Top 6 Bow Hunting Tips for Accurate Archery Shooting 101

In this video, Phil and I are going to bring you six tips to make you a better archer, but we're going to do it in a little different way. We're each going to give you our three personal most impactful tips that have helped us progress as a shooter. So let's get right into it. My first tip has to do with anchor points. You want to make sure that you have more than one anchor point and you want to be able to find it naturally. So what I like to do is I draw the bow and I bring the bow to my face and I find the anchor point, which is my fist on my chin, my jawbone right at the back, and I touch my nose to the string. And when you do that, the peep sight should be centered around your sight, your head should be upright, and you should be in a natural, comfortable, relaxed state. You should practice that, even with your eyes closed, to draw back, close your eyes, anchor, touch your nose to the string, open your eyes. Peep sight should be centered on that sight every time. That'll help you to make sure that you've got a consistent starting point for every shot. The second tip is actually in executing the shot itself and what you want to focus on when you're executing the shot. For the time, I was always looking at my pin and then trying to get the pin on where I want to hit, but what you should be doing is keeping both eyes open, focusing on the target itself and what you want to hit on the target, and then allowing your pin to come to that. And it's very similar to shooting a shotgun where you want your hands to come to where your eyes are looking and you don't want your eyes constantly chasing around that pin. And so when you go to make that switch, sometimes you have to close your non-dominant eye to make sure that the sight doesn't move, but once you get used to it, you can draw back, find your anchor points, keeping both eyes open, focusing on your target, and executing the shot. So that will allow you to increase your accuracy, especially on long shots. The last tip was something that I really started getting into last year, but you want to force yourself to shoot outside of your comfort zone. So for me, for the longest time, like 30-35 yards was my max shot. And I still am probably not going to take a shot beyond that unless it's perfect situation in the woods, but you want to practice shots that are longer than that, and I will shoot up to 65 yards. And the reason that I will do that is because once you shoot 65 yards, when that shot comes in and that deer walks out at 20 yards, it's going to look like a chip shot. But if you're shooting 30 yards or you're shooting 20 yards and that's your max distance and that's all the further that you shoot, then you're constantly shooting at exactly what the maximum amount of your comfort zone is. And by shooting longer distances, it makes your comfort zone, even though your max distance doesn't change, it makes it way more comfortable executing that shot. And the tips that I provided for you beforehand in finding your anchor points, keeping both eyes open, focusing on the target, and executing your shot all come into play. Alright, well hey guys, I hope you found those tips from Riley helpful. I'm going to spend a few minutes talking to you about the top three things that I pay attention to. But I'm surprised Riley didn't point out his new Matthews bow. So, throw it in there, new Matthews bow. Maybe he'll do a review on it soon. I got my old PSE still. So anyway, one of the first things that I have to always be checking when I get into shooting again is my grip. And so there are plenty of times where my grip is either too tight, death grip, or too loose, and it cocks my bow to the left. So when I get in the habit of drawing again, see that right there, I tend to stay loose and cock that to the left. I've got to keep my arm pretty straight, but not grip the bow. Let it rest right in that pocket there, and make sure that I do not grab the bow when I release the shot. So I'll talk to you about that in a second. Alright, so second tip for me is my draw, and my anchor points, and my hold. So kind of all those things in one. My draw is something that I just naturally want to do. My anchor point is something that I found where if I put my thumb up against my jaw bone right there, that's the perfect distance for me to know that I'm in the right spot. And then I'll touch my nose to the string, and that's my second anchor point. But what I'll tend to do is even though I'm anchored and my nose is touching, I'm concentrating so much on pulling against that string so when I slowly release that trigger, I pull back, right, and it helps me hold that shot firm. I will cock it against my face a little too much, and I'll pull the bow back, and I'll kind of pull my shoulders together too far. So I've got to pay attention that when I draw, that I'm anchored, and when my nose touches, that I'm in good shape. And part of what helps me do that is I pull back with my, I kind of pull back like a tricep exercise, pull my elbow back, and down slightly. Because sometimes what I'll do is I'll pull across slightly, and you can see how that brings the bow across my chest. Good position for me, that's poor position. And that's a little over-exaggerated because I can even feel that against my chest, but what'll happen is when I pull that bow back, and I'm aimed, if I'm pulling too hard, I'll pull this against my face, and I'll feel too much against my chin. So that's the, if I'm going left, I know that's one thing that I'm doing and one thing to check for. So make sure that when you're pulling back, you're pulling straight back, you're in good position, and you're pulling through that shot, but you're not overdoing. Okay, the last thing that plagues me is my follow-through. So you heard me talk about my grip in the beginning. Once I get my grip correct, I still have a tendency to catch the bow after I shoot, which will jerk the shot. And then I also, once I shoot, if I grip it or not, I will have a tendency to pull the bow down and to the left because I'm getting it out of the way so I can see where my arrow went. And I have to really concentrate on continuing to look through the sight, look through the sight, and through the sight, you see the arrow hit the target. And that's one thing that is a habit for me that is probably should have been my number one tip because it's the thing that plagues me the most consistently, repeatedly. I've got to talk myself through that pretty shot every time. When I go to release, watch the arrow through the sight. I have to tell myself that in my head. So let's see if we can put it all together here for you in one shot. Grip, tight pull with the anchors, slow release, and hold. Grip, tight pull with the anchors, slow release, on target. Well, those are my three tips. Maybe there were four or five in there all together. But ultimately, between the troubles that Riley and I run into and the things we have to think about, hopefully this was helpful to you. I hope you liked this video. If you did, hit the like button, subscribe to our channel, and check out some more of our videos. Thanks for watching.