Contents:

• Bow Shooting Practice
• Scouting

Bow Shooting Practice: First, are you a bow enthusiast or would just like to know more about it? Let me direct you to a place to expose yourself to more of it. It's known as The Home of Bowhunting on the Net and you can go to it from my Life & Times page, Hot List, Web Site 1 or by clicking above, but please come back, or maybe don't go 'till later (?). When you do go to Robert Hoague's Bohunting Net, don't forget to check out his free space for HTML Personal Pages. There are some very nice personal pages there about bowhunting, whitetail deer, and other subjects of interest. Mr. Hoague even has what he calls EZ Home Pages for those who "don't do" web pages but would like to have a presence on the web in the bowhunting community. Basically all you do is fill in a form of facts and interests; also a free service. All in all, a very interesting site, with a heap of stuff to see, where you may spend a good deal of time.

Note: Closest I could come to "launching an arrow" at this point, until I get around to doing my own animation's. Actually, I don't dress that way anymore - nor even as much, for that matter. In the meantime, thanks for this fine animation go to The Garden Helper. The link for that very useful site is found in the Hot List on my Life & Times page.

Now to it: I just finally got around to taking up the bow six years ago. I love every aspect of it, including the practice. Which is good, because we certainly get to do more practice then anything else. Mark that well! Practice! Practice! Practice! Then if you have time, you can practice some more. Depending on your own skill, short sessions of well executed shots are generally of more value than endurance bouts that turn sloppy. If at all possible, set up some means of practice at home so you can turn to it easily anytime mood and opportunity collide. Go to a friend's that has more room, go to 3D ranges, or electronic ranges, or stump shooting, or any thing you can dream up. It is more fun with one or more others and, for some, more productive. You must also be accustomed to doing it alone as you will most likely be alone when the "moment of truth" arises. Others seem to do better alone anyway. You must decide for yourself, but strive to do some of each.

The majority of my practice these days is done at home so I wasted no time in setting up a small range out back when we came back here from ME. It is set up so one can shoot from different yard lines, or stand at one line and shoot to targets at different distances. This gives more possible variations to ward off boredom, the bane of all productive practice. Here is a gander at the first range I set up here. We only have an acre size lot but fortunately there are unused, wooded lots behind the carpet backdrop. This has changed some due to three hurricanes and some tree clearing for lumber sales by other land owners. I've had to move it some but the basic setup is the same.

The carpet backdrop is draped over a raised support beam so there is two thickness' separated by about four inches of space. This tends to stop any errant arrows at my bow draw weight. More layers of carpet are better for heavier bows and as carpets weather. You can never be too safe. Targets, as you can probably see, can be a mixture of what you can come by. These I've gathered over my time at it and include: a Styrofoam commercial at front left (my first), with a replaced center; a commercial easy-pull bag target from Wal-Mart, (I love these as they are relatively cheap, last well, and you don't waste all your energy pulling arrows) that I re-bagged and spray painted a turkey on; a (yellow) homemade one of blow-in foam insulation, donated by a friend, that has good stopping ability but is also easy-pull, made by partially filling a cardboard box with the foam and letting it expand and firm up. Ten yards back is a McKenzie 3D deer (I was lucky enough to pick up at a fraction of the cost as a range went out of business) that I've repaired and repainted many times. He has become an old friend himself. Another ten yards back are two easy-pull bags I made myself by stuffing burlap bags with a combo of folded and/or crushed plastic sheeting used around construction sites and as weed prevention in gardens, and recycled toy animal stuffing (they work real well both at stopping and pulling of arrows but the burlap doesn't seem to last as well). One of those bags is hanging from ropes tying the four corners to trees, a good way to place one where there is no "place". The other is sitting on a stump. Both have the outlines of a deer vital area spray painted on, much the same as the Wal-Mart ones do. They are also both raised to the proper level for those vital areas. One final note: you may pick out a bale of hay which is placed in front of the mentioned stump; these I do not recommend for anything more than that. They are messy and do not stop arrows. I hope this may serve to trigger some creative, inexpensive ideas for creating your own practice range.

Maybe there are those to whom the repetitive releasing of arrows at targets would seem aggressive or even war like. It is not that way for we who pursue it. It is a quiet, peaceful, therapeutic pastime for the bowmen I've had the pleasure of knowing. For me, it is similar to the pleasure, relaxation, and peace I have found when horseback riding and/or fly fishing. I try to do it as often as I can, preferably every day during the warm season. I have to admit to a distinct dislike for cold and wind so my dedication to practice suffers some from those unwelcome influences. To add a little more variation, I usually keep a hang on, ladder, or climbing stand handy on a tree close by my range. I've long wanted, and am in the process of planning/erecting a shooting platform to take over those duties. Climbing a set of stairs will be easier, faster, and more readily usable. I'll use it more often than the tree stands so my legs will benefit as well as my shooting form. My friend, Randy and I have a model in place but without stairs. It is definitely a "do this year" project.

Note: You'll see progressive and recent changes to my target range in my Gallery Pages as they happen. The plan is for it to be ever-improving/challenging. Unless of course my imagination and poor brain go completly to the bad. Keep your smart remarks to yourself, guys!

3D and Electronic Ranges: Cannot be beat for fun practice that adds a touch of realism. If done with others it also adds social interaction and whatever degree of competitive edge you might care for. I hate that, due to costs, distances, and buddies' time availability, I don't get to use them as much here as I would like to and advise. I can't say enough good about these forms of practice for keeping the appetite whetted. Randy and I do usually get out to one at least once a month in summer, along with a chap from PA that visits Randy's workplace monthly for business purposes. He is a really good bowman and 3D shooter who never misses a chance to "fling a few arrows" and always instigates a visit to a local range. He also is an interesting character/story teller who fits right in with us and would surely be a full time member of our shenanigans if he lived here. When I was in ME, I got out to Bob's 3D range a couple (sometimes three) times a week. Loved it and it did me a lot of good. Of course as you can imagine, the season for my use of it was not as long up there. Good memories of the guys and shoots up there abound in this old noggin. It was pretty much a standing thing that as many of us as could would get together and shoot on Wednesday evening, then sit around on Bob's lawn for a confab afterwards. Sometimes there would be as many as three relays of five shooters going around the range. Don't miss out on this sort of practice - great fun and always safety first. One friend in Maine used to refer to it as, "running around in the woods, flinging picked sticks." He did it with us some though, and quite well as I remember. Electronic ranges are run by (what else?) computer programs and are a real interactive kick. Movie type footage of live animals is projected on a large as life screen, shooters are directed by on screen text, and shoot at the pictures with their own bows and arrows, but with special mushroom like blunts screwed on as tips. The computer registers your hits and scores, or lack thereof, on the animals/screen in freeze frame manner. It's more fun than watching a basket full of kittens at play. Although all your shots are taken from one yardage, usually twenty yards, the size of the depicted target animals does a very good job of simulating various distances and resulting degree of difficulty. At least The Dart System, the only electronic I've shot, does. Again in ME, the last year I was there a bunch of us went a number of times to a range that used that system. What a blast! When we moved back here to NC there were none close, but they've opened one a couple hours away now. We've only visited it a couple times. It also uses The Dart System. I sure wish someone would open one closer to home. These type ranges are, of course, inside and are therefore ideal for practice during cold, hot, windy, or bug infested conditions. If you get a chance, try one. You'll have more fun then a pig in a slop bucket. Oh, one little warning, I think it might just become addictive (the electronic range I mean, not the slop bucket).

Scouting: Here's a glimpse at part of what we look for when scouting.

Left: The dark areas in this picture are deep and wide deer trails in the marsh grass and, though it's a little hard to make out, the small saplings I'm standing beside have been well rubbed and thrashed by passing deer.

Right: This is Randy with a real rub. He's probably daydreaming about the Buck it took to make this one, as he doesn't always look quite that --- well, you know.

The signs we look for when we scout are seldom as well defined as these examples are, but it sure makes you feel good when you do find sign like this. A big portion of scouting needs to be done, as the above was, in late Feb. & Mar. Of course you can expect the patterns to change many times throughout the year, but every little bit of info helps to form an overall picture and plan. Scouting is a never ending gathering of facts and impressions from any and all available sources, then compiling and sifting them to try to make some sense out of it all. Nine times out of ten, if the truth be told, even the best efforts of the best scouts result in the hunter being outfoxed in the end. It is still a big part of it all though, and gets you into the outdoors between seasons. We make plans to scout our local hunting spots and any places we plan to travel to. Often we combine the action with fishing , placing/repairing stands, camping, and other things we enjoy doing. It can be a lot of work, and is at times, but generally speaking a good time is usually had by all who undertake it. Like life it's self, it's all what you make of it in the long run.

This is (of course) our ultimate goal, or at least one of them. In order to make a clean and humane harvest, it is imperative to be very familiar with your targets "kill zone". For those visitors that care to, please click on this thumbnail picture in order to see a larger image. You can never see and/or study it too often. Afterwards just click "Back" on your tool bar to return here. Thank you for being a responsible hunter and thanks to Whitetail Hunter web site for the image. They may have got it somewhere else but I got it from them.
 
 

I got this Proud Hunter Ribbon from the web site of "CW300MAG" - you can get one from there also (just click on the ribbon for transport - but please come back) and help promote proud hunters. Remember, "Hunters Are People Too".