SHOULD YOU BE A TOURNAMENT SHOOTER?

Now that spring is here, many bowhunters will be pulling their Morrell Targets out of the garage or shed and start preparing for the fall bowhunting season. Shooting in the backyard can be fun, but bowhunters who want to prepare for the fall bowhunting season should consider shooting in a competition of some type or at the very least join a club that has an archery range. 

Joel Maxfield from Mathews Archery shoots in his backyard almost daily during the off season. “I love shooting at a bag target in the backyard when I am fine tuning my setup and making sure I am hitting what I am aiming at but at the end of the day, shooting in local tournaments or at a Total Archery Challenge event helps prepare me for  bowhunting,” Maxfield said.

Why should bowhunters join an archery club or shoot at a Total Archery Challenge event? The answer is simple: shooting at a club or at a Total Archery Challenge Event simulates real hunting. “Shooting in the backyard at a target can be fun but it doesn’t get the heart pumping and doesn’t simulate a real hunting situation,” Maxfield noted.

For instance, bowhunters shooting at a competition will be shooting with other people watching them. This gets adrenaline pumping. This forces the bowhunter to aim under pressure. Shooting in the backyard doesn’t cause an adrenaline rush. 

Shooting in a competition often requires bowhunters to shoot at a wide variety of different distances and under different conditions. Sometimes the targets are down in a ravine, other times they are up on the side of a hill.  In some cases there might be a tree or a branch that is close to the vitals on the 3D target which requires the bowhunter to concentrate and make sure they don’t hit the tree. Walk a tournament course after a tournament and you will likely see where many archers failed and hit a tree or missed a target and shattered an arrow. Missing shots in a tournament can humble anyone and force them to get better. I would rather miss a target on a 3D course than a big buck in the woods. Shooting in a tournament will make a bowhunter better.

For bowhunters who don’t want to compete in tournaments, find a local archery club that has an archery range with targets set at different distances in the woods. Shooting at a club course is better than shooting in the backyard. Do yourself a favor and leave the rangefinder in the truck and learn how to judge distances to the target. How often do we have time in the woods to pull a rangefinder out and figure out exactly how far a deer is from us before we shoot? Learning how to properly judge distance in the field will likely increase the number of animals in any bowhunter’s freezer.

Shooting in tournaments or at a club can be fun and a little scary when others are watching you shoot, but at the end of the day the realistic practice can make you a better bowhunter.