any tips

[beaver#1]

ive been using traditional bow for about 7 months.  yesterday i put 5 arrows inside about a snuff can at 12 yards.  but at 20 yards i cant seem to pull it together.  should i just back up one yard at a time? are there any oter methods yall could share?

[Diamond Paul]

All I can say is, be patient.  Go to the shooter's forum and check out some tips on shooting form; video your form and post it, and you will get some feedback that will help you shoot better.  From the sound of things, you are shooting instinctively; the farther back you go, the harder it becomes to focus on a very small spot, which is necessary in order to shoot well with this method.  Try shooting at a bag target spray-painted flat black, and stick a very small orange (or whatever color you see well) dot in the center of it, so that there is no other aiming point to distract your concentration.  You will probably begin to group better.  However, don't expect to shoot nock-breaking groups at 20yds and beyond.  As long as you can put that first shot in a 6" circle, you'll be deadly on game.  Good luck, Paul.

[buckeye_hunter]

I've always been told if you want to be good at 20yds, shoot at 40.

This will GREATLY magnify ANY errors and force you to concentrate harder or better tune arrows.

It will also make the 20yd shot feel like a chip shot.

JMO,
Charlie

[BobW]

Originally posted by beaver#1:
 yesterday i put 5 arrows inside about a snuff can at 12 yards.  

how many times in a row can you do this?

patience....(and practice).  You have to teach the brain by experience.  Work your way there.  Go to 15 yards and build your experience/confidence there.  If you can, try to get out stumping/roving.  Vary distances, and make the first shot count.

Most of all, have fun!

[TimZeigler]

Go from 12 yards, to 13 yards, to 15 yards, to 17 yards.  Don't move straight to 20, its more mind over matter and tricking your mind into becoming familiar and confident with the distance. Tim

[Can Hahaka]

I agree with Tim - my routine is start at 10 and work out to 20 yards. I find that it is harder for me to focus on the "spot" from further away so I make a target that has a background that blends in with the straw butt. That way I can only see the "spot".

[scriv]

I would like to re-iterate what Buckeye said.  Try going back beyond your desired distance a bit and then return to the troublesome distance.  I have found this helpful.  When I have a bad shot I can usually close my eyes and replay the shot in my mind and "see" what went wrong.  More difficult to do this at short range for me.  Good luck, and hang in there.  

[Leon.R]

I agree with the mind over matter thing, if I shoot and pace off the distance I battle but if I just stand and shoot without thinking about the distance I do a lot better.
Sometimes just half a yard will make me shoot differently.
I think its a leftover from my compound days.

[mike g]

I'm with Tim....
I do the draw back thing, shoot at 10 yds and then move back a little and shoot again, repeat untill your out to about 40....

[2-BIG]

I have always had the same problem when I target shoot and I think it is because I shoot instinctively. I firmly believe and also do my best practice shooting while doing a form of stump shooting. I do not ever worry about knowing the actual yardage to the target. I roll a ball around the yard and shoot from 5-50 yards and I am suprisingly accurate. Shoot at moving targets also will help you.
I recently shot at a 3-D course, actually they were awesome hand painted 2-D tagets. I hadn't shot bow in a while and I did pretty bad the first half of the course. Then I began to bare down and really concentrate on a tiny spot and stopped worrying about how far away the target was and my shooting really picked up.
The next day I went out hunting woodchucks and made a great shot one one at 20 yards. If you practice as I described above it really pays off in real hunting situations!  

[beaver#1]

thanks alot guys,  i did go stumpin today and i did realize the less i consentrate on the distance the better i shoot.  first shot was about 25 yards on a stuf and hit within inches of what i was aiming at.