Some of His Best Kept Archery Hacks

The Technology of Old Crossbows
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6 Video Views·Feb 20, 2026
Some of His Best Kept Archery Hacks
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Guys, welcome to the channel.
Today I have a special guest.
I'm gonna show him some stuff about target archery.
Come along.
Hey, Bodhi, how's he doing?
How's it going?
He's gonna coach you up a little bit
on target archery today.
I've got to set a goal for myself to do indoor this year
at some capacity on a line against other people
because I want to be a better archer.
You'll learn a lot from it.
Yeah, so let's talk about your taste in arrows.
So you, this is what I just built
and this is what you are running?
This is what I'm running right now, yeah.
Okay, so let's talk about what I should be doing here.
Obviously I ran stock Nock.
Yeah.
What do you got?
I'm a huge fan of the Biters, the Biter Hunter Nocks.
I've shot those for the last couple of years,
never had a problem with them, always loved them.
So if I search Biter Nock 100s,
that's what's gonna come up?
They're Biter Hunters.
19-2 Biter Hunters.
Biter 19-2 Hunters.
Yeah.
Okay, I'll watch this video and then I'll make my order.
So, all right, and then you know Michael
over at Spokane Valley Archery,
he gave me these AAE Hybrid 40s
because he knew I had nothing.
What are you running?
I'm running the Hybrid 26s.
I've shot those last couple of years,
so that's always my go-to indoor main.
What did you fletch those,
what did your dad fletch those with?
I fletched these.
You did?
Yes.
What did you use?
What jig?
The Bits.
Okay, I did this with the Bits and I hated it.
Like the, so how long it was,
what did you use to jig these before?
I had the same thing.
I just must be doing something.
Do you have a straight or offset?
I run offset.
I run right indoors, left outdoors.
200?
Probably, well, my Matthew's a little bit heavier
on the front, so it might shoot fine for you.
Do you bear shaft these first?
No.
Just checking.
If I'm having, so one thing I'll do
is once I get it set up shooting really well,
I will shoot a bear shaft and then take a picture
of where it lands from my fletched arrow.
So that way if I start to suck,
I can shoot my bear shaft
and see if anything's changed on my bow.
That might be the best tip of this video.
I hope you guys wrote that down.
All right.
We want to look at your site real quick.
Yep.
Yeah, so I'm running the Excel Achieve XP,
which is their new one.
And then I'm running, I believe it's a five power with a.
Now, I see a bunch of dirt and stuff.
Like, do you have to clean lenses and stuff?
I don't.
All my lenses are super dirty.
Look at that.
Well, that's because it was outside.
You got a little water on it.
All right, and then that dot,
that's not like a Sharpie mark.
That's an actual.
No, we cut that out using a leather punch and Gorilla Tape.
So they don't.
I hate that.
I really don't like.
So I can make my own dot?
Yeah, that's what I do.
Do you think your dad would do that for me?
If you paid him enough money.
I'll pay him.
See, I feel like I'm having to pull this information out.
Are we talking about too much stuff
that where your competitors are going to like, ooh, okay.
If somebody else can figure out,
you can make a dot out of duct tape.
And I don't think it's,
I don't think it's that high up there.
Look at my bow.
Okay.
And tell me what I need to do.
Your nocks fit fine.
I mean, it looks like it's set up well.
I mean, it looks good.
It's just a matter.
Like you can never really just look at a bow
and be like, that's going to.
Do you want to pull it back and see how it feels?
And be like.
Does it not feel good?
I just tweaked the thing.
I just took, I had eight up front and cut it to four.
Okay.
I left all that weight on the back
cause I like them heavy in the back.
I took the, that thing.
Yeah.
Eight ounce heavy thing.
Took that off.
Yep.
And I just don't like the pen.
I don't like staring.
I think, I feel like I want to do a circle on a circle.
I would tell you,
you'll definitely want to micro adjust sight.
The D loop, he's got knock points on both sides.
Oh, okay.
Oh yeah.
Should I just mic Joel and get in on this?
You could.
Are you his technician?
Can be.
Guys, we're going to take a break.
I'm bringing Joel in.
Joel, get in here.
Straight up.
How much of working on bows do you do versus your dad?
I know it was probably a hundred zero
and maybe it turned 80, 20.
Where are we at today?
I do a lot of it.
He does everything that, that is metallic.
Okay.
But if it comes to string stuff,
that's where I still,
I still got a little hold of what boat he does
on string stuff.
So this is what we used to shoot.
We used to shoot not points on both sides of the knot,
but we found that this takes all the pressure off
of the knock, which is usually a good thing, right?
Unless you're shooting a blade rest.
On a blade rest,
you want a little bit of positive knock pressure.
So that's why we've eliminated the top knock point.
We choose the loop knot on the top
and we tie this a little bit longer
so that you've got just a bit of flex inside the loop.
So we're going to take off that top, soft knot.
We eliminate this and we make this a little bit longer.
So we'll tie a double constrictor knot
with 80 pound Magibrade Dacron fishing line.
That is the ultimate knock tying thread,
80 pound Magibrade Dacron fishing line.
So we'll tie a double constrictor knot on the bottom.
You've got your knot configuration correct on this
and that'll add a slight bit of positive knock pressure
so it holds the arrow on the rest.
As you're drawing it back,
you won't have near as many fall offs.
You should try one.
So go from 27 to 30.
Yeah, I've never had that great of luck
with anything under 30.
I mean, some people like them.
It's a personal feel thing,
just for aiming how the bow aims,
what pattern it aims in.
I've always liked a 30 to a 33.
All right, so we're going to finish this video.
Guys, you saw Bodie's hunting rig.
You saw his tournament rig for 2025.
He's turning 18 leading into the season.
You saw all his tournaments he's going to be doing.
He was 11 years old when he hit his first 300.
A lot of cool stuff going on.
What is your advice for people like me
who are into hunting but are picking up a target bow?
How do I approach my indoor balancing?
Because you saw it.
I'd rather go outside and shoot foam.
But I'm trying to do this for concentration practice
to make your dad happy.
So how much of this, is there a balance
or do I need to just kind of go all in on indoor
for a little while?
Indoor is something that can teach you a lot
about your shot because it's so precise.
I mean, to be really, really competitive,
you have to hit, I don't know.
Like for me, my average rounds
is I'm hitting this little ring in here
at least 28 to 30 out of 30 times every time.
Typically on the 29.
Like this one?
Yeah, like I've had targets for all three.
But not like that.
That isn't great.
Is that a 10 technically?
Okay.
As long as the shaft in any way touches the 10 line,
then it would be in.
So this is your X count and that's the size of a?
Penny.
And then anything inside here is a 10?
Yep.
Nine.
Nine, eight, seven, six.
And we won't even talk about the rest.
No, that's your bare bow.
And then did they choose these colors
to make it obnoxiously hard to aim at?
I don't think so.
Because there's just a lot of yellow.
Yeah.
Is there, if I do do a pen,
is there a better pen color because of the yellow?
I mean, again, so much stuff is personal preference
that you can't really.
You just gotta figure it out.
Yeah.
Some people love a pen, hate a dot.
Some people love a dot, hate a pen.
It's all personal.
Remember when you were hitting me up
on some fitness stuff last year and I was giving you advice?
Yeah.
Do that.
Give me some advice real quick on, give me a prescription.
I'm more of like, I'll just take orders.
Like Dan, shoot a half round, a full round.
Yeah.
This many times a week or once a week.
What's my homework and what's our homework?
Give the people some homework.
One, I mean, it depends what your schedule's gonna be
and what you can allow.
I know you shoot a lot.
Maybe try and shoot a game to two games every couple days.
Okay.
If you're not liking how it's going, change something,
but make sure that you know how to put it back
to where it was.
Okay, that's fair.
Because one problem that even I still do this is.
Okay, that makes sense.
Where you'll get something shooting
and then you won't like it for a day.
So then you'll change the whole thing.
And you're like, I wanna go back.
Yeah, then you can't.
You can never, it's so hard to go back
to exactly what something was.
So like, say you shoot a game, weren't in love with it,
try something new, shoot a game,
and then you can pick the best of those two.
If you don't like either of them, try something else.
But I mean, as you go through,
you'll find aspects of things that you do like
and that's best for your personal preference.
I dig it.
All right, guys, if you heard the ma'am.
Boop, here I am.
Okay, let's talk about dot size.
Because a lot of people wonder what size dot
you should be shooting for indoor.
And yes, it's personal preference,
but if you just go to the science of it,
what's the visual proprioception?
How does it actually work?
A lot of people that are afraid of their aim
will use a big dot.
I'm gonna use this camera lens cover.
And if you use a big dot that covers up
most of the nine ring,
you're never actually able to see the center of it.
And you only get a sliver of gold around it.
But people like to cover it up
because then they don't know
if they're actually in the center.
And that seems to calm their mind slightly.
But that's only folks that are putting
way too much effort into the aim.
It's much more accurate if you use a smaller dot.
What we use is a dot that's no bigger than the 10 ring.
Through your lens or your clarifier,
whatever your sighting system is,
the dot is no bigger than the actual 10 ring.
So that you can actually see.
You want as much yellow around the center as you can get.
But not too small to where you can't actually,
I mean it's too small to actually see in low light.
Because some ranges, indoor ranges,
you go and have horrible lighting.
You want a dot that's just smaller than the 10 ring.
And so when this thing moves,
give it as much gold to move in as possible.
No matter which way it moves,
it's next movement is always back to the center.
So use your visual proprioception.
You'll find your X count will go up
if you're not using these giant dots
that cover up and only leave a sliver of the gold.
So small dot just inside the 10 ring
and let that thing dance.
And your X count will increase.
