Can't commit

[wolleybugger]

I have a Osage self bow that shoots like a dream out to 20 yards. I really want to shoot a deer or turkey with it. I can't seem to commit to using it. I know it will kill a deer but after taking it out a few times during the season I panic and switch to my recurve. Missed a doe and a Jake last year with it. Wasn't the bows fault.

[gstoneberg]

I have a Osage self bow that shoots like a dream out to 20 yards. I really want to shoot a deer or turkey with it. I can't seem to commit to using it. I know it will kill a deer but after taking it out a few times during the season I panic and switch to my recurve. Missed a doe and a Jake last year with it. Wasn't the bows fault.

Sounds to me like you have a confidence problem.  Instinctive shooting hinges on confidence.  When you're sure you can't miss a shot, you won't.  When you suspect you'll miss your shot, you will.  Then, if you've missed, your confidence is shaken even more and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  Perhaps you need to look at your hunt a little differently so you don't put so much pressure on yourself?

Here are some things that help me keep my confidence.

• I make my goal to get a shot, not to kill the animal.  Then, if I shoot and miss, I have achieved my goal and the hunt was a success.  I will get other shots.  Lets face it, we don't hunt with primitive weapons because they give us the best odds of taking game home.  By taking this route we have made it significantly harder.  Embrace the experience.  When filling my deer tag is really critical (and it occasionally is) I take a rifle.
• Shooting is a mental challenge and my mental ability to do it varies from day to day.  There are days I don't shoot at game because I'm mentally too tired.  Doesn't mean I don't go and doesn't mean I don't have a good time.  Often, the worries of the day melt away while I'm out and when the game arrives I'm ready, though I wasn't when I left.  Sometimes I shoot when I shouldn't have and get the response I should expect. 
• Changing bows is hard work.  If I have 2 bows I'm comfortable with, it still takes a few practice sessions to make the switch.  Maybe others are better, but I just can't do it anymore.  Once I select a bow for the season, that's the only one I carry.
• I don't expect to be perfect.  Professional pitchers throw balls when they wanted strikes, quarterbacks throw interceptions, and they do it for a very good living.
• And my favorite, the hunt is not over when I miss.  I've shot deer with the first, second, third and fourth arrows in my quiver.  (This is why I use a bow quiver by the way.) Multiple times I've shot deer that were smelling my first arrow after I missed them.  You are shooting the quietest bow on the planet, there's an excellent chance you are going to get to shoot again, often at the same deer.  Don't despair, get ready.

Missing is a part of hunting, not the end of it.  Go out and have some fun, bet you bring something home....  

George

[Wolf Watcher]

George:  Hope you don't mind, but I printed out the message you sent.  I am going to read this each time I get the bow out even to practice.  Am going on a very expensive moose hunt in the Yukon this month and my practice sessions have been up and down.  I have excellent equipment and have been shooting each day.  Some days when the arrows are all over the place I wonder if I will be able to make a good shot if the chance occurs for the sake of the moose as well as myself.  This confidence thing is kind of funny.  I have killed a moose and every thing else except an antelope before with my home made equipment, bow, arrows, and rocks.  I tell my hunting friend, Mike Hawk Huston, that I hunt with a stick so I won't have to pack all that meat out.  I have never been a great archer so have tried to over come that deficiency by being a better hunter!  Thanks for the excellent advise.  A/Ho Pokie

[Pappy]

Very good and wise advice. I have missed more deer since I started hunting with these thing than I can count,I don't mind the misses,I just set down and grin. Good thing is I usually miss or kill,don't have to many wounds and that is a good thing.
   Pappy

[gstoneberg]

Thanks guys.

You know Pappy, that's true for me too with deer, but I'm not sure I've thought about it before.  I will say that hog hunting has messed with that a little because the pigs will not hold still.  They can be perfectly broadside and before you can get the arrow off they're gone someplace else.  They drive me crazy, but they're fun as heck to hunt.

George

[Eric Krewson]

When I found myself going back to my recurve to hunt with I sold it. Its been a bunch of years since I shot at a deer with my selfbow and it didn't go home to my freezer. There was a learning curve but I have it down now.