HH bug got me ... Part One!

[Brianlocal3]

 

Shooting my new Union Jack at 25 yards. I get a little bored shooting at a target so I like to add things to it. It helps me focus, so I tend to add a tenis ball swinging from an arrow, or balloons or in this case an empty can.  I shot one round at the can and decided to hang it up for the night. This was 3Under. anything past 30ish yards goes to split.

[Brianlocal3]

The hole on the far left was from a 10 yard shot. Only two of my arrows stuck in it at 25 one missed low by about 1/8th. I like to end on the good round, because going to bed after a shot gun pattern doesnt work for me.

[Ric O'Shay]

Good Shooting Brian! Looks like you are getting to know Jack pretty well.
     
Danny

[Rik]

Three-fingers-under shooting is great, as long as you are placing the arrow in the exact same place split-finger shooters are placing it.

If you start raising it up near the eye, as Nate said, you start gun barreling, and that's not a good direction to go. At least for hunters.

There is one problem with shooting three-fingers under like I do, and that is that at 50 or 60 yards, my bow hand is covering the target.

Howard Hill would have drilled a bear at that distance faster than you can blink an eye, but being a three-under guy, I just have to sneak about 10 to 20 yards closer.

I can say that every single guy that has put me in my place on the shooting range has shot split finger, and one of them even does so shooting those goofy rubber finger protectors that go on the string.

So. . . the moral of this story is that it's not the "style" that you shoot that makes you accurate, it's "you" that makes you accurate.

Style is just a word. Accuracy is the result of practice—and lots of it!

It's just a pity that practice with a Hill bow is sooooooo much fun!

[Nate Steen .]

Lambow...I remember Mr. Bobby well.  I miss talking to him.  Somewhere back in these Hill pages or on the slideshow is a photo of Bobby and Floyd Oakes with a deer that Bobby shot over 100 yards away...in Colorado it was....I wonder how far under his arm he aimed to pull it off since he shot three under?

[Brianlocal3]

3u does have its drawbacks for sure, as was already stated. But that's why I switch up, I do prefer the way the bow feels with split, I just shoot better 3u. And I do split-vision aiming , and it does help close up my gaps.

[Nate Steen .]

Just a rhetorical question for the split vision / gap shooters who shoot split and three under........

If you are seeing your gaps, does it really matter how much the gap is?  Three inches below or ten inches below or eight inches above...your brain is still able to calculate and remember the gap for any distance....I would think that in the pressure situations faced in hunting the need would be for simplicity of shooting style without having to try to remember which way to hold the string just so the gaps remain small

[Pat B.]

I've shot 3 under since the late 70's. I did shoot split for a number of years prior to that.

For me, three under proved to be a more comfortable way to shoot as well as more accurate. I realize that many if not most shoot split and do it very well.

I do see the gaps but focus on the exact spot I want to hit much as a split finger shooter would.

I hunt in an area where good bucks are few and far between and in my earlier years I hunted for them exclusively. My goal was to ABSOLUTELY know that I could kill a buck when given the opportunity. I thought that my shooting style allowed me to do just that..

I suppose split or three under works equally well for different folks, it's just what you get used to and have faith in..

[Brianlocal3]

Nate,
Let me clarify that I am still new to stick bows but did shoot barebow compounds much the same way. I do not know my actuall gaps in terms of inches or feet, I just know whereabouts the arrow should be. I NEVER focus on my arrow. It's always just there. I refer to it as "gapstinctive "  so I don't use yardages as markers, it relies on sight picture , but I do know where my arrow is in relation to my intended impact point.

[C.Cannon]

Originally posted by Brianlocal3:
Nate,
Let me clarify that I am still new to stick bows but did shoot barebow compounds much the same way. I do not know my actuall gaps in terms of inches or feet, I just know whereabouts the arrow should be. I NEVER focus on my arrow. It's always just there. I refer to it as "gapstinctive "  so I don't use yardages as markers, it relies on sight picture , but I do know where my arrow is in relation to my intended impact point.

I shoot almost exactly like that, kind of a throw back to when I shot BB guns.

I have a hard time with trusting instinctive, kind of reminds me of self help gurus "If you believe it,  envision it, and focus enough on your goal; you will hit your target"... or maybe my instincts are just faulty    

[canopyboy]

Originally posted by Brianlocal3:
I do not know my actuall gaps in terms of inches or feet, I just know whereabouts the arrow should be. I NEVER focus on my arrow. It's always just there. I refer to it as "gapstinctive "  so I don't use yardages as markers, it relies on sight picture , but I do know where my arrow is in relation to my intended impact point.

That's the closest description I've see for what works for me.  I never have any idea of the yardage in numbers.  But for about "that" distance, I swing my up my bow and sight picture including where my arrow is to the intended point of impact.

[Brazos]

My first HH memory.  When I was a kid, turn 41 on Sunday, all the kids and dads started shooting bows.  This was the early eighties.  We shot compounds "traditional style" as in just a bow and arrow nothing else.  One night some neighborhood kids, my dad, and I were watching some movie on NBC, CBS, or ABC (only stations we had) and the movie ended about 15 minutes early.  To fill the time before the next program came on out of the blue they show a HH short film.  It was the one where HH challenged some guy with guns to see who was the better/faster shot.  The looser got an apple shot off his head.  I have never seen that film again but still remember it with quite a bit of detail.  We all sat there in amazement.  Who is HH? Why had I not heard of this guy?  Well that film hung around in the back of my mind all these years. About 12 years ago I decided I wanted to try traditional totally because of that film and I bought a Wesley Special from HHA.  I just wanted to share that, especially you guys with little kids.  You might be able to plant a seed on some kid who becomes the next HH.  I wish he was still around today.  It would be interesting to hear him chime in on what our interpretations of the "Hill Style" is.

[Nate Steen .]

I didn't bring up the three under/split finger & gap shooting/instinctive for any type of debate which we all know can get pretty inflamed...that's a topic for the shooter's forum for sure....

This is just food for thought as to how it pertains to shooting Semi-Longbows to get us to think about why we do certain things....My opinion is that because of the popularity of 3d or target shooting the last 40 years, and the fact that the majority of traditional shooters are shooting in somewhat confined areas, much emphasis has been placed on grouping arrows into targets.  We feel pressure if we do not or are not able to group arrows at reasonable ranges, so we limit our shooting distances and/or we begin using a referrance point (like the arrow or tip) to help us aim...in order to group arrows.  This is all done to get quick success or immediate satisfaction in our accuracy requirements.  Gone are the days when the majority of archers/bowhunters shot completely by "feel" or "instinctive".  Why?

"instinctive" shooting (term used for not using a referrence point in aiming) requires time to master, or to be sufficiently proficient for hunting.  As a society today, we do not want to wait to be proficient. We want accuracy now.  Back in the day, archery was a pastime for life and archers took a more laid back approach and learned over years to be a good shot.  I bring this up because we all, all of us shooters, are capable of shooting very accurately by not seeing any referrence point for aiming.  We practice this very method every day without realizing it.  Every day we get into our vehicles and 'aim' them on the road without looking down or consciously 'seeing' the dash/steering wheel/hood.  How do we aim them? by seeing the vehicle in our subconscious vision in relation to our surroundings and the brain adjusts and tells our hands how to operate the steering wheel.  The only time we see the dash is if we make a conscious effort to look at it.  This 'aiming' would be more difficult if we sat on the hood without any reference points for our instinctive vision to see subconsciously.

That is a good way to explain instinctive shooting.  We do not need any conscious effort of looking at an arrow point at any part of the shooting in order to be accurate.  Our brains, subconscious aiming, hand-eye coordination and feel will take care of the aiming.  We just have to get ourselves out of the way.  We won't be a good shot when we start.  that's part of the learning process.  Just like we got nervous when we were 16, learning to drive a car and having to thread the car (aim) between semitrucks on the highway at 65 mph.  but we learned, and now we drive without conscious thought.  Why do we make instinctive shooting any more difficult on ourselves?

Shooting a longbow like the old masters....Pope, Young, Hill, Stevenson, Schulz, and a host of others, means a gradual shift to instinctive shooting by repetition.  Relying on not seeing the arrow during the shot.  This way of shooting completely frees up the shooter to be able to shoot moving targets, quick or hurried shot situations, low light conditions (not meaning at dark) or basically being able to shoot in whatever shot situation happens in the woods....instead of the modern method of 'setting up' the shot situation so that there is 'our control' of the shot, so we feel we will be accurate.  We don't 'set up' our driving/aiming of a car situations, we just react and aim and drive according to the scenario in front of us.  Learning to shoot the same way will free us up and lessen the pressure we feel to be accurate.  We will be accurate because the body knows we want to be and it will adjust our aiming to put the arrow in the target.  We might not be able to stack/group arrows in tight bunches, but we will be able to hit the kill zone on a crisp morning hunt, with the breeze blowing, the deer moving, our breathing heavy, and 3 seconds to pull it all together.

after all,  isn't that what the longbow has been about for all these centuries?  

[toddster]

Well stated Nate, totally agree

[jsweka]

I agree too Nate.
Our preferred method of shooting probably won't win the IBO longbow championship, but if I wanted to hold and aim, I'd go back to my compound.

[Brianlocal3]

I am not a target archer by any stretch of the imagination. And I also practice out to 45 or so regularly. But my most useful practice session are from shooting rolling size 1 soccer balls, and a personal favorite is laying baloons in the yard blown up to about the size of rabbits. I then let the wind blow them around and shoot them on the move. There is not picking your spot and holding steady. It's pure fun and had helped my range scores tremendously z

[Lambow]

Originally posted by sunset hill:
Lambow...I remember Mr. Bobby well.  I miss talking to him.  Somewhere back in these Hill pages or on the slideshow is a photo of Bobby and Floyd Oakes with a deer that Bobby shot over 100 yards away...in Colorado it was....I wonder how far under his arm he aimed to pull it off since he shot three under?

Nate... would of never guessed that you knew Bobby Lofton.
 I remember Floyd Oaks also. Wonder if he's still alive.
I'll bet Bobby anchored at his neck or shoulder if he used his usual 3 under to make that shot on the deer at 100 yds.

That was a very good description of instinctive aiming/shooting.

[swampthing]

A slower bow will be easier to shoot.
  Put a 575g-600g'ish arrow on a f/f equipped, backset, 50# glass bow, and send a few 40 yarders out there. Pretty much "point on" with a 28-29" draw, and no big "gaps" anywhere inside that range.
   What's the problem?    

[Charlie Lamb]

Well, Nate and Rik's bear hunting adventures finally got me off my duff and into the woods. I loaded up "Stubby" and my Hill style shoulder quiver and went over to look at deer sign in the river bottoms.
It was likely I'd at least see a squirrel so I got my mind right for that possibility.

I had to cross a long stretch of corn field before I got to my stand from last year and I shot odd marks along the way.
How I lost that Judo arrow is beyond me. I was sure it skipped into the corn, but try as I might I couldn't find it anywhere in the corn which is only about a foot high at this point. The ground under the corn is extremely clean.

I've lost enough of Cliff Zwickey's spring armed phenoms, touted as "the unloseable Judo" that I think they owe me a refund.

Anyway I spotted a young fox squirrel busy feasting on Mulberry fruit and was able to get within twenty yards before getting busted.

With nothing to lose I swung the bow up, touched anchor and let the arrow slip in one motion. The arrow hit him in the shoulder, knocked him spinning off the limb while the arrow itself fell to the ground.

The young fox squirrel caught himself about halfway down and I suspected a lost critter. But just a few seconds went by and his limp form dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

I had to search in the tall grasses and brush for both him and the arrow.
   
   

Also found a great tree for a stand and sign to justify putting it there.

[Widow's Son]

My favorite practice is bouncing empty soda cans and water bottles around the yard with blunts and judos. Kinda like plinking with a 22 rifle. It really helps build up my confidence.

Ross