Missing

[Big Dave]

I agree with most everything said but if you are picking a spot and if you are shooting over all of them ,then aim like your trying to shoot under them.It works for me most of the time.

[LV2HUNT]

As many others have said you are shooting at the whole deer. You are probably attempting to monitor the reaction of the deer as you you draw, do not bother. If the deer catches you drawing you will know it. If it it does not then you will already be completely focused on your spot.

Just as you do in your practice, pick your spot and make your draw without looking at anything else. Once you hit your anchor release the arrow. Do not lift your head to watch the arrow as it will appear in the spot that you are already focused on.

[Patience]

My 2 cents,
You might be more concerned with making a bad shot which will cause you to make a bad shot. If you do all you can to ensure a clean kill and are confident that you can make a shot, that will provide you with some solice if you make a wounding shot. Not to say you will not feel bad, but think, anything can and usually does happen.

[Juniper Bow]

Okay, thanks for all the input.

I think that not picking a spot is probebly a very valid idea and I will focuse on this. I have heard it a thousand times, but I guess it can be kind of hard in action at times.

I am not shooting from an elevated stand, but the terrain does have alot of up and down which may affect the shot.

Like I said, the help is really appreciated. Probebly needed a little confidence boost more than anything else. Juniper Bow

[Juniper Bow]

P.S. The broadhead/arrow/bow setup has been tuned and shoots exactly where I want on a target.

[chrisg]

In moments of tension we unconsciously raise our head to see better, thus we align the tip of the arrow and shoot high. Keep your head down, in a war you stay alive longer that way, you also shoot better.

You don't need to 'shoot at' every animal, try sitting and watching a few come in, imagine shooting them dead by picking a spot and going through the shot process in your mind, it's a lot different than looking at pictures or a target, the animal is moving and alert. Don't raise your bow but do the mind thing a few times to develop what Ferret was talking about, a controlled, deliberate tension, then your shot will be totally focussed on the spot and really intended to kill the animal.It is a different thing to targets, you do actually want to kill it for real.
Keep going you can do it!
chrisg

[Longbowz]

Pick a spot and f o l l o w  t h r u !

Good luck and have fun!

[Shakes.602]

ALL  Excellent Advice, and You Couldnt Ask for  ANY  Better People to Ask for Info either!!         That is one of my Personal Hang-Ups, "The Killing Part".
  I would be too busy Admiring the Critter to Kill it! You'll have that I guess. :rolleyes:  
    DONT EVER GIVE UP!!  Especially if its Something You Seem to be Very Passionate about!!      

[Papa Bull]

Are your misses all over the place?  In other words, are you missing left and right - or up and down.....    or randomly?

If your misses are random and right, left, up, down... all over the place then concentration is the  likely culprit if you can otherwise hit a tennis ball sized target regularly at your practice bale.

If the shots are right or left, are you hitting your armguard, plucking the string, etc.?

If the shots are consistenly low, are you dropping your arm as you shoot to "peek" at the arrow?

If the shots are consistently high, have you been releasing before you hit full draw and before you fully come down on the target?

If your misses are both high AND low, or even mostly low or mostly high, I have to ask how heavy your arrows are and what weight bow you are drawing.  The "heavy arrow obsession" we've seen over recent years has caused people who can shoot very precisely in their backyard to have mysterious high and low misses at unmarked range targets.  If you shoot very heavy arrows (more than 9 grains per pound, in my opinion) and aren't particularly good at judging yardage, you can expect high and low misses.  Shooting some 3D targets set up by someone else in a woodland setting will tell you how well you do in those sitautions.

Missing 9 straight deer completely, worrying about the first hit being a bad hit is a very legitimate concern, so I don't recommend going back out and doing what you've been doing because we know what to expect from that.

So, I would recommend analyzing the situation and trying to find out what you're doing wrong and fixing it.  One way to fix it is to correct the shooting problem causing you the misses and the other way to fix it is, as mentioned by someone earlier, to reconsider your effective hunting range because if you cleanly missed 9 in a row, you are definitely outside your EFFECTIVE range, by it's very definition.

I'll steer clear of the ethical considerations because it's your hunt and YOUR ethical considerations that matter in regard to this, not mine.

[Straitshot]

One other thing you might consider. While concentrating on the spot you want to hit do not let yourself become so concerned with how the deer is going to react that you allow your focus to move from the spot you want to hit to their eyes. I have caught myself doing this at times and I must make myself re-focus. Don't look at their eyes. Just look at the spot you want to hit, keep your head down, and release. If your are busted during the draw just continue and stay focused. Don't allow your vision to move to their eyes.

Louis

[Sharpster]

Juniper Bow,
I have one question that should help to nail down exactly what is happening.

When you shoot at a deer and miss, do you see the arrow in flight?

-Sharps

[Bonebuster]

If I don`t pick a spot, my arrow will sail harmlessly over their back.

Its been said before. You must train yourself to shoot to kill. You are not trying to hit a deer.
You are trying to hit a spot on a deer.

Your heart SHOULD be pounding. You SHOULD be melting down. Now all you need to do is learn to shoot while you are at system overload.  

[Allan Hundeby]

Alot of great tips here!  On Monday I cleanly missed a WT buck that I had stalked from a 1/2  mile away in open stubble.  I was SO relieved when I knew the shot went wide; I would FAR rather miss cleanly than track a wounded deer!  (I didn't pick a spot.)

BTW, ho wmuch stump-shooting do you do?  That helps me the most.

[Juniper Bow]

Papa Bull, most misses have been high and low (I can think of one exception off the top of my head). I am shooting about 9.3 grains per lb. out of my [email protected]. hickory long bow. It does have a pretty slow cast (no access to a chrono just comparing to some other long bows I have seen/shot).

Sharpster, I can recall seeing the arrow in flight for a few shots, but usually I was looking at the deer and didn't really see the arrow.

Allan Hundeby, I do shoot stumps quite a bit and hunt small game. During the hunt I will occasionally pull out a stumping/small game arrow and shoot for a while.

Based on some advice given earlier I passed on a few shots yesterday, just watched (which is neat too). I am going to revise my "effective" range from 20 yards to more like 10-15 in case that is the problem and will see if I can go out for a little more stumping (the closest I can get to shooting deer without shooting deer) to help nail down the problem.

There is only one weekend of bow season left here in MT, but there are also some late season bow hunts. Thanks for all the input, Juniper Bow

[BMN]

I like to practice picking a spot. I'll let my dog out in the back yard to do her business and just watch her. Imagine she's a deer. Watch her body angle. When would you take the shot. Pick a hair behind the front shoulder. Wait for the front leg to step forward. Now. It really helps to mentally go through the process. The dog looks at me kind of funny when I let her back in.    I think I've mentally killed that dog a hundred times in the last couple of months.   :D  

Bill

[Sharpster]

"Sharpster, I can recall seeing the arrow in flight for a few shots, but usually I was looking at the deer and didn't really see the arrow".


There it is in a nutshell. If your not seeing the arrow in flight it means that your bow was not pointed where you were looking.

When you are target shooting or stumping, the small target size naturally forces you to "aim small". A deer is a much larger target than you are used to shooting at so when you shoot at a deer YOU have to force yourself to "aim small".
Forget about shooting at the deer and shoot at a small specific spot on that deer.

You'll get it. If you can shoot tennis balls, there's no reason you can't hit a deer's lungs.

-Sharps

[amicus]

I wish I could hit tennis balls at 20 yrds. Next time you see a deer imagine a tennis ball on his shoulder or close to the shoulder and then see what happens. m2c. Gilbert