Fred Bear Showed Me How

[TonyW]

Last weekend I found out another reason why trad/instinctive practice works. I was shooting in a pitch dark range, above and below a few dozen moving lighted targets. All of the targets were within 25 yards.

I focused on a spot on each target as usual. I held my weapon in my left hand as usual. I swung and shot as usual. My right hand, however, only had to draw back about half way to my anchor.

I was holding a lazer tag rifle at Shadowlands, in the middle of a melee of teenagers at my son's birthday party.

When the session ended, this old geezer had cleaned house. I was an easy target, stationary most of the time, but most of the other shooters were trying to line up sights and I just swung and released.

Then I realized that my old habit of swinging up my left hand at the target without using any reference to arrow tip or anything else on the riser really pays off in the dark.

[wadde]

I did the same thing on the trap range with some co-workers who shot on a regular basis. I pulled my old Ithaca 37 out of storage and met them at the range. They thought 12 or 13 out of 25 was good. I did 23 and 22 out of 25 and they were blown away. I attribute my success to my instinctive archery shooting and everything just fell right into place. They still talk about it to this day.