Shooting Now with Fall Archery Seasons in Mind

If you’ve ever shot a whitetail deer with a bow, you understand it can be hard to put in words what that moment entails. For a vast majority of bowhunters, the emotions run high, and it can be rather challenging to “practice” how to prepare for the moment of truth.

Sure, you can shoot your bow as much as you’d like. But how do you master the adrenaline, emotions and everything that comes with the actual moment of a big buck approaching you. What can you do to practice ensuring the arrow hits its mark in a tunnel-vision situation like that? Let’s first discuss what happens to many bowhunters in that moment.

Close your eyes and imagine this coming November. You’ve been hunting all year extremely hard and haven’t gotten an opportunity at a mature buck yet, which you’ve been waiting for patiently. Finally, during an all-day sit, at high noon while eating lunch in the tree, you see a rack coming at you, and immediately you know you want to shoot this buck. He starts getting closer and closer, until finally he’s in your shooting lane at 20 yards.

You give him a soft “meh” and release an arrow to watch it sail over his back. After all the work you put in during the off-season, and all the hunting time you put in, you just blew your big moment! It’s a feeling that is quite possibly the worst feeling that a whitetail hunter can succumb to. In short, you want to do everything in your power to avoid moments like that as much as possible.

Of course, if you hunt long enough, misses and bad shots will happen to everyone. It’s simply a part of hunting. But there are things you can do to mitigate it, and that’s what this piece is going to dive into.

Archery Practice

Let’s start off at square one before we jump into the bulk of the point I want to make. First off, none of what I cover in this article is going to be applicable to you if you’re the hunter that waits until the week before deer season to pick up your bow. I know countless people that take this approach. As deer season nears, they break the bow out of storage, sling a few arrows to make sure the sight is still on at 20 yards, and if it is they call it good. If this is you, you’re simply asking for trouble — from both a mentality and technicality standpoint.

Shooting your bow throughout the year is in my eyes very important. Archery is all about muscle memory, and the more you shoot your bow, the more comfortable you are with it, and the more second nature it becomes. Now, if you’re not able to shoot your bow all year, at minimum I recommend you get a lot of reps through it during the summer months leading up to fall. At the end of the day, you need a consistent amount of practice to garner that muscle memory.

For the next part of this article to be as effective as possible, you first need to feel as proficient with your bow as possible, even if that means simply shooting at a target in your backyard. Practice How You Hunt

This is the meat and potatoes of what I want you to take home from reading this more than anything. With anything in life, practicing how you do something makes you infinitely better at whatever said objective is. For instance, if you’re training to run a marathon, odds are you aren’t going for a leisurely two-mile jog every few days to prep for it.

Or if you’re getting ready for a grueling elk hunt in the mountains of Montana or Idaho and know the terrain is going to be extreme, once again, odds are you aren’t taking a flat stroll on pavement to prepare for it. For whatever reason, when it comes to whitetail hunting with a bow, this mentality often isn’t discussed or applied. A large percentage of archers shoot a little bit at a target in their backyard in perfect conditions, and then wonder why they struggle when it comes time to send an arrow at an animal.

There are many different things you can do to help yourself, from shooting in low-light conditions to shooting from an elevated position. But what I want to discuss today is shooting 3-D with the fall in mind. I want to urge as many whitetail hunters as possible to take this to heart, because I want everyone to have as much success as possible. Mentality

Before we jump into discussing 3-D archery and things you can do while shooting 3-D to improve your ability in the moment of truth, I want to cover what is going on when trying to shoot a whitetail that is so much different than shooting in your backyard. What people struggle with the most, in my opinion, is how to remain calm enough to make a good shot.

When a whitetail is headed your way, your heart rate rises, and it can be easy to become frantic. There’s pressure, and if you’ve done nothing to try and replicate that, your chances of handling that well are not going to be very high. This is where shooting 3-D with the fall in mind is tremendously important.

3-D Archery

When I say shooting 3-D archery, it can mean a couple things. Either (a), having 3-D targets at your place or a friend’s. Or (b), going to 3-D events like Total Archery Challenge or local events in your area.

Where I live in northern Minnesota, over the bridge in Wisconsin there is a local event put on every summer at a ski hill called Bowfest. I love going to Bowfest every summer because it’s a great way to test my ability shooting at not just 3-D targets, but targets that are set up with difficult shots needing to be made. I’ve got to hike from target to target, which gets my heart rate up, and it’s a good time with good people. But more importantly, it serves as a great litmus test right before entering fall to see how I handle “replicating” the moment of truth.

There’s nothing you’ll ever be able to do to truly replicate what it’s like to send an arrow at a whitetail, but this may be as close as you get. A 3-D archery event is as good as it gets, and here’s why.

First and foremost, typically at these shoots, the shots aren’t always straightforward. You must shoot through some trees, or at various angles (quartering to, away, etc.). So just on the surface, having challenging shots can most definitely help you. Second, like I mentioned earlier, there is typically some form of hiking involved which gets your heart rate going. It may not be beating as quick as when you’ve got a giant buck in front of you, but if you can make good shots with some adrenaline flowing, you can at least start to understand how that makes you shoot.

Possibly the biggest reason I feel 3-D archery is beneficial practice is because it’s usually a team sport. You don’t usually go to an archery event like this alone. You’re with a group of friends, and no one likes to be the guy/gal that makes a bad shot or misses. This creates a sense of pressure and possible anxiousness that can somewhat replicate the emotions created when a whitetail is on its way to you.

The combination of tough shots, physical exertion and the pressure of shooting with friends and other onlookers is in my opinion the best way to “train” yourself to handle the moment of truth.

Up The Stakes

To create even higher stakes, I encourage you to create mini challenges with your group of friends. Whether you create a scoring system, or have the worst shot buy lunch or something along those lines, it simply amps up the pressure even more; and it can certainly help you replicate the emotions that arise when attempting to shoot a whitetail.

In short, the more pressure, the higher heart rate, and the more anxious you feel about releasing an arrow, the better! I’m sure you’ll find this is a far different shooting experience than flinging arrows in the backyard after work. Take note of how you perform with the added pressure. It will give you an indication of how you may perform come “gametime” this deer season.

Final Thoughts

When you really break it down, there’s nothing that can mimic the moment of truth and everything that goes into shooting a whitetail. The “real thing” is physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. In truth, the repetition of shooting deer is absolutely your best practice. The more deer you shoot, the more moments of truth you have, and the better you should perform. Tune your skills with a bow by punching doe tags if time allows and you’re able.

I believe the next best form of practice is still shooting 3-D archery, with the fall at the forefront of your mind. Purposely make yourself as uncomfortable as possible, and you’ll find out how you perform. You’re only going to improve with practice, and this kind of practice is the best kind you can put yourself through.

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