Practice, Practice, Practice, Getting Ready for the Season

As in any sport, practice is essential to hone your skills prior to the start of hunting season. But is all practice equal? It does not matter which weapon you hunt with, you still need to use good practice routines to hone your skills to be in your prime at the start of hunting season.

If you have had problems in the past and continue miss your mark there is a little test you should try.

With your arm out stretched using your index finger as a site, aim at some distant object.
Now close your left eye, if you are still aimed at the target you are right eye dominant. If the target jumps and you are no longer aimed at the target reopen your left eye and close you right eye. If, after closing your right eye you are still aimed at the target you are left eye dominant. Knowing this fact is essential to the improvement in your marksmanship.

Although normally a right handed person is right eye dominant and vise versa is true of a left handed person, in some cases the norm just isn’t true.

A second very important rule of thumb during practice is to practice with what you will be hunting with. Use the exact same ammo, the same types of bullets, same arrows. Using something different will not give you the same results, no matter how slight the difference in your ammo is, there will be different results.

These suggestions are the basics, and something you should have handled before even starting to dial in your skills.

Distance and your judgement of distance is one of the greatest obstacles you will face in the field. For the most part you will not be given the opportunity to use a range finder when your prey walks into sight.

For this very reason I always practice my shooting from various unknown distances. As well as practicing from every position I can imagine: Sitting, Kneeling, and from Elevated positions as if I were in a deer stand. And always remember that wind plays a major role in the accuracy of archery.

Just as you are practicing with the same ammo you should also be practicing in the clothing you will be wearing while hunting. The restrains of heavy clothing could very easily cost you a shot if your not use to them. Basically you should try to take every variable into account and become comfortable shooting in every situation. Using a life size 3-d deer target in a woodlands setting is the ultimate practice routine.

During the off season I suggest shooting at least once a week, but as hunting season draws near try to shoot as much as possible.

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