When I practice 3D I try to make the shots realistic to what I might find on a range during a tournament. Some days I work long shots. By long shots I mean distances from 32 to 43 yards. The short 32 yards target is a coyote in a hill. There’s a tree that blocks me from increasing the range. Today, I tried to shoot at distances that seemed typical for the target as I might see it during an actual tournament. I didn’t finish well.
Prior to the tournament style practice I warmed up from 20 to 50 yards before heading to the first 3D target. A few days ago I started without a warm-up to practice for the time when I’ll not have a chance to get a feel for my bow before scoring. It happens.
The weather was ideal temperature wise but it was windy with gusts in the 20 mph range. I wish I could blame today’s results on the wind. I can’t. Once in the woods the foliage was enough to diminish the impact of wind.
It takes about an hour and an half to walk my range shooting targets once and moving on. The warm-up took nearly an hour. I shot 40 arrows during my warm-up. Warm-up felt good. I use a 5-spot on a bale and figure if the arrow is in the white it is probably a 10 on a foam animal.
Starting out on my first target a black bear at 30 yards was a 12. The next was a strutting turkey at 37 yards for a 10. Then a badger at 30 yards scoring an 8. I ended up with one 5 on a tiny backyard coyote from 21 yards. The final tally was a disappointing 185. We all know an average of 9.25 points per arrow will not land you in a top position.
The average distance only 29.8 yards, a factor mostly associated with the abundance of small targets I have on the range. That and I didn’t shoot further out than 40 yards.
The positive from this is I didn’t break any more arrows. (This practice used a bow hunter rig. Practice geared to ASA Senior Hunter, 40 yard max distance.)
