having a problem, and if you live in
Speaker 1: a place that you know it's big enough or it
Speaker 1: has somebody that that can coach you, most of the
Speaker 1: time they'll be able to figure out your problem very
Speaker 1: very quickly. And that's one of the reluctance but hunters
Speaker 1: have is to get somebody to actually watch them or
Speaker 1: coach them. UM and most bow hunters, most people that
Speaker 1: are not target shooters are not three D shooters that
Speaker 1: just primarily bow hunt have a lot of issues that
Speaker 1: they don't even know they have. And that's the other
Speaker 1: thing I'll say is you have to be honest with yourself, um,
Speaker 1: and once you've addressed the problem, be honest with yourself
Speaker 1: and and do what you actually need to do to
Speaker 1: make it better. And while we're on that, the main
Speaker 1: problem most people have is is not having a surprise release.
Speaker 1: They punched the release, or they have target panic. And
Speaker 1: if you punch the release or you have target panic.
Speaker 1: And just so some of the listeners that don't know
Speaker 1: what target panic is is, oh, it's a whole plethora
Speaker 1: of conditions. It's it's a lot of different psychological conditions
Speaker 1: kind of placed under one roof. And the most common, uh,
Speaker 1: the most common manifestation of target panic is that you
Speaker 1: can't put the pin on the spot or the place
Speaker 1: you want to hit on a deer and squeeze the trigger.
Speaker 1: You have to kind of do a fly by or
Speaker 1: a drive by shooting. Um. And then punching the trigger
Speaker 1: is something that most people have that are bonners that
Speaker 1: don't realize And the problem with this is just like
Speaker 1: my situation. The more stressful, the more high pressure the
Speaker 1: situation is, the more likely that those conditions are going
Speaker 1: to manifest themselves. And that's why people get so frustrated,
Speaker 1: because you know, they can sit and and they can
Speaker 1: get in their tree stand and they can hit at
Speaker 1: deer sized vitals over and over and over again at
Speaker 1: thirty or forty yards in practice, but when a deer
Speaker 1: comes uh comes by, the intense pressure will cause there
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're subconscious issues to manifest themselves. So
Speaker 1: the main thing is get somebody to help you. And
Speaker 1: the second is is just um, try to stay focused
Speaker 1: when you're making that important shot. Otherwise again on those
Speaker 1: important shots where your problems are going to manifest themselves. Randy,
Speaker 1: do you think when you talk about this, you know,
Speaker 1: there's obvious benefits to shooting with somebody who really knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing, watching you for your form and your execution.
Speaker 1: But you know, most people when they're sitting up in
Speaker 1: a tree stand and they shoot out a buck, you
Speaker 1: know nobody's watching. And you know you said something a
Speaker 1: little bit ago about being really honest with yourself. Do
Speaker 1: you think a lot of people are a little bit
Speaker 1: too dismissive of their misses and don't really reverse engineer
Speaker 1: them in the field to try to figure out what
Speaker 1: actually went wrong, because you know how it is. You
Speaker 1: hear the same excuses over and over. You the wrong pin,
Speaker 1: hit a twig, you know, jump to string, whatever. But
Speaker 1: we know that a lot of it is just a
Speaker 1: mental meltdown. Yeah, and n tell you you know. And
Speaker 1: I discovered this when I started competing years and years ago.
Speaker 1: Is um. I found that a lot of my competitors
Speaker 1: and myself originally, uh had issues. And it's you get
Speaker 1: into this comfort, You get into this comfortable groove where
Speaker 1: you like doing things the same way. And you know,
Speaker 1: and again you liken to any sport. If you have
Speaker 1: a bad swing in baseball, um, you have to fix
Speaker 1: that swing if you're gonna be a great baseball player. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, those things manifest themselves, those bad problems to
Speaker 1: manifest themselves, always under under stressful conditions. So you just
Speaker 1: you have to be honest with yourself and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is my problem. I've got to figure out a solution.
Speaker 1: And you have to take it all the way back
Speaker 1: to the source of the problem before you can truly
Speaker 1: fix it. And And one of the things I did
Speaker 1: when I was competing so much is I would write
Speaker 1: down my problem. Okay, let's say it's punching the trigger um,
Speaker 1: and then I would say, Okay, here's what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do during this practice session. I'm going to focus completely
Speaker 1: on this practice session on fixing that problem. And what
Speaker 1: most people do when they practice as they just go
Speaker 1: out and fling arrows and they don't actually work on anything. UM.
Speaker 1: In order to get better, you have to work on
Speaker 1: the things that you have issues with, and that's where
Speaker 1: a coach comes in because they'll identify your problems and
Speaker 1: they'll give you a program to fix it. And most
Speaker 1: individuals just won't go through that multi step process to
Speaker 1: solve their issues. So if I I might be wrong
Speaker 1: on this, but if I had to break down the
Speaker 1: different types of problems that might be impacting our archery accuracy,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a bucket that could be you know,
Speaker 1: process or form related. There could be a bucket that
Speaker 1: could be like the mental game target panic, punching the trigger,
Speaker 1: like that melted mental meltdown stuff Tony mentioned, and then
Speaker 1: the other bucket might be just like your gear and
Speaker 1: your setup and getting that stuff right or wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to address all three, but since you brought
Speaker 1: it up as the most common, let's start with the
Speaker 1: mental side, the target panic side. Um, that's something that
Speaker 1: I personally have been dealing with. And this year I'm
Speaker 1: trying to break everything down and rebuild again to really
Speaker 1: finally not put a band aid on it, but but
Speaker 1: but replace the but the full organ transplant new thing
Speaker 1: that's going to finally break through this barrier' head. Uh.
Speaker 1: When you hear about somebody having those problems, in my case,
Speaker 1: it's rushing the shot and like as soon as the
Speaker 1: pens on the vitals, man, it's it's usually gone that
Speaker 1: the arrow is usually sent. So that's what I've been
Speaker 1: dealing with. And like you mentioned, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways it's manifest. But when you talk to somebody
Speaker 1: who's having problems with that target panic, rushing the shot,
Speaker 1: punching the trigger, whatever it might be, once you recognize
Speaker 1: that's the issue, this is, this has been diagnosed. Okay,
Speaker 1: now now what what's what do you do or what
Speaker 1: do you recommend someone do to start addressing that? Both
Speaker 1: you know what the simple fixes, and then how do
Speaker 1: you actually practice that enough or do it enough that
Speaker 1: it becomes part of your being well. First of all, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's like having a disease and you really
Speaker 1: need a doctor to help you get rid of that disease, because, um,
Speaker 1: you're going to if you don't know how to fix
Speaker 1: the disease, you're gonna be putting duct tape and chewing
Speaker 1: gum and bathing wire on it. And it's not ever
Speaker 1: going to be fixed. You have to go all the
Speaker 1: way to the route of the psychological problem and and
Speaker 1: almost all of the sleeves can be UM. All the
Speaker 1: things you mentioned are kind of lumped under target panicum,
Speaker 1: because really the complete lack of target panic would be
Speaker 1: being able to put your pen on the spot you
Speaker 1: want to hit and squeezing the trigger and having a
Speaker 1: surprise release. So if you can't do that, I'll just
Speaker 1: put that all under the umbrella of target panic and
Speaker 1: target plant panic. Uh. There's many different methods people have
Speaker 1: used or tried to use to get rid of target panic.
Speaker 1: I have one particular method that I like to use
Speaker 1: and it's been very very successful. UM. And I've had
Speaker 1: and and and what it involves with me is is
Speaker 1: during the off season not during the honey season, but
Speaker 1: during the off season, UM switching to a hand your
Speaker 1: back tension style release that's a surprise release, and shooting
Speaker 1: with your eyes closed for a long period of time
Speaker 1: until you get ready, until until you've actually until your
Speaker 1: actually able to have a surprise release without any of
Speaker 1: that weird tension that you build up in your shot process.
Speaker 1: And once you've done that, you start shooting with your
Speaker 1: eyes open, and then you slowly back up and anytime
Speaker 1: you start feeling that that tension, that anticipation, that that
Speaker 1: feeling of panic, h then you have to back up
Speaker 1: a step and start over again until you're able to
Speaker 1: uh execute a shot. And then it goes further. And
Speaker 1: I've actually never had what I would say was even
Speaker 1: close to full target panic, but yet it's always there
Speaker 1: in the background for every shooter. And that's why all
Speaker 1: year long I practice with a hand release UM. And
Speaker 1: then when it actually comes time to hunt, I typically
Speaker 1: hunt with a a index finger release, and I always
Speaker 1: carry a hinge in my pocket in case I have
Speaker 1: a long time to shoot, like let's say there's a
Speaker 1: buck bedded down, I'll actually use the hinge because it
Speaker 1: just keeps you completely honest, because you can't you can't
Speaker 1: cheat it. And once you've learned to shoot a hinge properly,
Speaker 1: it trains your subconscious, your unconscious, your brain to to
Speaker 1: squeeze through the shot. So even and once you've got
Speaker 1: that muscle memory and you you've you've trained your brain
Speaker 1: to actually squeeze through a shot, it will translate even
Speaker 1: into the most high pressure shot situations. And I've had
Speaker 1: several people that we're really ready to give up. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I'll mention Dwight Shoe since you guys know him and
Speaker 1: Dwight is passive. A few years ago, but Dwight had
Speaker 1: such a such an issue that uh he was missing
Speaker 1: game and relatively easy shots. And he came to me,
Speaker 1: and we spent quite a bit of time and do
Speaker 1: I got to the point where he was willing to
Speaker 1: hunt with a hinge release, even though obviously a hinge
Speaker 1: release is not the best hunting release because of an
Speaker 1: animals moving or you need to make a quick shot,
Speaker 1: you really can't very well. But he was willing to
Speaker 1: to take that gamble just in order to be able
Speaker 1: to make a good shot most of the time, and
Speaker 1: and and and until the end of his life. He
Speaker 1: continued to hunt with the hinge release, and I've got
Speaker 1: several other people that I've worked with that that that
Speaker 1: do the same thing. So on the topic of releases, Uh,
Speaker 1: would your recommendation for most people then be to train
Speaker 1: with something like that, but then jump back to an
Speaker 1: index finger or a thumb button or do you have
Speaker 1: a do you have a recommendation on what the actual
Speaker 1: in field best option would be if you are, you know,
Speaker 1: jumping back and forth between the two. Yeah, I actually
Speaker 1: go you can use the thumb button. The thumb button
Speaker 1: is just a little like you're a little less likely
Speaker 1: have target panic or uh, punch the trigger with the thumb,
Speaker 1: but you can certainly do it. And a lot of
Speaker 1: people do have issues with the thumb button, but especially
Speaker 1: if you're shooting a hand because they're both handheld releases,
Speaker 1: and for some reason psychologically, it's much easier to yank
Speaker 1: the trigger or punch the trigger with your index finger
Speaker 1: than it is pushing with your thumb. Because with the
Speaker 1: thumb button release, you can kind of you can you
Speaker 1: can shoot a release such as that more like a
Speaker 1: a a hand release because you can kind of lay
Speaker 1: the web of your thumb over the trigger and then
Speaker 1: just squeeze with your hand and the release will go
Speaker 1: off and it will be more of a surprise release.
Speaker 1: But if you get to where you can shoot a
Speaker 1: hand release very well, very comfortably, and not have any
Speaker 1: hint of target panic, what I do is, even when
Speaker 1: I'm out hunting and I shoot my practice shots in camp,
Speaker 1: I will actually use a hinge for my practice shots
Speaker 1: because what's what you're doing is you're forcing your subconscious
Speaker 1: mind and your muscle memory to hold that pin in
Speaker 1: position until the release goes off as as a surprise,
Speaker 1: and you're much less likely to punch, You're much less
Speaker 1: likely to peak, and you're much less likely to have
Speaker 1: all those issues that are going to cause you to
Speaker 1: mission in a high pressure situation. Yeah, so Randy, let's
Speaker 1: take into account here. So the people listening to this
Speaker 1: are probably, you know, almost all primarily white tail hunters
Speaker 1: who are using index finger style releases. Uh. They you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of them aren't going to go buy a
Speaker 1: hinge and use it. What what would you tell them?
Speaker 1: Is there anything they can do that crowd can do
Speaker 1: to get a little bit better at this? But the
Speaker 1: surprise release um not without a lot of discipline. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it. Once you've got the issue of punching the trigger. Um,
Speaker 1: like Tony said that he's dealing with. Once you've got that,
Speaker 1: it is so hard to get with rid of unless
Speaker 1: you go way back, um and go to the beginning
Speaker 1: and then practice a lot, you know, and you can
Speaker 1: get a good because hinge releases aren't complicated, the very
Speaker 1: simple ones. And you can get a good hinjury lease
Speaker 1: for not that much money. And to have that in
Speaker 1: your tackle box and use it exclusively. That's where the
Speaker 1: discipline comes in, is because it's so much more comfortable
Speaker 1: and so much easier to shoot a trigger release. But
Speaker 1: once you've learned to use the hinde release, you will, UM,
Speaker 1: you will be so glad you did. So if you're serious,
Speaker 1: you know. If you're not serious about your actuacy, then
Speaker 1: no big deal. But if you're truly serious about making
Speaker 1: your really good shots in the clutch, UM, I would
Speaker 1: practice with the hinge release almost exclusively, and and and
Speaker 1: and there's a little bit of a learning curve, so
Speaker 1: you I always encourage people that do start shooting the
Speaker 1: hinge release with their eyes closed up close to the bail, uh,
Speaker 1: right after the hunting season ends and just get in
Speaker 1: the wintertime maybe and just get really really comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: So when they're ready to go outside and and or
Speaker 1: you know, start shooting targets, they are very very comfortable
Speaker 1: with the whole function of the hinge release. Before we
Speaker 1: move on from this, Randy, how closely related? Because you
Speaker 1: keep talking about target panic and I guarantee you there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of white tail hunters who have it who
Speaker 1: don't know it. How closely is how close is that
Speaker 1: uh relation to buck fever? In your opinion, it's well
Speaker 1: buck fever that okay, buck fever is just getting really
Speaker 1: really really excited and hurrying everything. And how they're related
Speaker 1: is that the hurrying everything is where the issue comes in. Um,
Speaker 1: what happened. Most people would define target panic as something
Speaker 1: where you cannot They wouldn't consider punching the trigger target panic,
Speaker 1: and I kind of roof them under the same umbrella
Speaker 1: because of both psychological issues. But buck fever is just
Speaker 1: getting really excited and we all get it. And for me,
Speaker 1: what it is is just incredible anticipation that you know
Speaker 1: you've got this big buck right there, and you want
Speaker 1: him so bad and you just want it all over
Speaker 1: with really quickly, because the anticipation in the excitement um
Speaker 1: is so overwhelming. You just want that arrow gone because
Speaker 1: you're afraid something's gonna happen uh, and the buck's gonna
Speaker 1: run off and you're not gonna get your shots, so
Speaker 1: you hurry the shot. What you have to do is
Speaker 1: tell yourself that, yeah, the buck might run away, but
Speaker 1: but you're much more likely to miss him. Um if
Speaker 1: you don't take your time and squeeze the trigger. UM,
Speaker 1: I know that I've screwed up if I don't remember
Speaker 1: what happened during the shot process and you know the
Speaker 1: arrow is gone and you don't even know why. If
Speaker 1: I can remember every part of the shot process on
Speaker 1: a big buck, that means that I actually had a
Speaker 1: surprise release and I followed through. Yeah, I gotta believe
Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks who can't do that. While
Speaker 1: you just describe remember every part of that process. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can tell you myself most of my shots. It's
Speaker 1: even as I've tried to get better at this, I
Speaker 1: still fall into an autopilot. And my autopilot historically has
Speaker 1: been better the last couple of years. But I still
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you, all right, I remember anchoring, I remember
Speaker 1: doing this, I remember thinking, I remember that. Now usual
Speaker 1: it's that train and gets on the tracks and that's going.
Speaker 1: So that's that's been in the animals I have shot
Speaker 1: with the hinge relise. I can remember everything because when
Speaker 1: you have that hinde reniase in your hand, you realize
Speaker 1: that you have just I call it staying with the shot.
Speaker 1: You have to stay with the shot through the very end. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's very strong psychologically and knowing that you when
Speaker 1: you're on the animal depends on the animal, You're subconscious
Speaker 1: knows that you have to stay with stay with the shot.
Speaker 1: And what it does is it causes you to aim
Speaker 1: better because you're focused, focused, focused, because you don't know
Speaker 1: when that release is going to go off. And I
Speaker 1: can almost guarantee you if you shoot something with if
Speaker 1: you shoot an animal with the hindered they Sho're going
Speaker 1: to remember the whole shot process. So speaking of releases,
Speaker 1: then that being one of these tools that you know,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of belief in and being able
Speaker 1: to help you. One of the things I was curious
Speaker 1: about would be if someone was wanting to address accuracy,
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to level up, and they were going to
Speaker 1: look at the gear side of things, and they weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily wanted to get more speed or more penetration or
Speaker 1: something like that, was simply more accuracy. What's the one
Speaker 1: gear category, like the one bucket stuff you would look
Speaker 1: at addressing first. Would it be the release or is
Speaker 1: it the bow itself, broadheads or arrows or what would
Speaker 1: be that category that you think is the most impactful.
Speaker 1: If someone worse started oh by far now years ago,
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, I would have said, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a big part of it's the equipment. The
Speaker 1: equipment nowadays, if you've had your bow set up by
Speaker 1: someone who knows what they're doing. The equipment is is
Speaker 1: so good nowadays, so good that the vast majority of
Speaker 1: accuracy issues are with the shooter. I can, I can.
Speaker 1: You can take almost any bowl off the shelf, a
Speaker 1: decent bow and put good accessories on it now and
Speaker 1: bows are so well engineered now um that that the
Speaker 1: bow is probably not a big part of the issue
Speaker 1: unless something has happened to to it's gone out of tune,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But the bows and arrows and
Speaker 1: all the equipment nowadays are so good. So if you
Speaker 1: want to be a better shooter, h you're not going
Speaker 1: to do that by buying a new bow, um, you know,
Speaker 1: unless your bow is over ten years old. You're going
Speaker 1: to do that by working on yourself. And that's where
Speaker 1: most people want to buy their way to accuracy, and
Speaker 1: it just it just doesn't matter. You can take a
Speaker 1: really good shooter with a really crappy, a very cheap
Speaker 1: bow nowadays, and they're going to be incredibly accurate. So
Speaker 1: I would say as long as you you know, you
Speaker 1: know your your bow is shooting well, and you can
Speaker 1: do that by going to your local pro shop and
Speaker 1: having them look at you shoot and you know, shooting
Speaker 1: it through paper, make sure everything's good, um, and make
Speaker 1: sure all the bolts are tied of course, and there's
Speaker 1: nothing loose. And as long as as the bow shooting good,
Speaker 1: I'd say the equipments ten percent the shooters. What about
Speaker 1: like matching arrows to your bow or weights and anything
Speaker 1: like that. There's a whole lot of talk these days
Speaker 1: about you know, different arrow setups, heavier this, more front
Speaker 1: of center. It's a very trendy thing in the last
Speaker 1: few years to dive further and further down that road.
Speaker 1: How important is that for people to do We need
Speaker 1: to go really really deep into that and obsess over that,
Speaker 1: or to your point is no, absolutely not. Um, you
Speaker 1: can again, I can take a good shooter and get
Speaker 1: a boat an arrow that's that has really almost no
Speaker 1: front of center and an arrow that is not really
Speaker 1: even spined well to the bow, and he's still going
Speaker 1: to shoot very very well. Um, it's not nearing his
Speaker 1: critical now if you most of that stuff comes from
Speaker 1: Western hunters that are shooting a hundred yards, and it
Speaker 1: does make a difference because you know the Olympic shooters
Speaker 1: or uh competitive compound bow shooters that are shooting long distances.
Speaker 1: You know front of center is going to make a difference.
Speaker 1: But it's front of center and the stiffness of the
Speaker 1: arrow and and I'm into all of that stuff, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, And I've written about all of it.
Speaker 1: I've talked about all of it. Um. But that's taking
Speaker 1: you to a point of diminishing returns. That's when you're
Speaker 1: already completely well versed at shooting form and discipline of
Speaker 1: the release that all of that stuff will make the difference.
Speaker 1: Let's say you can shoot. Let's say you can shoot
Speaker 1: a tenant group at a hundred yards and you know
Speaker 1: you would just a regular setup, and and that's a
Speaker 1: very very very incredibly good shooter. You start working on
Speaker 1: front of center, uh, different stiffnesses of arrow, you know,
Speaker 1: you might be able to get down to an eight
Speaker 1: or a seven inch group. That's what that stuffs for.
Speaker 1: It's for the elite shooter that really knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1: For the average white tail hunter, it doesn't matter much
Speaker 1: all Now, it matters a little bit. I don't want
Speaker 1: somebody to say that he said it doesn't matter. It matters,
Speaker 1: But it's so much more important that you're able to
Speaker 1: put the pin on the target, squeeze the trigger, not
Speaker 1: interfere with the bow. That's the problem most people have.
Speaker 1: You take the average bowl you would buy at a
Speaker 1: bow shop right now, or even if you were to
Speaker 1: go to a big box store, buy an average bow,
Speaker 1: put it in a shooting machine after it's been tuned,
Speaker 1: and it is going to hit. You know, it's going
Speaker 1: to shoot a two three group at fifty yards. The
Speaker 1: issue is the shooter. People interfere with the bow. They
Speaker 1: interfere with how that bow shoots. The arrow, they turket,
Speaker 1: they yank the trigger, they have interference with the bowstring
Speaker 1: on their face. They do all these things to interfere
Speaker 1: with how that bow shoots the shot. The only thing
Speaker 1: good form does is it make sure that you allow
Speaker 1: the bow to shoot the shop without interference. That's it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about form so that if that's really the
Speaker 1: foundation that's going to allow our gear to actually perform
Speaker 1: as well as it can, how do we make sure
Speaker 1: our form is as good as possible. I know there's
Speaker 1: a million videos out there, and there's a million articles
Speaker 1: that talk through all the different aspects of good archery form.
Speaker 1: But but could you walk us through the Randy Almer
Speaker 1: take on you know, whether you want to walk us
Speaker 1: through the foundational elements of it, or if it's more
Speaker 1: interesting to you just maybe break down the big problem
Speaker 1: areas you see most often. Um, I'd love to just
Speaker 1: kind of get your take on how we can establish
Speaker 1: better form and consistency. Okay, the thing to remember about
Speaker 1: form is with archery, h you can be an incredibly
Speaker 1: good shot and you can have a really bad form
Speaker 1: as long as you do everything exactly the same way
Speaker 1: every time. And there's some shooters just like some just
Speaker 1: like some golfers that have really radical swings that are
Speaker 1: still really good. That's because they do they're able to
Speaker 1: do everything exactly the same way every time. Good form,
Speaker 1: what I would call good form, is merely increasing the
Speaker 1: odds that you can repeat from shot to shot to shot.
Speaker 1: So really, obviously the most basic part of form is
Speaker 1: having a good foundation. But unfortunately, and when I say that,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about stants, puts, put placement. Unfortunately, most of
Speaker 1: the times, at least when I'm shooting, I'm either on
Speaker 1: my knees, or I'm I'm leaning around a tree, or
Speaker 1: the winds blowing uh, or you know, you're on uneven terrain.
Speaker 1: The nice thing about white tail hunters is usually they've
Speaker 1: got a good solid foundation to shoot from. And a
Speaker 1: lot of white tail shooters will try to stand up
Speaker 1: to shoot, but some shoot from sitting down. And if
Speaker 1: you do shoot from sitting down, obviously you need to
Speaker 1: work on your form. But really the foundation is just
Speaker 1: the bottom part. The foundation allows your upper body, which
Speaker 1: is the critical part two, not be wiggling. Um, as
Speaker 1: long as you can have good t form with your upproportion,
Speaker 1: and what I mean by good tea form is that
Speaker 1: your your torso your spine is relatively vertical, and your
Speaker 1: bow arm and your release arm are in the form
Speaker 1: of a t um and you know you're everything. The
Speaker 1: more aligned your body is with the bow, the less
Speaker 1: likely you are to interfere with the bow. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is if, if, if you were well,
Speaker 1: Let's start with the handle of the boat, because that's
Speaker 1: the one place that most people have. The issue is
Speaker 1: how they put their hand into the boat. You have
Speaker 1: to be able to put your hand in the bow consistently.
Speaker 1: And the best way to have a consistent shot process
Speaker 1: from shot to shot to shot is to have bone
Speaker 1: on bone contact. Now, if you'll if you don't take
Speaker 1: your middle finger and put it, it's too bad. This
Speaker 1: isn't visual. But basically what you want is you want
Speaker 1: the bow, the pressure of your hand on the bow
Speaker 1: to be in the bottom part of your palm, where
Speaker 1: if you were to follow the two long bones of
Speaker 1: your forearm, the radius and the aulna, if you were
Speaker 1: to pretend you had a a a rod that rent
Speaker 1: perfectly parallel to those two bones and and came out
Speaker 1: in the bottom of your palm, that's where you want
Speaker 1: all the pressure on your bow handle because that way
Speaker 1: you don't have to use any muscles to control the bow,
Speaker 1: and you won't talk your boat from left to right.
Speaker 1: So pretend you had no thumb, no fingers, no hand
Speaker 1: other than the the the end of your forearm where
Speaker 1: it comes out on your palm. You could put a
Speaker 1: bow right there, and if you were holding the boat correctly,
Speaker 1: that bow would not fall off that point. That's what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do, and you want want no pressure
Speaker 1: from your finger or your thumb, because what happens is
Speaker 1: as soon as the string is released, the bowl will
Speaker 1: start rotating whichever way you have pressure on it. So
Speaker 1: pretend you have no hand and all the pressure is
Speaker 1: straight down your forearm. That's what you want because it's
Speaker 1: very repeatable and it will never change from shot to shot.
Speaker 1: The next thing is you need to have your release
Speaker 1: hand in your release elbow to have a perfectly straight
Speaker 1: alignment with the arrow. So if you were standing straight
Speaker 1: above a shooter and you were to look down the arrow,
Speaker 1: and then you were to look down their forearm and
Speaker 1: their hand all the way to the tip of their elbow,
Speaker 1: it would be a perfectly straight line. A lot of
Speaker 1: people will break that line by bending their their wrist
Speaker 1: or by bending their hand in some way you don't
Speaker 1: want to do. They wanted to be in a perfectly
Speaker 1: straight line, because the the and the best way to
Speaker 1: do that is just to completely relax everything. Because if
Speaker 1: you completely relax everything, it's going to become it's going
Speaker 1: to go into winement. If your elbow is to the
Speaker 1: left or to the right of that line, small changes
Speaker 1: in the position of your elbow is going to have
Speaker 1: a major effect on the the forces that that that
Speaker 1: are created. If your elbow is perfectly in line, you
Speaker 1: can have your elbow off a quarter or a half
Speaker 1: an inch either way, and it's going to have very
Speaker 1: little effect on where that Harald Boes another very important form,
Speaker 1: and you guys can jump in any time if you
Speaker 1: have a question, because I'm kind of going just down
Speaker 1: the line again again. Your entire goal is to let
Speaker 1: the bow shoot the shot. Don't make the bow shoot
Speaker 1: the shot. People create tension, and that tension interferes with
Speaker 1: the bow shooting the shot. If you don't interfere with
Speaker 1: the bow the string at all, and you you contact
Speaker 1: the bowl, well you should only contact the bow in
Speaker 1: two places at the string where you've got the release attached,
Speaker 1: and and and and and and your bow hand. If
Speaker 1: those could be completely relaxed and everything in alignment, the
Speaker 1: arrow is going to hit exactly where the pin is.
Speaker 1: If you take a shot and the arrow hits somewhere
Speaker 1: other than where the pin was once the bow sided,
Speaker 1: and obviously and the arrow hits anywhere other than where
Speaker 1: the pin was, it means that you interfered with that bow.
Speaker 1: And you have to figure out why. One of the
Speaker 1: most common places that people are going to interfere with
Speaker 1: the bow is once we've eliminated hand torch in the front.
Speaker 1: The other place that they're going to interfere with the
Speaker 1: bow is contact with their face or clothing. But the
Speaker 1: main thing is the face. Um. What you'll see people
Speaker 1: do is is for the last thirty years, since people
Speaker 1: have gone away from shooting with their fingers um and
Speaker 1: people started using peeps, there's one bit of dogma that
Speaker 1: has stuck in the archery industry and I don't really
Speaker 1: understand why, and that's that you have to have a
Speaker 1: rock solid anchor point and and what that causes people
Speaker 1: to do is really dig into their face with their
Speaker 1: hand and the string and what happens is you get
Speaker 1: chin drag or nose drag, and people will press the
Speaker 1: string so hard into their face that the string actually
Speaker 1: has For a right handed string shooter, the string actually
Speaker 1: has to come out around their face to the right,
Speaker 1: dragging their skin, and it will make them hit to
Speaker 1: the left. So if you have inexplicable right or left shots,
Speaker 1: it's usually either from hand tork or from face interference.
Speaker 1: What I like to tell people is just have a
Speaker 1: baby breath, touch of their string to their face or
Speaker 1: to the tip of their nose, again not interfering with
Speaker 1: the bow, so the string wants to release. This is triggered.
Speaker 1: The string has no interference moving forward again, you're letting
Speaker 1: the bowshoot the shot instead of making the bowshoot the shot.
Speaker 1: So really good form is extremely simple. Um it's just
Speaker 1: doing everything the same way every time. And the best
Speaker 1: way to do that is really to watch video of
Speaker 1: the very top pro shooters. They'll almost all have the
Speaker 1: exact same form, and that's the form that's proven to
Speaker 1: be most repeatable. And that form is standing up straight,
Speaker 1: no stress in the face. You want the boat, You
Speaker 1: want the string. When you pull a bow back, you
Speaker 1: want the string to come to your face. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you're standing, If you're standing like you're going to shoot
Speaker 1: your bow, but you do not have a bow in
Speaker 1: your hand. You're standing, and your feet are Actually most
Speaker 1: people their feet will be the tip of their toes
Speaker 1: if you were to to lay an arrow down at
Speaker 1: the tip of their toes, and the air would be
Speaker 1: pointing pretty much straight at the target. So you're you're
Speaker 1: you're at a ninety degree angle to the target. And
Speaker 1: what you want to do with your head is you
Speaker 1: want to stand there, completely relaxed, looking straight forward, and
Speaker 1: then you want to turn your head. For a right
Speaker 1: handed shooter, you're turning your head ninety degrees to the
Speaker 1: left and just as comfortable as can be. When you
Speaker 1: pull your bow back, you do not want to move
Speaker 1: your head or your face. You want it to be
Speaker 1: in a completely perfect position, perfectly relaxed position. Most people
Speaker 1: will pull back their bow, most most people that aren't
Speaker 1: really really good shooters will pull back their bow, and
Speaker 1: then they'll move their face and bring their face into
Speaker 1: the boat. And and that's not relaxed. You'll see them
Speaker 1: cocking their head down, or cocking their head up, or
Speaker 1: cocking their head further to the left or the right.
Speaker 1: You want your head to be in a perfectly straight
Speaker 1: up and down, relaxed spine, relaxed neck position, and and
Speaker 1: looking at the target. And when you draw the bow,
Speaker 1: the bow will come to your face and you're not
Speaker 1: manipulating your face to put it into the bow. What
Speaker 1: you're seeking with good shooting form is complete, complete relaxation.
Speaker 1: You want bone upon bone. You want everything to be
Speaker 1: resting upon bone. Obviously it takes some muscular contraction to
Speaker 1: hold the bow back and up. You want that to
Speaker 1: be as minimal as possible. I've got a quick question
Speaker 1: when it comes to you know, the face and the
Speaker 1: anchor points, and you know, as you mentioned, it's been
Speaker 1: drilled into us so much about the importance of those
Speaker 1: anchor points, and your point about the possible chin drag
Speaker 1: or nose drags is well taken. I'm curious what you
Speaker 1: think about some of these anchor um anchor point tools,
Speaker 1: stuff like a kisser button or more recently like the
Speaker 1: nose buttons that are becoming popular, or either one of
Speaker 1: those good ways to still have an anchor point, but
Speaker 1: have that lighter no like like you said, like a
Speaker 1: very very light anchor point is that a good way
Speaker 1: to do it, or do you think those are not?
Speaker 1: You know, I've never been a fan of kisser buttons.
Speaker 1: Now if you kisser buttons came around when there were
Speaker 1: no peeps. Okay, I can take my bow mhm, and
Speaker 1: I can shoot my normal way with just the my
Speaker 1: tip of my nose on the string and just a
Speaker 1: whisper baby's breath touch of this of the of the
Speaker 1: string on my chin, I can shoot. Then I can
Speaker 1: take my bow and I can I can pull it
Speaker 1: further forward from my face, so I actually have to
Speaker 1: kind of tip my head a little bit. And if
Speaker 1: I'm completely relaxed and I'm looking through my peep and
Speaker 1: it's lined up with, uh, the spot I'm trying to hit,
Speaker 1: it will hit in the exactly same in the exact
Speaker 1: same spot because I'm not interfering with the bow. So again,
Speaker 1: the more things you have touching your face, the more
Speaker 1: you're interfering with your bow. That that really the peep
Speaker 1: site is your anchor point. If your bow is complete,
Speaker 1: if you're if you are completely relaxed, you if you
Speaker 1: are completely relaxed and your your barm and your release
Speaker 1: arm are completely relaxed and in alignment with the bow.
Speaker 1: You do not have to have an anchor point. You
Speaker 1: can just look through the peep and shoot. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not advocating that, I'm just telling you that to illustrate
Speaker 1: a point that a solid anchor is absolutely not necessary. Now,
Speaker 1: a solid anchor, A solid anchor is not necessary. But again,
Speaker 1: in order to be as consistent as possible, you need
Speaker 1: to repeat. So a light anchor is plenty. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is just do it the exact same
Speaker 1: way every time. What happens is when people hear the
Speaker 1: words solid anchor, they feel like they got to dig
Speaker 1: their hand into their into their into their jawbone. And
Speaker 1: what happens is you'll notice if you dig your hand
Speaker 1: into your job zone, what will happen is it will
Speaker 1: break your wrist. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: your wrist won't be in a straight line. Because you
Speaker 1: can do it right now, just just just while you're
Speaker 1: sitting there. If you take your hand and let's say
Speaker 1: what they what people tend to tell you to do
Speaker 1: with a hand held release is to put those first
Speaker 1: two knuckles of your of your of your fist, against
Speaker 1: your jaw bone, say, against the back of your jaw
Speaker 1: bone and push it there, and that's gonna get you
Speaker 1: in the same anchor point every time. But when you
Speaker 1: do and you push it in hard, what you're gonna
Speaker 1: notice is it's gonna break your release. Your release is
Speaker 1: no I mean your wrist. Your wrist is no longer
Speaker 1: in a straight line. It's very important, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: to keep your wrist in a straight line as possible
Speaker 1: because whenever you break the line of force, if you
Speaker 1: break that line of force and you change it, say
Speaker 1: half an inch from shot to shot, it's going to
Speaker 1: affect the left and rights on your arrow. However, if
Speaker 1: you relax your release completely and relax your wrist completely,
Speaker 1: and and maintain that just that very light touch of
Speaker 1: your of your knuckles to your face, not digging into
Speaker 1: your bone to get that solid, but just relax it,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you'll see that your wrist becomes
Speaker 1: straight because everything is relaxed. And the more relaxed you are,
Speaker 1: the more consistent you're gonna be, and the less likely
Speaker 1: you are to interfere with the bow because what's happening
Speaker 1: is is everything is just hanging. I like to imagine
Speaker 1: my my bow arm, excuse me, my release arm from
Speaker 1: the tip of my elbow all the way through my
Speaker 1: fingers to be like a rubber band that just stretches out.
Speaker 1: And the more it stretches out, the more relaxed it is,
Speaker 1: the more consistent it's it's going to be because you're
Speaker 1: not using any muscles. Whenever you incorporate muscles into the
Speaker 1: shooting routine, the more muscles you incorporate, the easier it
Speaker 1: is to change from shot to shot. If everything is
Speaker 1: totally relaxed, the less likely things are to change from
Speaker 1: shot to shot. Yeah. When you bring up the issue
Speaker 1: of consistency and all this are the anchor points and everything,
Speaker 1: the next thing that came to mind for me was
Speaker 1: how our consistency is as white tail hunters changes when
Speaker 1: we try to perfect all this form you're talking about
Speaker 1: in the backyard, but then all of a sudden, we're
Speaker 1: in a tree at an elevated position pcent of the time,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, now things start getting wonky.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why that's why your house has a roof. Yeah. No, seriously,
Speaker 1: you either you know, you either put a tree stand
Speaker 1: up in your backyard at your shooting range. And and
Speaker 1: the key is, you know, most of the time, let's
Speaker 1: say you're let's say you're fifteen feet up in a
Speaker 1: tree um and you're shooting, say twenty yards, Well, you're
Speaker 1: shooting downhill fairly a fair bit. What I found is
Speaker 1: to use extreme practice. And when you can use extreme practice,
Speaker 1: the less extreme the average. Let's say the average what's
Speaker 1: what's your average tree stand high? Yeah, it's say, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so so and your average shot is going to be
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty yards I'm guessing. Okay, Well, okay, now,
Speaker 1: now I don't have I don't have any way of
Speaker 1: calculating that that angle right now. But the angle is
Speaker 1: not severe, but it's it's significant. So what I do
Speaker 1: is like I'm in Colorado right now, and just outside
Speaker 1: my archery room door is a thirty seven degree slope,
Speaker 1: which is nearly a cliff. I mean, it's hard walking
Speaker 1: up it. And at the top of that is ninety
Speaker 1: yards away is a target. And I shoot my arrows
Speaker 1: up and then I shoot myrows down. And that's a
Speaker 1: very very significant angle. But the reason I do such
Speaker 1: an extreme angle, you know, you're very rarely gonna have
Speaker 1: a shot like that in real life. But what it
Speaker 1: does is it teaches me an extreme what what I'm
Speaker 1: doing wrong and why Typically when I'm shooting uphill and
Speaker 1: for right hand or shoot is this is most often
Speaker 1: when you're shooting up there, you're gonna miss the lap
Speaker 1: from you're shooting down here, you're gonna miss to the
Speaker 1: right um. Not true for everybody, but but on average.
Speaker 1: So what I would encourage you to do is is
Speaker 1: put a tree stand up in your yard, if you
Speaker 1: have a tree or at the range, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: feet up, and then shoot at a target fifteen yards
Speaker 1: from the base of the tree. And what that's going
Speaker 1: to do is it's going to exaggerate all the issues
Speaker 1: that you have. And you've got to remember to do
Speaker 1: it standing up and sitting down because obviously it's it's
Speaker 1: going to change your form and when you're shooting at
Speaker 1: such a severe angle like that, your misses are going
Speaker 1: to be more significant, and they're going to be more
Speaker 1: significant missing to the left um. And what you have
Speaker 1: to do is teach yourself. And and this again this
Speaker 1: is you can look online videos shooting up hill and
Speaker 1: down hill. I have some stuff online and a lot
Speaker 1: of other people do. But what you'll find is that
Speaker 1: the more you practice in it in extremes, the more
Speaker 1: likely you are to identify your problems and then and
Speaker 1: then be able to resolve them. If you shoot like
Speaker 1: let's say you only climb up ten ft in a
Speaker 1: tree stand and you're shooting thirty yards away, you're not
Speaker 1: really practicing any extreme. It's it's it's almost as easy
Speaker 1: to shoot that shots is a shot on flat ground.
Speaker 1: So practice extremes. And and while we're talking about shooting,
Speaker 1: you guys always shoot downhill. I'm I'm shooting uphill half
Speaker 1: the time when you know, in the west and the
Speaker 1: really rough terrain. But you guys just need to learn
Speaker 1: how to shoot down here. And the main thing to
Speaker 1: remember is to maintain that te form shooting. What a
Speaker 1: lot of people are doing and it causes problems. Is
Speaker 1: rather than bending at the waist and and keeping that
Speaker 1: tea form where your spine is perpendicular to both of
Speaker 1: your arms at full draw, what they tend to do
Speaker 1: is they tend to stand more straight up and just
Speaker 1: lower the left arm, which completely changes your shooting form
Speaker 1: and it completely interferes with with the bow shooting the shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it does. There's a different feeling too, when you
Speaker 1: when you try to focus on, you know, swiveling at
Speaker 1: the hip the proper way. If you don't do that enough,
Speaker 1: you can feel different muscles being activated, and it can
Speaker 1: be harder to get comfortable if you don't practice that.
Speaker 1: I remember early on, it's just really hard for you
Speaker 1: to relax. And the tea to shooting a really good
Speaker 1: shot is is to be as relaxed just possible a
Speaker 1: full drawn If if you're tweaking your muscles while you're
Speaker 1: trying to do that, it can be very uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: you're you're more likely to interfere with the bow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk practice now, but
Speaker 1: I guess before before we jump to that, Tony, do
Speaker 1: you have any other form specific stuff before we shift
Speaker 1: into how we make form a part of who we
Speaker 1: are with practice? Um? I think no. The only two
Speaker 1: things I would say is I've never fake drawn my
Speaker 1: bow as much as I have in the last hour,
Speaker 1: and I've never faced the reality of how much bullshit
Speaker 1: I've written in my life. That's probably wrong as far
Speaker 1: as how to be an accurate shooter. So this is
Speaker 1: making me question everything. Randy, Well, yeah, now and Cabiat
Speaker 1: out there that just because I'm saying it. The one thing,
Speaker 1: the one reason I was so successful as a competitive archer,
Speaker 1: is I didn't I always question dogma. The one thing
Speaker 1: that you have to remember is there's a lot of
Speaker 1: dogma in the archery world, and everybody wants you to
Speaker 1: shoot exactly the way they shoot um, and that's not
Speaker 1: always going to work for you. You do have to
Speaker 1: You do have to question yourself though, and you can't
Speaker 1: assume that the way you do things is the right way.
Speaker 1: And when someone like me is you know, is beating
Speaker 1: on their chest and saying this is the way you
Speaker 1: have to do it. This is the way that works
Speaker 1: for most people, it may not be the way it
Speaker 1: works best for you. But it goes back to being
Speaker 1: honest with yourself. If to do things the way you've
Speaker 1: always done it is the easiest solution, but if you
Speaker 1: truly want to get better, you have to experiment. And
Speaker 1: I did a great deal of experiment experimenting when I
Speaker 1: was seriously trying to be better as a competitive shooter.
Speaker 1: To see and there were a lot of things that
Speaker 1: were dogmatic that that that I challenged and I did differently,
Speaker 1: and and and Since that time, a lot of those
Speaker 1: things have become dogma. So again, what you're saying that
Speaker 1: you know you're doing everything wrong because I say it's wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, don't believe every person that proclaims their guru
Speaker 1: out there. There's a lot of stuff on the internet
Speaker 1: that just horrifies me. Well, can we talk about something
Speaker 1: quick then, Mark? I know you want to move on
Speaker 1: to practice, but there's something I always think about, uh
Speaker 1: with you know, and it's different in your world, Randy,
Speaker 1: because you're you're you're doing so much Western stuff and
Speaker 1: you know, up and down terrain, just a different kind
Speaker 1: of hunt than a than a typical white tail hunt.
Speaker 1: But one thing I know about you, uh, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this or not, but
Speaker 1: I met you at that Peterson's Bow Hunting meeting or
Speaker 1: dinner we had at a t A and like two
Speaker 1: thousand and six or something, and you were you were
Speaker 1: talking about a couple of the really big meal dear
Speaker 1: you had killed that year, and I remember you saying
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was your Colorado buck that year,
Speaker 1: but saying that you had spent like fifty days scouting
Speaker 1: that deer. And I just remember thinking Holy cow, how
Speaker 1: familiar is this guy with this animal? And you know,
Speaker 1: so throughout this conversation we've been talking about form and
Speaker 1: you know, blank bail shooting and all of these kind
Speaker 1: of like fundamental technical things that make you a better shot,
Speaker 1: but you also work really hard to get a familiarity
Speaker 1: with these animals you're hunting. And I think people kind
Speaker 1: of take it for granted that you're this amazing shooter
Speaker 1: and you kill a lot of big stuff, But there's
Speaker 1: that sort of piece in the middle that we don't
Speaker 1: talk about much, which just you putting yourself around these animals,
Speaker 1: probably to get a comfort level that most you know,
Speaker 1: average hunters couldn't even understand. Well, yeah, and that's a
Speaker 1: completely different podcast. I mean, that's that's just even to
Speaker 1: touch on that, it's just going to take a long time.
Speaker 1: But yes, uh, and that's you know, if if you
Speaker 1: guys want to move in that direction, we certainly can um.
Speaker 1: But again that's kind of a different podcast. Yes, I
Speaker 1: spend you know, all spend literally thirty nights out on
Speaker 1: the mountain, you know, sleeping on the round because it's
Speaker 1: what I enjoyed. I've fortunately, over the year, has been
Speaker 1: able to put myself in a position where I have
Speaker 1: a lot of time. In the summer, I do most
Speaker 1: all my work. Um, I work in the summer, but
Speaker 1: I I I'm able to get out and at least
Speaker 1: thirty days every summer scouting and mule there is kind
Speaker 1: of my you know it used to be out, but
Speaker 1: I've really gotten into meal there so and and and yes,
Speaker 1: and most of that time is spent just trying to
Speaker 1: find that one deer that I want to take. But
Speaker 1: but the take home point on on on me spending
Speaker 1: that much time is when you spend that much time
Speaker 1: looking for one deer, um, and you get an opportunity
Speaker 1: at that deer. And this is the same. This translates
Speaker 1: completely for white toil hunters. You know, you've got your
Speaker 1: trail cameras out there. You know there's one deer out
Speaker 1: there that that's the deer you want to kill, and
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're doing your food plots, you're doing
Speaker 1: you're scouting, you're putting up your tree stands, you're doing
Speaker 1: all the preparation. You guys do as much preparation as
Speaker 1: I do. It's just mostly done in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day. Um, But you've got all this preparation, and
Speaker 1: it all comes together. Your whole season is going to
Speaker 1: be a successor of failure. And I'm not measuring success
Speaker 1: purity as killing an animal, but for this particular conversation,
Speaker 1: let's let's use success as getting that animal that you've
Speaker 1: been putting all this work into. It all comes down
Speaker 1: to that one shot. And people assume, because of all
Speaker 1: my you know, target shooting championships and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: they assume that I shoot a long ways and I don't,
Speaker 1: and and and there's a reason I could, you know,
Speaker 1: because again I can. You know, I can consistently and
Speaker 1: again this is in my backyard with no end and
Speaker 1: I can consistently shoot very very well at very very
Speaker 1: long distances with my broadhead set up. However, I will
Speaker 1: not on on on an animal that I've scouted, or
Speaker 1: any animal for that matter. But I have a hard
Speaker 1: and fast rule that I don't shoot past six yards, um,
Speaker 1: because you know, I've got so much time invested in
Speaker 1: this animal, and the last thing I want to do
Speaker 1: is wound him or missing, because these are smart old deer.
Speaker 1: And and if you wound him or missing, it's done.
Speaker 1: You're done for the season. You know, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to go to your number two dear, hopefully if you
Speaker 1: can find him. But so this does tie in a
Speaker 1: little bit too to working on your shooting, because you
Speaker 1: guys spend so much time all the intricacies of of
Speaker 1: of and I don't even know the half of it
Speaker 1: what you guys do to get position yourself in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time to get a shot
Speaker 1: at this one deer. And yet these guys that do this,
Speaker 1: And and I'm friends with a lot of extremely successful
Speaker 1: bow hunters, um and I'll shoot with them, and I'm
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm just affle at at how the issues they
Speaker 1: have in their shooting. And they spend literally thousands of
Speaker 1: hours a year, hundreds of hours a year, uh doing
Speaker 1: everything else, but they're not willing to go to a
Speaker 1: shooting coach and improve their shootings so that when they
Speaker 1: do get this opportunity they can kill it. And I've
Speaker 1: got a good friend, Jack Frost. He's one of the
Speaker 1: best bone hunters of all times. And and and I'm
Speaker 1: not picking on him, well, I guess I am a
Speaker 1: little bit, but he'll pick on himself. Jack is probably
Speaker 1: the best hunter, certainly one of the top five hunters
Speaker 1: I know of all time. Um. And Jack will tell
Speaker 1: you that if he could shoot better, he would have
Speaker 1: had multiple world world records, but he will admit that
Speaker 1: he's not the best shot in the world. And and
Speaker 1: you know, Jack is a Jack is a orthopeak surgeon.
Speaker 1: He's an incredibly intelligent individual. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: John Jack's every bondo shooting coach. But it's just you know,
Speaker 1: he likes hunting and he likes he actually likes shooting.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is is he's told me that, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I could shoot better, I would have all these
Speaker 1: world records. So my point is, take some time and
Speaker 1: study and shoot, join the target league, get a coach,
Speaker 1: and then when you do have that one opportunity, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna blow it. Yeah, So so let's go there.
Speaker 1: Then let's talk about shooting, practicing, making sure that you
Speaker 1: don't blow that moment. If if we've got our form,
Speaker 1: we we know the right way to to be operating
Speaker 1: our bone, we know the right set up for our bone,
Speaker 1: and we know certain things we to do control the
Speaker 1: mental side. Now we've got to just get out there
Speaker 1: practice enough that this that this stuff is is part
Speaker 1: of who we are. I first I'm curious about one
Speaker 1: simple thing, that being how much practice is enough. Like,
Speaker 1: there's some people I know, pretty darn good hunters who
Speaker 1: don't touch their bow until like a month after the season,
Speaker 1: and then they grab their bow and they'll shoot, you know,
Speaker 1: a dozen arrows a couple of times a week, and
Speaker 1: then they're like, oh, yeah, I'm good to go, and
Speaker 1: they're and they're great. And there's some people who say,
Speaker 1: I shoot a lot, and maybe they shoot from July
Speaker 1: into the season, and then they shoot a couple of
Speaker 1: times here and there during the season, and then you
Speaker 1: hear other people who shoot all year round, and they say,
Speaker 1: you've got to shoot every day all year round and
Speaker 1: really be good at this. Um, What's what's the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter, Randy, What do you think is is
Speaker 1: the bar that someone who really wants to be extremely proficient,
Speaker 1: what's the bar they need to pass as far as
Speaker 1: how often and how you know, how how much practice
Speaker 1: is needed to really be fishing at this? Okay, so
Speaker 1: remember this perfect practice makes perfect and it's very very true. Okay.
Speaker 1: When I was winning my world championships, i was I
Speaker 1: was working as a veterinarian sixty hours a week. I
Speaker 1: did not have time to practice every day. It just
Speaker 1: wasn't in my schedule. I shot anywhere from thirty to
Speaker 1: sixty arrows every other day, and my competitors were shooting
Speaker 1: two to three arrows a day. The key is, we'll
Speaker 1: go back to what I said earlier. The key is
Speaker 1: every day that I let's say I had an hour
Speaker 1: and a half to practice every other day, I wrote
Speaker 1: down what my issues were, what I needed to work
Speaker 1: on that day. And let's say I was working on
Speaker 1: um relax in my front hand, which was is an
Speaker 1: issue with everybody all the time constantly, because instinctually your
Speaker 1: front hand of your bow is is is incredibly hard
Speaker 1: to relax perfectly every shot. But I would, let's say
Speaker 1: I'm working on that well during my practice session. That
Speaker 1: is my top priority is to focus and work on
Speaker 1: my practice on that hand. But you know, you don't
Speaker 1: let everything else go, but you are focused on that,
Speaker 1: and I would shoot my thirty to six arrows and
Speaker 1: they would be perfect arrows. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I did is and I still do it to this day,
Speaker 1: is I shoot at least my first five arrows and
Speaker 1: my last five arrows at a blank bell with my
Speaker 1: eyes closed, And I know that just sounds completely whacked
Speaker 1: to people that don't understand. But what it does do
Speaker 1: is is it teaches you. And it has to be
Speaker 1: something that you teach yourself, and you're kind of like
Speaker 1: an alcoholic. It's one day at a time. You have
Speaker 1: to teach yourself over and over and over again. What
Speaker 1: a perfect, relaxed, perfectly executed surprise release shot feels like.
Speaker 1: What it actually feels like. When you've got a target
Speaker 1: involved in the equation, you quit thinking about what's going
Speaker 1: on with your body. You start thinking about the execution
Speaker 1: of the pen when the when the depends on the target,
Speaker 1: and everything else kind of goes way back into the background.
Speaker 1: By shooting with your eyes closed, you you you teach
Speaker 1: yourself what a perfectly executed shot feels like. Perfectly executed
Speaker 1: shot feels really good. So I get myself in the
Speaker 1: groove for a perfectly executed shot, and if I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling at all, shoot fifteen or twenty arrows at the
Speaker 1: blank bail, just tell and tell I can feel that
Speaker 1: perfect shot and the same thing at the end of
Speaker 1: my practice session. So I haven't answered your question. If
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of time, then yes, practice a lot,
Speaker 1: but you cannot practice mediocrity or you're gonna be mediocre.
Speaker 1: Don't just go out there and fleeing arrows. And what
Speaker 1: happens is if you go out and shoot a hundred arrows,
Speaker 1: pretty soon you're just gonna be fleeing arrows. You're not
Speaker 1: focused on the perfect shot. I'd much rather you shoot
Speaker 1: ten shots every other day and have those shots perfect
Speaker 1: shots than to practice two hundred arrows every day. So
Speaker 1: that's probably the difference between the two individuals you put
Speaker 1: on each end of the spectrum. If if okay, my
Speaker 1: son Levi, he wanted to be a target shooter, you know,
Speaker 1: before he discovered girls when he was from thirteen to fifteen,
Speaker 1: and he we you know, we went to the nationals
Speaker 1: into Vegas and all the big tournaments, and Levi very
Speaker 1: very very good student listener. He did everything exactly like
Speaker 1: I told him. He never learned, he never was able
Speaker 1: to develop bad habits because he because I coached him
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, and I coached him from the
Speaker 1: very beginning with a you know, once he once he
Speaker 1: put away his recurb bow shooting with fingers just to
Speaker 1: watch the aero fly. And he wanted to shoot a
Speaker 1: compound bow. I put him on a hand release. The
Speaker 1: kids never developed a bad habit because he's never had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to. LEVI has killed Okay, he's twenty. By
Speaker 1: the time he was nineteen, he had killed six book
Speaker 1: you know in the three plus class. Yo. It's just
Speaker 1: because he lives in and I was hunting with him. Um,
Speaker 1: he has never he has never shot. He's never missed
Speaker 1: at an animal, and he's never it's never taken. Well,
Speaker 1: no animal he's ever shot at has gone more than
Speaker 1: seventy yards. Okay. He my whole point, I'm bragging on him.
Speaker 1: He's my son. But my whole point is he and
Speaker 1: I are going on a carabra hunt in August. My
Speaker 1: whole point is he can pick up his bow because
Speaker 1: he has no bad habits. He will come He's coming
Speaker 1: up to Colorado here shortly, and he will pick up
Speaker 1: his bow and the very first shot at twenty yards
Speaker 1: I can guarantee it. After he hasn't shot all years
Speaker 1: since last honey season, his very first shot at twenty
Speaker 1: years yards will be in the yellow on a Vegas face.
Speaker 1: It's just phenomenal because he has no bad habits. And
Speaker 1: his form is perfect, and if you're capable of having
Speaker 1: if if you've learned perfect form and he've not developed
Speaker 1: any bad habits, you don't have to practice very much.
Speaker 1: But that is not the average shooter. The average shooter
Speaker 1: has bad habits. It has to practice a lot. The
Speaker 1: more bad habits you have, the more you have to practice, because, uh,
Speaker 1: you're kind of just you're kind of just hoping for
Speaker 1: that magic and you have to kind of form that
Speaker 1: magic by practicing a lot. It's kind of like recurve shooters,
Speaker 1: you know that don't use sites or anything else, you
Speaker 1: have to practice all the time because they kind of
Speaker 1: have to get in that magic groove. If you have
Speaker 1: perfect form with a compound and you're using a site
Speaker 1: and a and a peep site, you it's kind of
Speaker 1: like shooting a gun. Seriously, you don't really have Like
Speaker 1: if I were to go rifle hunting, which I haven't
Speaker 1: done in thirty years, but if I were to go
Speaker 1: rifle lining, I just go to the rain, shoot three
Speaker 1: shots and say I'm good to go, because really there's
Speaker 1: nothing to it. If you have perfect archery shooting form,
Speaker 1: it's it's basically the same thing. There's really not much
Speaker 1: to it. You don't if you're fit, and my son
Speaker 1: is very, very fit, he's very very I was going
Speaker 1: to ask the fitness to be able to hold your
Speaker 1: bow back, like how important is the specific like archery
Speaker 1: muscles and keeping that set of muscles toned and in
Speaker 1: good shape. And mean, I've always wondered that I'm not
Speaker 1: like the super weightlifter upper body dude, I'm a runner.
Speaker 1: And I've always thought if I were to really get
Speaker 1: the weightlifting or doing something with that really helped me,
Speaker 1: or or is it not that important other than just
Speaker 1: shooting your bow? I mean, how important is that side
Speaker 1: of things? And does that factor into how accurate you
Speaker 1: can actually be down? It definitely does. Like when I
Speaker 1: was shooting and even nowadays, when I when I was
Speaker 1: shooting competitively, I would work on my archery muscles are
Speaker 1: are are not used. Archery muscles are very specific. The
Speaker 1: muscles you used to pull back the bow and hold
Speaker 1: the bow back are very specific. And and that is
Speaker 1: one thing I would say about practice is saying that
Speaker 1: that you do need to do. And when I was
Speaker 1: shooting UM at my highest level of competition, I would
Speaker 1: work on those specific muscles every other day UM and
Speaker 1: even now, one of the things that I do, and
Speaker 1: I've always done, is at the end of every practice session,
Speaker 1: if I at the time, I'll pull my bow back
Speaker 1: to exhaustion. And I'm by doing that, I'm working on
Speaker 1: the very specific muscles that are used to pull back
Speaker 1: and hold the bow. And it's very simple because you know,
Speaker 1: let's say I shoot thirty shots, and my average practice
Speaker 1: session is about nowadays it's about thirty maybe forty shots.
Speaker 1: At the end of that, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to shoot so many shots
Speaker 1: to keep my archery muscles strong and in shape that
Speaker 1: I'm you know, practicing mediocrity. I practice really good shots.
Speaker 1: But then at the end, in order to get the
Speaker 1: equivalent workout of shooting you know, say a hundred shots,
Speaker 1: I pulled my bow back to exhaustion. What I mean
Speaker 1: is my hunting bowl. I can usually pull it back
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty times in a row. UM. And then
Speaker 1: once I pulled it back as many times as I can,
Speaker 1: I'll hold it up for as long hold it back
Speaker 1: and hold it up as long as I can. And
Speaker 1: what that's doing is training those specific muscles. And there's
Speaker 1: really nothing better than that. But but but to answer
Speaker 1: your question, it is important. If those muscles aren't strong,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna shake. And by having those muscles stronger
Speaker 1: than they need to be, um, you're you're you're going
Speaker 1: to have a much steadier shot. And also, you know,
Speaker 1: there we all get in this situation. It's not as
Speaker 1: bad now that the bows have such a great let
Speaker 1: off as it used to be when the bows had
Speaker 1: let off. But you're gonna get in a situation where
Speaker 1: you draw your bow back and the deer's behind a
Speaker 1: tree and he stays back there for forty five seconds,
Speaker 1: and if your muscles aren't really really good shape, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be shaking like a dog when he steps out. Hey, Randy,
Speaker 1: on that, on that, No, is there a is there
Speaker 1: sort of a counter argument there for uh not being overbowed?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: want to get really manly with, you know, shooting seventy pounds,
Speaker 1: but they might be more way more comfortable and relaxed
Speaker 1: shooting sixty. And it really wouldn't matter in the deer
Speaker 1: woods anyway. Absolutely, it's it's madness when I see these
Speaker 1: guys shooting these really really heavy bows, because no matter
Speaker 1: who you are, you you can't shoot a really really
Speaker 1: heavy bow as well as you can a bow with
Speaker 1: a lighter draw length, a draw weight. Um and really
Speaker 1: especially for for white tail hunters. I mean, fifty pounds
Speaker 1: is plenty. But the average man, you know, the average whatever,
Speaker 1: thirty if you're old man, can shoot sixty pounds pretty comfortably.
Speaker 1: And if you can't, you know, just a little bit
Speaker 1: of working out, we'll do it. But yeah, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get in situations where you have to hold the bow
Speaker 1: back for a long period of time, or where you're
Speaker 1: really cold and or in an awkward position and can't
Speaker 1: draw the bow back. So that's absolutely critical. Uh. I like,
Speaker 1: I like a few of these things you've outlined here
Speaker 1: as far as what your practice sessions look like. You know,
Speaker 1: the work in those muscles at the end, holding back
Speaker 1: as long as you can, drawing back as many times
Speaker 1: as you can until you until you reach exhaustion. You
Speaker 1: mentioned blind bail shooting at the beginning and the end,
Speaker 1: but can you elaborate on anything else to make for
Speaker 1: this perfect practice session, because I think that was a
Speaker 1: really key point, Like perfect practice is what we're going
Speaker 1: for here. But I think what the average person does
Speaker 1: myself included a lot of the times you fall into
Speaker 1: this autopilot. If you go behind the house, you're fling
Speaker 1: yours or whatever. Your mind's kind of this place in
Speaker 1: that place, and it's kind of therapeutic and fun, but
Speaker 1: but like you said, probably not the most effective use
Speaker 1: of your time. So other than those two things you
Speaker 1: outlined and just being focused, what else can you do
Speaker 1: to make for that perfect practice session? Or are there
Speaker 1: any other specific exercises or drills that we can do
Speaker 1: to help us address some of the problems we spoke
Speaker 1: For me, if I'll shoot my and this is you know,
Speaker 1: a very very very few people do this, but if
Speaker 1: you'll do it, you'll see such great rewards. And because
Speaker 1: it's boring, but shooting with your eyes closed, you know,
Speaker 1: once you have good shooting form, shooting with your eyes
Speaker 1: closed and feeling the shot is just phenomenal because you
Speaker 1: what will happen is you realize the things that you're
Speaker 1: doing wrong when you're shooting with your eyes closed and
Speaker 1: you don't even realize it. The second thing in practice
Speaker 1: is be honest with yourself and if something's going wrong,
Speaker 1: figure out what it is. And then be honest with
Speaker 1: yourself about how to address it. And then you have
Speaker 1: to address it full on and work on it and
Speaker 1: make it better. It's not going to get better all
Speaker 1: on its own. Like if one day you go out
Speaker 1: and then you're just occasionally getting a miss to the
Speaker 1: left and you can't explain it, figure it the hell out.
Speaker 1: Don't say, oh, you know, it's just probably me. Well
Speaker 1: it is you, and a lot of people say it's
Speaker 1: just me. I'm just doing something to the bow today.
Speaker 1: Figure out what you're doing to the bow and while
Speaker 1: you're doing it, and eliminate it, and then work on
Speaker 1: that in a specific practice session. Work spend your practice
Speaker 1: sessions working on your issues, on the issues that are
Speaker 1: keeping you from being a better shot. And it takes discipline.
Speaker 1: It takes mental discipline because shooting bow is fun. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be fun and and and and and and
Speaker 1: it will be fun. And trust me, the better you shoot,
Speaker 1: the funner it is. But it takes a little bit
Speaker 1: of mental discipline. And if you don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: if you just want to shoot your boat, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But if you do want to get better, you have
Speaker 1: to have mental discipline and and figure out what you're
Speaker 1: doing wrong, why you're doing it, and then figure out
Speaker 1: a way to resolve the issue. Yeah, can you walk
Speaker 1: me through your shop process, like what it looks like
Speaker 1: and and maybe I'm curious if it's in any way
Speaker 1: different from the practice session versus in the field, But
Speaker 1: could you walk me through like every step in your
Speaker 1: process and what thoughts are going through your mind and
Speaker 1: what's actually happened physically in my backyard or do you
Speaker 1: want to shooting in a buck Well, I guess I'd
Speaker 1: like to know are those two different and in some
Speaker 1: substantial way other than the obviously really they are. They
Speaker 1: are because of what you mentioned Nelier buck fever, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about both them. Could you do that? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: in practice session is really easy. I've been shooting both
Speaker 1: for so long that that it's just everything is natural.
Speaker 1: I don't even think about my shooting process to speak
Speaker 1: of when I'm shooting. Uh, my main thing is once
Speaker 1: I've got the boat to full draw my my, my,
Speaker 1: um my. I have a little mantra and I use
Speaker 1: like when I'm shooting, just on the day and and
Speaker 1: and that is just relaxation, relaxation, relaxation, patients, patients, patients,
Speaker 1: and what that's doing for me because I'm shooting. Most
Speaker 1: of the time, I'm shooting the hind release. It's just
Speaker 1: waiting for the boat to go off and aim a name,
Speaker 1: and you're just letting the pin float around the target
Speaker 1: and you're the relaxation part is critical. So it's relaxation patients,
Speaker 1: aim a name, it's just letting your just aim. All
Speaker 1: you're doing is aiming and remaining. What people tend to
Speaker 1: do when they think of aiming and holding the pin
Speaker 1: on the spot, is they thinking of grabbing the bowl,
Speaker 1: controlling the bowl and holding it on that spot as
Speaker 1: tight as they can, uh, and shooting when the pin
Speaker 1: goes by the center of the bull's eye. Well, what
Speaker 1: I do is I try to continually think about relaxation. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't focus really the on all the other parts,
Speaker 1: but I probably should go through for the listeners. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's if you want to start at the beginning,
Speaker 1: it's putting your feet in the right position. You know.
Speaker 1: Typically for me it's shoulder with the part and I
Speaker 1: shoot with a little bit of open stance, meaning that
Speaker 1: you know, my left foots a little bit away from
Speaker 1: that perfect line. It's way back, a little bit back
Speaker 1: from that perfect line, straight to the target. And for me,
Speaker 1: everything is naturally because I've done it. But basically it's
Speaker 1: putting your hand. I usually try to rest the bow
Speaker 1: um on my leg. Put my hand, I'm my release
Speaker 1: is hooked up. I putting. I kind of put my
Speaker 1: hand into the bow as the bow is at about
Speaker 1: a forty five degree angle, and I'm trying to find
Speaker 1: that sweet spot where the bow will will again get
Speaker 1: in that center part of those two bones of the
Speaker 1: forearm um. And it goes very naturally for me. But
Speaker 1: then it's it's it's lifting the bow up and I
Speaker 1: try not to sky the bow, meaning I don't lift
Speaker 1: the bow above, you know, above the level of the
Speaker 1: target much. And then pulling the bow back and and
Speaker 1: again not moving my face to the string, but bringing
Speaker 1: the bow straight back to the string. Anchoring. And again
Speaker 1: be careful with that word anchoring, because it's not a
Speaker 1: rock solid anchor point, but it's a point that comes
Speaker 1: back naturally and there's very little contact with skin and
Speaker 1: if if, if, if I've done that properly, my peep
Speaker 1: will be right in the center of my eye and
Speaker 1: and and and on the and and on the on
Speaker 1: all the and the pen will be in the center
Speaker 1: of the peep. Then I really focus on relaxing everything
Speaker 1: and and most people don't, but it's just so important
Speaker 1: that you think. If you think about relaxing your face
Speaker 1: and relaxing your hands, the rest of your body will
Speaker 1: follow suit. And again, what you're trying to do is
Speaker 1: you're trying to relax all the muscles that aren't used
Speaker 1: in the shop process. And I try to maintain and
Speaker 1: I again, this term really kind of bothers me. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's called back tension, but but it's not really tension.
Speaker 1: You don't want a lot of tension. But but the muscles.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be holding the bow back with
Speaker 1: the muscles of my arm. I want to be holding
Speaker 1: the bow back with the muscles that are closest to
Speaker 1: my spine, like the rhomboids and all the terries, miners,
Speaker 1: all the all the tiny muscles they're back there along
Speaker 1: your spine there they they they're much more stable than
Speaker 1: say the muscles of your arm. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: hold my bow back with my back instead of with
Speaker 1: my arm, and it will be much more stable. And
Speaker 1: if I need to move the bow to the left
Speaker 1: or to the right, or up and down, I don't
Speaker 1: move my hand my my bow hand. I do it
Speaker 1: with my back muscles. Like I'm right handed, so I
Speaker 1: do it with the bustles of the right hand muscles
Speaker 1: of my back. I move left, right, up, down, so
Speaker 1: that my form is always perfect in the linement. I
Speaker 1: don't move my bow hand to to put the pin
Speaker 1: on the target. Then I just focus on relaxation, aiming, squeezing,
Speaker 1: and surprise release, and then follow through and follow through.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will I think they have really
Speaker 1: good follow through when they shoot their bow and their
Speaker 1: boat doesn't even move. Now that means that they've incorporated muscles.
Speaker 1: Exactly at the moment of the shot, They've activated muscles,
Speaker 1: and you definitely don't want do that. You Naturally, a
Speaker 1: big part of what is holding the boat up is
Speaker 1: you holding the boat back at full draw. So naturally,
Speaker 1: when you shoot, the boat is gonna fall away. If
Speaker 1: the boat doesn't fall away and it stays in position,
Speaker 1: you're not following through properly. It looks like a good
Speaker 1: ball through, but it's not. The bowl has to fall
Speaker 1: away or you're incorporating muscles during the shot that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't incorporate, so follow through is important as well. That's uh,
Speaker 1: that's I guess. The next question then is what does
Speaker 1: that look or how does that look different than in
Speaker 1: the field. You mentioned that there are some different parts
Speaker 1: there or something happening in the field. In the field,
Speaker 1: I'm always talking to myself when when I draw back
Speaker 1: in the field that let's say, a big bock I
Speaker 1: I I'm telling myself my form is natural, it's just comes.
Speaker 1: I don't even think about any part of my form um.
Speaker 1: But what I do think about constantly is pick a spot.
Speaker 1: And I know that's like the fundamental first thing everyone
Speaker 1: learns when they're going to be a bow hunters pick
Speaker 1: a spot, pick a spot. But it's so important. I
Speaker 1: tell myself pick the right pen, use the right pen,
Speaker 1: use the right pen, pick a spot, pick a spot. Patience, patience, patients,
Speaker 1: I tell myself patients, because I do not want to
Speaker 1: hurry the shot um. And and that's the biggest thing,
Speaker 1: because the thing that's going to cause you the most
Speaker 1: problems are the most mrs is if you hurry the shot.
Speaker 1: And so I want to make sure I'm using the
Speaker 1: right pen, and I always I always range fine unless
Speaker 1: it's within you know, under thirty yards, but I will,
Speaker 1: I say, pick the right pen and put it in
Speaker 1: the exact right spot. Patients, patients, patients, patients, and and
Speaker 1: that helped me to stick with the shot to the
Speaker 1: very end. And that's the key. Most people miss especially
Speaker 1: you know, at a at a big buck or something
Speaker 1: they're very excited about shooting, they missed because they hurry
Speaker 1: that situation. So my whole goal in in shooting at
Speaker 1: game animal is sticking with the shot, having patients, letting
Speaker 1: it be a surprise release. Yeah. I know you mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that you haven't really had issues the target panic
Speaker 1: at all, But do you ever still get physically excited?
Speaker 1: Like you know, I guess what I'm getting at is
Speaker 1: some people that have issues of buck fever or excitement,
Speaker 1: they talk about controlling your breathing or deep breathing or
Speaker 1: anything like that to try to calm yourself or to
Speaker 1: try to regain control. Is there anything like that you
Speaker 1: ever do or is that even not even of need
Speaker 1: for you? Oh? No, I get extremely excited. Um. What
Speaker 1: I tell myself is and I get the same thing
Speaker 1: like it at really big tournaments, let's say a shoot off.
Speaker 1: I used to try to tell myself, Oh, no, no
Speaker 1: big deal, it's just this is just a just pretend
Speaker 1: like it's in the backyard. What every fiber of your being, No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Knows it's not the backyard. So what I've
Speaker 1: done that really works well for me is I tell myself, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm as nervous as hell, I'm scared shitless. Excuse me
Speaker 1: for that. But basically it's I tell myself, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, when I'm sneaking up on a buck,
Speaker 1: I go, man, i am gonna be a mess when
Speaker 1: I draw back on this bow. But what I tell
Speaker 1: myself is I'm gonna make the very best shot I can.
Speaker 1: In spite of the fact that that that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm excited as can be, and what that does from
Speaker 1: that actually kind of calms me down. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: the very best shot. I'm gonna be shaken. I shake
Speaker 1: a little bit on every day I shoot at almost
Speaker 1: um and I said, yeah, I'm gonna be shaken. But
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna execute the very
Speaker 1: best shot I can. And if you punch the trigger.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. If you get have the surprise release,
Speaker 1: you can do that. Because you're sitting there, you're thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, stay with the shots, stay with the shot. Patients, patients, patients,
Speaker 1: And I'm shaking, but I'm still sticking with the shot.
Speaker 1: I Am not going to punch that trigger and screw
Speaker 1: it up. And seems like something you've mentioned I've heard
Speaker 1: from a lot of other people too. It seems to
Speaker 1: be a pretty consistent. AH factor in being able to
Speaker 1: handle these moments. Is that self talk? Is that that
Speaker 1: mantra or that that voice in your head that's keeping
Speaker 1: you in like you said in the shots, keeping you
Speaker 1: in the moments, keeping you in control. It seems like
Speaker 1: that's not a trivial thing. No, it's well and it's
Speaker 1: it's what's really helped me because you know, I can
Speaker 1: look back thirty years ago when I was first trying
Speaker 1: to shoot big meal there. I would get on one
Speaker 1: a good meal there or something, and and literally from
Speaker 1: the time I hooked my Ronissa until the deer ran away,
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember any of it. And it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: what happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, the
Speaker 1: very first six point bull I ever shot at. I
Speaker 1: missed by two ft at twenty yards um And to
Speaker 1: this day, all I remember is the air. He was
Speaker 1: on top of ridge and I was on top of
Speaker 1: the ridge. All I remember is the arrow sailing way
Speaker 1: down into the canyon and me thinking what in the
Speaker 1: world just happened? And it was just a complete bucked
Speaker 1: fever blank out. And so through the years I gradually said,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and I didn't have any self talk.
Speaker 1: I I just pulled back and shot. Now, in order
Speaker 1: to keep myself present in the moment, I have to
Speaker 1: have this self talk. And my self talk is pick
Speaker 1: a spot, make sure you're the right pen. And if
Speaker 1: you're focusing on the method, on actually the the the process.
Speaker 1: If you're focusing on the end and not so much
Speaker 1: on like the process of you know, making sure your
Speaker 1: anchors right and all that stuff, if you shot enough,
Speaker 1: that should be completely instinctual. The problem people get into
Speaker 1: is the patient's part. They want that arrow gone, and
Speaker 1: they want it gone right now because they're so much
Speaker 1: anticipation and so much stress and anxiety. You just want
Speaker 1: the moment over with. So self talk makes me stay
Speaker 1: in the moment, Okay, Okay, do you know exactly how
Speaker 1: far the dear is? Where are you gonna Okay, let's
Speaker 1: say it's forty five yards, where are you gonna put
Speaker 1: your forty yard pan? Okay, you're gonna aim right there.
Speaker 1: And then once you're a full draw, you're seeing they're
Speaker 1: going patients, patients, patients, you know, am am, aime. And
Speaker 1: then also the narrow is gone, and you know you've
Speaker 1: made a good shot, but you're gonna shake. You're you're
Speaker 1: never shooting at a big buck. If someone tells you, well,
Speaker 1: there's been a few that I've shot at work for
Speaker 1: some reason, I didn't shake a lot. And usually it's
Speaker 1: if they're further distances a fifty or sixty yards, um,
Speaker 1: and I have a lot of time to to get
Speaker 1: everything in order. But um, you know, if it's happening
Speaker 1: fairly quickly and they're fairly close, you're you're gonna shake,
Speaker 1: and and so you have to So, okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be shaken. That's okay. If shaking is gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: If I execute a good shot with good form, yeah,
Speaker 1: I find that encouraging. I find encouraging that you still
Speaker 1: get excited, that you still shake that you still are mortal.
Speaker 1: I think everyone listening should find that encouraging and to
Speaker 1: know that if you can have this process though, and
Speaker 1: if you can execute that surprise release, it's okay to
Speaker 1: be a human. Well. And that's why that's why the
Speaker 1: a couple of severe cases that I've worked with that
Speaker 1: really literally we're thinking about giving up boning. There's a guy,
Speaker 1: very very good hunt hunter that he he didn't actually
Speaker 1: call me. A mutual friend of ours called me and said, hey,
Speaker 1: he's he's gonna just quit BONI. He's gonna start hunting
Speaker 1: with a rifle. And anyway, I talked to him and
Speaker 1: went through the whole um hind release process with him,
Speaker 1: and he completely back to normal. He's he hunts with
Speaker 1: the hinge, which is an ideal, but still he's able
Speaker 1: to execute a good shot. Uh and and and what
Speaker 1: the hinge does again is it makes you. It forces
Speaker 1: you to stay in the moment. It forces you to
Speaker 1: stand a moment and stay with the shot till the
Speaker 1: very end. Which is why index releases are so bad
Speaker 1: is because they allow you just a second year opin
Speaker 1: gets on that dare you you shoot? You haven't thought
Speaker 1: about much of anything. You just want the whole process
Speaker 1: over with, which is fine if you're twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: yards away, but it doesn't work very well, you know
Speaker 1: on a difficult shot. Yeah, Tony, what are you get
Speaker 1: over there? Uh? Two things. I also love listening to
Speaker 1: Randy talk about his mistakes because it makes me feel better. Randy,
Speaker 1: I can listen to you, guys if you ever needed,
Speaker 1: if you ever need me to make you feel better,
Speaker 1: I'll give you some psychotherapy. I'll just tell you about
Speaker 1: almost mistake things I wouldn't dare mention on a pet podcast,
Speaker 1: and you feel so good about yourself that you're just
Speaker 1: your self esteem will be sky high. Yeah. I might
Speaker 1: need that. I might need that after last year. I
Speaker 1: love it. The other thing that I want to bring
Speaker 1: up here, Randy, because you haven't really touched on this,
Speaker 1: but you've talked a lot about rushing the shot, and
Speaker 1: we know, we know the anticipation is huge, and you
Speaker 1: know it's a big part of you know, losing losing
Speaker 1: that ground between your ears when you when you need
Speaker 1: to just keep it together for a little bit. But
Speaker 1: what I'm curious with you is with your like vast
Speaker 1: experience hunting a bunch of different game, and you know
Speaker 1: you killed enormous animals throughout your career. Have you just
Speaker 1: learned you know, like when you're talking about how you
Speaker 1: tell yourself to be patient and you're going through your
Speaker 1: kind of pre shot routine and talking to yourself, you've
Speaker 1: also probably just learned that even when it feels like
Speaker 1: it should be a really rush situation, you almost always
Speaker 1: have more time. Even when you're calling a bull or
Speaker 1: you know it's maybe a running buck that's cruising passed
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. And I think a lot of people look
Speaker 1: at that and go, man, I've only got you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds to make this happen. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the difference between executing a bad shot
Speaker 1: in three seconds or a great shot in ten, you
Speaker 1: probably almost always have that tent. Well you just you
Speaker 1: just said it all for me really, Um, it's a
Speaker 1: numbers game. And what I found is if if I
Speaker 1: rushed them first of all, well I've learned this because Okay,
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, you know, if there was a decent
Speaker 1: bowl or a decent buck, I was just gonna shoot it. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now I spend so much time finding that one animal
Speaker 1: that that if he gets away it's no big deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big deal. But if he gets
Speaker 1: away and I don't shoot, I'll get on him tomorrow
Speaker 1: or the next day or the next day. And back then,
Speaker 1: I didn't have as much time as I do now,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of needed to get things done
Speaker 1: because I was I was working full time as an
Speaker 1: editor and had kids and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: um and needed to get back. But now I have
Speaker 1: more time, and that's that's the luxury a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't have. But now I've I've discovered that I
Speaker 1: am much better off waiting for a good shot and
Speaker 1: a relaxed shot, and if the animal gets away, then fine.
Speaker 1: And I've had this happened many times. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: and people that may be watching from a distance with
Speaker 1: binoculars going, why in the hell didn't you sue because
Speaker 1: it wasn't perfect and and and again it's because I'm
Speaker 1: hunting one animal. But it's true, and you said it
Speaker 1: really well, it's very true that that. Okay, let's take
Speaker 1: a hundred situations where you think you have to shoot
Speaker 1: within four or five seconds. Now, out of that hundreds,
Speaker 1: hundreds hundred situations, you know you're going to miss that
Speaker 1: shot or wound the animal maybe thirty times because you
Speaker 1: brush your shot. Now, say out of those hundred times
Speaker 1: you go, Okay, I'm gonna wait for a better shot,
Speaker 1: I would say seventy of the time, you're at least
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the time you're going to get a
Speaker 1: better shot and a more relaxed shot, and and even
Speaker 1: and the key is is even if you don't shoot,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna get another opportunity at the animal. But
Speaker 1: if you wound him, or with these really older age
Speaker 1: class animals, if you shoot at him and miss, you're
Speaker 1: pretty much done for a long time. So the numbers
Speaker 1: are with you in being. And you're also a more
Speaker 1: ethical bow hunter, which is really important to me, especially
Speaker 1: as a veterinarian. You know, I don't mind harvesting an animal,
Speaker 1: but I don't ever want to wound an animal. I
Speaker 1: do everything in my power not to wound an animal.
Speaker 1: It's just not fair. So if you keep ethical considerations
Speaker 1: in mind, and and actually just the it's a numbers game,
Speaker 1: just a numbers game, you're much better off waiting for
Speaker 1: a better shot. You almost always are. I can't argue
Speaker 1: with that. I think, Randy, this has been phenomenal. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is everything I could have hoped for
Speaker 1: for an opening conversation in this series. Um, and I
Speaker 1: have I have like a physical uh just like charge
Speaker 1: right now to get out and shoot my bow. And
Speaker 1: as we've been talking, I'm just like thinking about how
Speaker 1: great it's going to be in September on that first hunt,
Speaker 1: having this perfect in control shot and making that come
Speaker 1: to fruition. That's the kind of thing I'm imagining are today.
Speaker 1: It's got me want to go grab my bow right
Speaker 1: now and and just make it happen. So thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for this. Randy Bay, I'm gonna leave you
Speaker 1: with one word, and that's discipline. You have to have
Speaker 1: discipline to get better. So true, is there anything that
Speaker 1: you will want? Do you want to leave folks with
Speaker 1: any called action? Is there anywhere you want them to
Speaker 1: go to to to read some of your stuff for
Speaker 1: to see any of your past content or any future
Speaker 1: projects or anything folks you know about? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, uh no, if they there's certainly I
Speaker 1: mean in in I have a calm and every issue
Speaker 1: of bo Hunter and Peterson's Bow Hunting. Uh, then I
Speaker 1: just write about shooting and life experiences. But no, there's
Speaker 1: no call to action. Really really, if you want to
Speaker 1: get better, to have discipline, there's so many more resources
Speaker 1: now than there were twenty years ago. Uh, you just
Speaker 1: have to be a little careful because they're they're they're
Speaker 1: Most of the content online is really good, but there's
Speaker 1: some of it that's that's a little whacked. So you
Speaker 1: have to be a little careful. Yeah, like that Tony
Speaker 1: Peterson stuff. Well, you know, he's you can't expect much
Speaker 1: out of him, keep expectations. They didn't name they did
Speaker 1: name the magazine after him. I mean there must be something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they fired. And on that note, the perfect
Speaker 1: way to end all podcasts by Rasing Tony, We're gonna
Speaker 1: we're wrap this. Thanks so much for having me. It
Speaker 1: was fun. Thanks Rand, absolute blast. Thanks Randy all right,
Speaker 1: and that is a rap. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.
Speaker 1: Best of luck to all of you out there on
Speaker 1: the range, because I'm sure you've got your bow in
Speaker 1: hand here soon and you'll be out there for lions marrows.
Speaker 1: I've been doing the same thing. This is good stuff
Speaker 1: and there's more to come this month, so get ready.
Speaker 1: Shooting Month continue soon. Thanks for listening, and until next time,
Speaker 1: stay wired Ton