taking the sights off in NZ

[daddymonster]

I have myself a cheap recurve that I have been doing regular target shooting with. We had some visitors to our club using longbows and I thought 'what the heck' and tried taking the sights off and shooting. Much to my surprise I didn't lose any arrows although my groupings were umm..a little erratic at first. I ended up even scaring the gold occassionally. What no-one told me was how much fun it would be. I am still concerned about being accurate enough for hunting. I guess I just need to start firing arrows downrange until I start getting a few decent-ish groupings. Any tips for me to avoid wasting time would be appreciated.

[2bird]

Learn the gap method... The biggest waste of time to avoid would be trying to shoot "instinctive" very few top shooters  shoot "instinctive" almost all shoot gap, some stringwalking but that's not great for hunting...  Most people to shoot "instinctive" accurately are really subconsciously shooting gap...

[wooddamon1]

Shoot, have fun and enjoy the journey. Welcome to TG!

[smoke1953]

Boy oh boy don't let 2bird's comments move you away from the most effective hunting method. If you are worrying about gaps while shooting at game you'll be removing one of the most enjoyable aspects of hunting with the longbow.

[Pine]

I agree with smoke . Just keep your form consistent and let your subconscious do the rest . Also shoot at varying distances like a few feet out to where ever you are comfortable .
Keep it simple and keep it fun .

[dbd870]

I'm with the last 2 guys above me.

[McDave]

I think the best way to avoid wasting time is to perfect your form before you start worrying about aiming. If your form is good, you should be able to consistently group your arrows somewhere on the target, even if not in the bulls eye.

The best way to perfect your form is to have someone who knows good form observe you shoot, and suggest corrections that might not occur to you on your own. I don't know how possible that is in NZ, but you can always post videos here and Arne or someone can help you.

[2bird]

Lol most effective hunting method? Your joking right... It's a known fact that hunting accuracy and range accuracy are 2 totally different things, so if most "instinctive" shooters struggle to keep a 8 average or better on a 3D course what do you think happens when your heart is pounding in a tree stand???? And as far as gap being complicated I'm not sure what to say to that.... My point on is 22 yards and I'm 6" high at 10 yards so anything 22 yards or in I just point my point on the heart and I will be dragging a deer to the truck, what's complicated about that??? I wasted 3 years when I first started shooting instinctive and at the end of those 3 years I was at best marginal... I don't know about you but I didn't ENJOY any part of missing and wounding deer and I didn't ENJOY the endless frustrations at the range... Maybe some people can truly shoot instinctive well but I bet it's in the range of 1 out of 1,000 and since he is coming from the sight world I'm pretty sure he won't ever be happy just randomly throwing arrows don't range... With that said, McDave is right if your form isn't good you should master that before you worry about aiming because if you don't it really won't matter anyway...

[daddymonster]

wow, there's a lot of emotion over 'gap'shooting. Although I understand the principle I think I will struggle finding anyone to teach me in NZ. I did target shooting first to learn good form. Whether I have it or not is open to debate. At this stage all I know is that when I cleared my tiny brain of all the different instructions I got from different people and just relaxed shooting, my groups got better. Of course there is stuff I should and sometimes do think about but when I took the sights off, used the arrow point to aim, and guesstimated it felt like a really natural unforced way of shooting. I was only shooting at 15m but I wasn't as atrocious as I could have been. It seems to me, without causing offence, that 'gap' shooting is an awesome tool for getting you to be a good instinctive shooter. Eventually, I hope I would no longer need to actually gap shoot as all that information is in my brain and I can rely on muscle memory and training. I may be wrong though...it happens.

[2bird]

Yep using the point is gap shooting, and you right after a while gap is so natural you don't think about it at all.

I didn't mean to get all worked up about it but "instinctive" nearly drove me to quit this awesome sport and I'm really glad I stuck it out until I found a better way... I know a lot of people that have tried trad and quit or just poo poo'ed it as ineffective because people screaming that the traditional way is to spray and pray...

[Matt Parker]

I have to agree with 2bird. I switched from compound to traditional 3 years ago after shooting compound all my life. I tried the instinctive approach for over a year and that just didn't work for me. My point on is 20 yards and shelf is on at 28. So I can shoot 0-30 without any thought. That has improved my shooting tremendously. But I agree with Mcdave, your form has to be correct to achieve consistent accuracy.

Matt

[daddymonster]

Cheers for all the good advice. I'll let you know how I get on.