This is weird.

[bear bowman]

When I'm shooting at home, I try to change distances and angles. I shoot at a deer 3-d target. I'm finding that I tend to shoot left when shooting at the deer quartering away. The deer is facing left from my perspective, I haven't tried spinning the deer to see if I would shoot to the right from the opposite direction. Any one else have a weird thing like this happen to them? Any ideas? I'm concerned because of the probability of quartering shots on a real animal in the fall and I want to be at my best.

[McDave]

If the deer is quartering away from you, you want to aim at the shoulder facing away from you, so the arrow enters the deer a little behind the ideal spot if the deer were broadside. If I'm reading your post correctly, when you miss left you're actually hitting too far forward, which would be a bad shot on an actual deer.

As far as why you're doing it, I really don't know, but I suspect you're not picking a spot and perhaps getting distracted by the deer as a whole.  Hitting a spot is hitting a spot, whether on a deer or a plastic bottle or a target.

[bear bowman]

That's why I'm struggling with this. I'm picking a spot like I always do. For whatever reason, I shoot left while shooting that way. After many shots, I start to bring them to where I want. I just thought that maybe someone else may have struggled with the same thing. It makes absolutely zero sense to me.
I think it's something in my head.

[McDave]

If you're picking a spot, then you're probably missing left for one of the many general reasons RH shooters miss left, as opposed to anything specifically having to do with the deer target.  Perhaps it's manifesting itself on your deer target because of some added self-imposed stress that's causing you to lose concentration and awareness of what you're doing during that particular shot.

This is a general checklist of why RH shooters commonly miss left (I'll omit equipment issues, as I don't see how that could be a factor here, as gear seems to be immune to psychological pressures).  It probably wouldn't hurt to do a general checkup of your form at the time you're shooting at the deer target, to see if anything is slipping:

- Torqueing the bow or the string
- Dominant eye not over the arrow
- Not getting your string forearm back behind the arrow, i.e. not coming all the way to full draw
- Shoulders not aligned with target at full draw
- Moving your head during the shot or peeking.

If you're doing any of these things (or something else I didn't list) you're obviously unaware of it, or you wouldn't keep doing it.  So you may have to have someone else observe you, or video yourself, to actually see what's happening.

[bear bowman]

Thank you Dave. I will see if I notice anything.

[BenSterhan]

ive had that problem as well and through some research i learned that your distance is your instinctive shooting ability but your side to side is a form issue, i was successful by hanging a string in front of my target and aiming for that as a shooting drill, not caring as much about high or low shots but just focusing on my form and hitting that string, or close to it lol

[bear bowman]

Great idea Ben.