Right Handed bow left handed

[Davo]

This is my first post and my reintroduction to traditional shooting after 25 years of wheels and cables (which I still shoot)  I have a question hope someone can address.  My dad has a bad eye so he switched to left hand shooting but his bear kodiak is a right handed.  He wondered and so did I can a person shoot a r handed bow with their left hand or does he need to get a new bow.   Incidentally this sight is awesome I look forward to picking brains and dreaming of one day building my own bow.  Have taken dozens of average deer with my compound but I am hoping for a late season hunt with my recurve.  It is only an old bear grizzly 45# but I think it will work just fine.  Feedback always welcome.

[BRITTMAN]

He should get a left handed bow if his right eye is very bad but saying that I was shot in the  right eye with a bb gun when I was 10 and had to have several surgerys over the years . I still shoot right hand but over the years my brain has some how worked it out for me . I dont have a dominate eye and I only see a mid- range through my right eye so my left eye picks up close up and distance shots . I have to shoot alot to stay on my game so if I had it to do over I would have learned to shoot left handed . On a side note Dan Fitzgerald is blind in his right eye but shoots a right handed bow instintively , I have a video where he shoots his bow right handed then switches to left handed with the same right hand bow to make a shot but he had his eye injury when he was very young also.

Mike Britt

[NDTerminator]

If he's left eye dominant or, if I understand correctly, is forced to use his left eye as his dominant and shoot left handed, get a left hand bow.  Period, full stop...

I'm left handed and when I was starting archery in my single digit years (in the 60's), I was given a RH bow by an uncle who knew absolutely nothing about archery.  Back in those days, they just tried to make LH kids right handed.

So I shot cross handed (RH bow shot LH) for years, and it was nothing but frustration.  When I finally learned bows were made LH and got one, it was like a miracle...

[Bjorn]

A friend of mine lost sight in his right eye and shoots right handed extremely well. 'Dominant eye' means nothing in trad archery-just ask Glenn St. Charles.

[Danny Rowan]

Well said Bjorn. That quote is in my signature. Only time it matters is if you are trying to use a gap or other aiming method. With instinctive it does not matter. If your dad has always shot right handed he should be able to continue, but if he wants to switch that is up to him.

Danny

[vermonster13]

Instinctive relies real heavily on depth perception. Hard to shoot instinctive if your brain doesn't know how far away the target is. St. Charles was speaking of being right handed/left eye dominant but both eyes working well I believe. Just a thought.

[Danny Rowan]

Actually the reason to keep both eyes open is so that you always use your dominant eye. Glenn switched to shooting lefty in the 50s to cure tp,he is right handed and right eye dom.Yes, some people have trouble determining depth with only one eye open, however people who have only one eye seem to determing depth pretty well. Ask my brother, he has been legally blind in his left eye since birth, but can determine depth very well.

Now after rereading you original post. No it is very hard to shoot a right handed bow left handed. If he wants to do that then he should get a left handed bow, but if he is right handed then he could shoot that bow just fine. Right handed bow to shoot right handed and left handed bow to shoot left handed.

Danny

[bayoulongbowman]

Im left eye domiant and can shoot both , here is the rub , when I shoot right handed Im pure instintive ...but when I shoot lefty I do combination of aimming , indirect aimming and instinctive, its AWESOME!!!! with traditonal you have to practice more , I use to shoot compounds and I sell all kinds of bows where I work , find the one you like and go for it!! good luck...Marco  

[Naphtali]

Many thumbring shooters use left-handed bows with right-handed thumbring release, and vice versa. A hidden benefit to using thumbring is your father would increase his draw length by 1-2 inches when compared with finger release with identical anchor points. (The method of obtaining the anchor point would probably change because drawing hand's orientation to face changes.)

Just a thought.

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

If your dad can learn to shoot with a thumb-ring, he could keep his bow and shoot left handed.  The thumb ring spins the bow sting the opposite direction during use and keeps the arrow on the shelf.  All of the horsebow shooters (Mongols, Huns) shoot this way.

Try

 http://www.horsebows.com/accessories.htm

they have both the thumb rings and a book about how to use them.

Lobo in West Virginia