Ep. 76: Archery 101

hard to beat. I know, if I had to pick one thing to hunt with for the rest of my life, I picked the bow every single time. Now, I've got a lot of questions from people about getting into archery, and most are new hunters, but a lot of lifelong hunters as well, And I think it's because the leap and the learning curve into archery just seems so steep that people kind of want to know where to get started.

So I'm gonna be breaking down bow hunt over the next four episodes, from getting started all the way through advanced tactics to being consistently successful. So no matter your knowledge level, your skill level, from beginner through expert, I

really think that you're going to enjoy this series. On today's podcast, we're gonna open it up with what I would call Archery one oh one, covering the basics of what you need to get started, the different types of Bose gear, finding the right fit, as well as jumping into aero selection. But before we do that, I really want to share my personal journey into archery. It's somewhat laughable now, but you just don't know what you don't know. I really wish that I had had this podcast when

I was starting out. I really didn't know a single person that shot a boat or archery hunted, but I knew that I really wanted to get into it. I would say that my introduction to archery actually came from watching In and Outdoors on the weekend. What that was is on every Saturday morning, Tienna Network would play hunting

shows on essentially like cable. Now, that seems like you can get hunting content wherever, Instagram, YouTube, you can even find it on Netflix or multiple networks dedicated to hunting, But back then it was just ten and Outdoors Saturday morning. I remember watching various real tree shows and they would archery hunt for white tails, and I thought, wow, that

looks really cool. And then there was a guy that would come on and his name was Byron Ferguson, and he was kind of like a traditional archer trick shooter, and you'd throw things up and shoot him, and I thought that looks awesome. Now my parents had got me one. I would say, like a kid's long be like kind of like a fiberglass longbow. I would shoot it like boy scouts or whatever, the kind of the same kind

of things you'd see around. And I got high had one of those, and I didn't really have anybody to show me how to shoot it, so I just kind of would watch this trick shooter and his advice was always be the arrow, b the arrow. So I thought, okay, as long as I'm being the arrow, I should be able to shoot this thing. What essentially he is talking about is shooting instinctive shooting, so learning to shoot through knowing the trajectory of the arrow and not really thinking

too much of it, but just becoming that shot. My practice involved having a ball tied to a string in the backyard, like a softball, and I would swing the thing back and forth and just think, be the arrow, b the arrow, and try to shoot the softball, shoot balloons on targets. I had a little hay bales in the backyard that I would shoot at, and I got pretty decent with that essentially youth fiber glass longbow. I then kind of graduated to a youth model compound boat.

Had tiny wheels. I would say the wheels are probably two inches in diameter. Pretty weak. It wasn't something you can hunt big game with or whatever. But I got that bow, and I knew nothing about sites or anything. There wasn't even a place to put sites. It was just a little bit more powerful than my fiberglass long bow, and I shot at the same way be the arrow, instinctive, shooting with my fingers. I could shoot a fair distance, but not real far. I mean twenty yards would be

clearly the max of this bow. I took it hunting just in places for small game, very small game. I shot between that bow and the other bow, rabbits, quail, ducks, maybe a goose, and I thought, this is this is

pretty cool. But you know, to graduate from that to going into big game hunting, um, I wasn't even old enough at the time to hunt big game, but I knew that it was something that I wanted to eventually do so, as I got older, I progressed with the bow, just using those same skills of be the arrow, look at what I'm shooting at, and let the arrow fly and let it hit the target. Now, when it got a little bit older, I thought, okay, I wanted to get into archery hunting. I wanted to start hunting deer.

So I got like a what would be my first hunting bow, my first real compound bow. And then again I knew nothing about the boat. We went to a local sporting good shop. I picked out a bow that would be strong enough to kill a deer, grabbed a dozen arrows. They were all Eastern aluminum arrows, and just they were full length. I knew nothing about spine weights. I knew nothing about cutting arrows. I knew nothing about nothing. So I and I got a site on this bow.

I thought, okay, this is cool, it's got a site. My site was a square, like a square site housing. It had a wire that ran down vertically and then multiple horizontal wires, so it was like having a cross hair. I actually don't think I had a peep site on it. And I got that site, I shot with my fingers using that site. I remember going out to the hay Bill and I got this nice new bow. I thought, this is awesome, got my compound bow. I got my

site like they've got on TV. I'm gonna be super accurate, and I couldn't hit anything with it, so it was frustrating. I would try to site it in. I was shoot high and I moved the site and nothing was working right. It's seemed like it was all backwards. So I just took the site off and started shooting that same bow open sites like I shot everything else, and thought, okay, this will be good enough. Then as it got closer,

I got a little bit older. I was about to venture out on my first archery hunt, and I thought, okay, I want to for deer, and I thought, I want to really get the site thing figured out because people are shooting things further. And I just was, you know, thinking it was open country, mule deer hunting spot and stock. I had nobody I could talk to you about bow hunting.

I there was very little information that I could get about it at the time, and so I just was self teaching myself how to bow hunt from things I saw on TV and just stuff that I learned on my own. So I was in a sporting and shop one day and I saw, oh, here's some accessories for the bow. So I got it arrest and I thought, okay, this will be good because I up until that point, I was just shooting the arrows off the shelf of

my compound bow. Now. If you're shoot a bow now and you think that's pretty funny because you know you're supposed to have a rest to put the air on. I knew nothing of this, but I saw it. I was like, okay. It was in a clearance bin. It was like half off, half off of the half off it. I think I don't even remember. It was like what would be the original Dick Sporting because just kind of

an all sports store. I think it was that. I can't remember the name of it, but something like that, kind of like a Big five type store where they just had some leftover archery stuff and they're practically giving it away. So I thought, okay, I'll get this, and I got that, and I had my other site and I was in the checkout line and a guy behind me was like, oh, are you a bow hunter? And I was like, well, I have a bow. I shoot

small game, but I'm wanting to deer hunt. He goes, oh, cool, and he looks at the rest and he says, oh, what kind of release do you have? Release? What's your release? It's like, well, it goes on your wrist and you can't use that kind of rest without a release. I had no clue about the release or any of this, and so this guy in the line at the sporting goods store was just telling me all the things that I needed that I had no clue. I need, oh,

a peep site. And then I'm like, I was talking, Yeah, I don't have a site because when I was moving it, I just couldn't get to be accurate. So I just took the site off and I just shoot it off the shelf with my fingers. He's like, oh, well, that's because when you site in it's opposite you follow the arrow, not like you're sighting in a rifle scope. You've got to move things opposite. And then it dawned on me, Oh, yeah, that makes sense, that's pretty much what it was doing.

But in the moment, I didn't even spend enough time to try to figure that out. I had no one to tell me, no way that I could look it up, so I didn't even understand how to site the bow in. But with this little bit of knowledge that I got from the guy and the line in the random sporting this store, I went back, I found a few items that were cheaper, I re checked out, and now I

was on my way to going on my first archery hunt. Definitely, over the years, I have learned a lot about bow hunting, but most of my knowledge comes from a lot of trial and error. If I think about my journey in archery, I didn't have anybody that showed me how to shoot, so I had to figure things out the hard way. That doesn't mean that I wasn't very successful, and that doesn't mean that I didn't have a high level of skill in bow hunting. Is just that I had to

figure things out myself. And so I think that a podcast like this is really going to help cut the learning curve for a lot of people, not only in how to start out, but when it comes to shooting as well, because I know the mistakes that I've made in the past, and I know ways that make things a lot easier because I've tried so many different things. So I think that that's a good basis for starting out before we jump into the tips and the how

twos for this archery one on one. To get into archery, I think the first major hurdle is understanding how do I get a One of the questions that I get asked more than anything probably comes down to what's the great beginner bow? What bow should I start with? How do I get into archery? And so I think the first step is, obviously it seems very simple, but you

need a bow now. If you don't understand or don't know, it can be very daunting because there's so many choices, there's so many things, there's so many opinions archery just like every other little niche of every type of thing that people do, there's so many different opinions. Everybody's got

their own expert opinion. Certain people like certain things, bad mouth other things, and you know, when it comes down to the brass tacks of it, I think that everybody it's it's great to have different opinions, different things that you like. I personally love shooting all kinds of bows. I I like traditional bows, I like shooting a long bow. I like shooting a recurve. I love shooting a compound bow. Um.

The first step is just understanding bows. So let's just go through a little history of and maybe the types of bows. So the simplest bow a bow, but it's simplest for him. Obviously, everybody knows what a bow is. It's got a string, it's got limbs, a rise or something you hold onto, you draw it back, and you shoot an arrow forward. The most primitive, I would say, probably the most primitive form of a bow would be what was called a self bow. Of actually looking at

mine right here, what a self bow is is. It's just a bow made out of a single stick. There's no lamination of limbs, there's no it's just essentially like what you would think of an original bow. Somebody took a stick, they made it bend, they put a string on it, and they shoot an arrow. Pretty simple, not a lot to it, not super complicated, but also not super accurate, not a lot of power. You have to be quite close, um, compared to other bows. So now

let's let's step up one more notch. We're gonna go to a long bow. So through history there's been so many different changes in bows, and different regions have different types of bows. But you know, the long bow is essentially like a self bow, but it's got more laminated limbs, a little bit more power to it, maybe a shelf on it to rest an arrow, maybe a leather grip, but very very basic, very very simple, a string, a bow,

and arrow. Then you go to the recurve. The recurve is that bow that looks like if it was destrung. The tips curve back away from the direction that you pull, so as you draw back, those limbs actually are curved forward. I would say, just kind of give you a mental picture of it, which generates a little bit more power. So it's a step up from the long bow, but still also very basic. Now with the recurve, you could

also add sites. These are more traditional bows. They're shot with fingers, so you use your fingers, you use a tab or something else like that. Then we're gonna kind of step up to the next level of bows, which will be considered a compound bow. These are bows that have the wheels on them. Those wheels generate a lot higher velocities and a lot more accuracy than your traditional type gear. I would say that the compound boat is probably one of the better bows. Well, I'm in two

camps here. It's a great boat to start hunting with because you're going to advance and become more accurate a lot faster, But you also need a lot more equipment to get those bows going. There's a little bit more technicality to them. Um, it's not as simple as just grabbing it and starting to shoot. It can be, but there's, you know, a lot of things that you need to

understand when it comes to purchasing the right bow. I think when you're thinking about getting into bow hunting, you first just gotta say, Okay, what kind of archery hunting do I want to get into? You know, I personally started shooting a simple traditional boat, and it's a great way to start bow hunting or start getting into archery at probably a lower price point with a lot less gear needed. However, you need a lot more skill to

be efficient. So you can kind of jump into the game with a compound bow a lot sooner and be a lot more efficient than possibly with a traditional bow, But you also need more equipment, You need more things, you know, with anything, it's a little bit more complicated. So I think you first got to decide what kind of bow do you want to shoot? Now let's go

into when it comes to getting a bow archery. I like to think of it like this, like if somebody's brand new to archery and then they don't know anything about a bow. You know, they go, oh, let me shoot your bow. I want to see if I want to bow hunt, can I shoot your bow? And the answer is probably not why because every bow needs to fit the shooter. I can't give my bow to my friends to shoot. Do you even see if they like it?

Because it won't fit them. Every bow is pretty much custom fit to the shooter, especially when it comes to compound bows. So I'm gonna be now kind of going down this path of compound bows, and we're going to kind of break out some of the things you need when it comes to getting a bow. So the first thing is going to be understanding sizing. Bows are sold

by a couple of combinations of things. So you've got your draw length, which is the length of essentially your arms drawing back to put that arrow at full draw, and then the weight of the bow, so that's the amount of poundage that you're pulling back. I guess a really good question would be will what weight and what draw length should I shoot, and it really just depends

on the individual. A very popular draw weight for people that shoot a lot is around seventy pounds for men and probably fifty five pounds on the high end for women. You know, the draw weight really just depends on your strength. But also people just getting started are not going to have the necessary muscles to draw back seventy pounds, is my guess. I've had a lot of friends over the years that like, I want to get into our tree, let me draw your bow back. And these are people

that are fit and then we'll really good shape. Yet it's very difficult for them to draw seventy pounds back, while I could do it with my feet up in a chair, like no feet on the ground, um, in an awkward angle in my sleep, you know, because you develop certain muscles for it. So the trouble is when you buy a new bow, there isn't a lot of options for it to grow. But you can also back the weight off on um whatever the maximum draw weight is.

So if you get a seventy pound bow, you might be able to back that out to sixty pounds and get started if you're you know, in decent shape, pretty strong. Um, you should be able to work up to it pretty quickly. But it's just good to keep in mind that bows

are sold on weight and draw length. So the first thing we're gonna do is decide, Okay, how do I understand what draw length I'm going to be looking at, because I think a lot of people getting into it start to think, um, well, i'll buy a used bow, or I'll look online or oh they find a bow that's a good price, and then they buy it and then they quickly realize that that bow doesn't fit them. So a good starting place and this is by no means accurate, and you'll kind of find out why here

in a little bit. But um, what I do is you put your arms out. So we've got to measure our wingspan first to kind of get a starting point for a drawings. So a great way to do this put your fingertips in the corner of a wall, stretch your arms out. You don't want to like overstretched, like you're really reaching, just natural open wing tip to wing tip distance, and then divide that by two point five. That should be a great starting place to understand where

your draw length is. Now to get a really accurate understanding of your draw length. You're gonna also probably want to go to a bowshop, draw a bow back that has some kind of measurement on it, and get to where you can anchor and it feels comfortable and go from there. But it's a good starting point, I think for people out there. You know, using that rough measurement dividing by the two point five should give you an idea of what your draw length can be. Now, what's

comfortable for you to shoot. You might have to fine tune and adjust that draw length over time where you find things are more comfortable or not. My draw length is thirty inches, but I've found over the time that I actually shoot a twenty nine and a half in straw boat a little bit better. I personally like a lot of bend in my elbow. I don't know, it's just how I like to shoot, and I shoot better

that way. So I've shot everything from twenty eight and a half to thirty and a half in straw lengths, and I find that that twenty nine and a half is better for me. But you know, it just depends on the boat too. So sometimes I've got bows there a little longer to axle to axle and I like the longer draw with those, but when they get a little bit shorter axel to axel, I don't like the angle of the string for that draw length, so I kind of end up going with a shorter draw length

as the bows get shorter. That's just me personally. I don't think that that's a hard and faster rule. I'm sure everybody is different, but you know, I just want to say that to say that, you know, things can vary a little bit between individual shooters and where you're getting started, but that's a good place to just kind of set your baseline, say this is my draw length,

and then it just from there. So now let's jump into all the stuff you need on your bow, because there's a lot of different items that are needed to make this whole archery thing a successful venture. And I think it's a great place to start is just understanding what you're gonna need. So once you understand, okay, I've got this is my draw length, You've measured your arms, you know your draw length, and then you've got an idea of probably your size and strength and your draw weights.

So for most adult males, you're gonna be start. I think personally, you're gonna want probably to get a seventy pound bow and back it off to round sixty pounds, especially because a lot of the new bows, the pull weight might be heavy, but you know the hold weight isn't as much because you've got what's called let off. So a compound bow has What happens is you you draw back and you're pulling back the draw weight, but once you get a full draw, when you're anchored before

you shoot, it's a percentage. You're only holding a percentage of the way that you're drawing back. Whereas a traditional bow like a long bow er recurve, you're holding of the weight of the bow at full draw. So you might see a bow that says let off. What that means is of the weight of that poll is let off. While you're holding the boss. You're really only holding of the weight that you're pulling back. So that's why you

can hold a compound bow back longer. Being able to hold it back longer means that you're able to focus in longer. Focusing in longer means that you're going to be more accurate, and they're faster as well. But you're gonna be more accurate over distance and probably getting started out. So the things you're gonna need for compound bow are going to be arrows. Obviously you need something shoot and with those arrows you're gonna need tips, practice tips, and

then later on hunting tips. On the bow. Standard bow is set up with arrest, which is something that holds the arrow, a site which is just like it sounds, a site. It's mounted that you look through a name gonna have a peep site, so this helps you align your eye with the site and allows you to look through the string. Then you're gonna need what's called the release aiate of some kind. There's many different kinds of

release as. So these are mechanical device that holds the string or actually holds what you call your D loop, So you don't actually have your release on the string itself, but you have it on a loop of string comes off of the string that just protects your string and can be a little bit more accurate that way, so what that wears out as opposed to your bowstring wearing out. So then you've got your D loop, and there's multiple

kinds of releases. There's a wrist strap release which has a strap around your wrist and then something that comes out with a trigger on it, so it's more of a post type thing that comes from the wrist and then as a trigger. That's what I use. I find it really good for hunting purposes. Some people that end up developing target panic with those kind of releases because

the end of your finger is extremely sensitive. You have a lot of nerve endings on your finger, and jen really most target panic, if you hear the word target panic, comes in because your brains reacting to knowing that something is going off and then makes a quick move or an adverse reaction to that and causes you to shoot poorly. So there's other releases on the market that try to

limit that, which are more back tension style releases. What that means is you're pulling straight back and the tension of your pull allows the boat to go off. There's ones that have thumb buttons where you're kind of pulling and the tension against that string cause it to go off. And then there's pure back tension, which essentially releases itself when a certain amount of weight is applied to the release.

Those are really good for target archery. Um A lot of people hunt not so with back tension, but with the thumb release kind they kind of look like a brass knuckle and you you kind of put your hand in it. Some of them have straps on them or whatever, but it's more held in your hand. There's other kinds of releases, hinge releases and other things. I would say, starting out, you know, everybody you talked to fifty differ

and archers, they've got fifty different opinions. I really think that the wrist strap is a good way to go for hunting because you can allow it to go off at any point, But I also understand that it can be not so great for starting out because you can develop bad habits. So I'd say the second best one would be a thumb triggered release, like a back tension style thumb triggered release. That's another great option to get

into starting out. So once you've got your release, you've got your bow, you've got your site, you've got your rest. Now you're ready to start shooting. But before you get to that point, you're gonna have to buy some arrows. Now. Just like choosing a bow is very specific to your draw length, your draw weight, and everything, arrow selection is extremely important as well. There's specific arrows that you need

for your specific bow. It's kind of like thinking about buying a gun for if you're a firearm hunter, you would never put uh to seventy round in why it's just not gonna work. You know, there's specific ammunition made for specific guns, and arrows are sort of like that in a way. That one, you need the arrow to fly accurately, so it has to be the right what's called spine, so the right stiffness for that bow to

shoot it correctly. You also need it for safety reasons because a bow that's severely underspined or flexes too much for the amount of draw length and weight of the bow could actually snap. So you have to pick the right arrow based on the right bow. I've seen people that get into archery, and this is the kind of

the confusing party. They find a bow online, they buy a bow, they don't understand sizing, so they get something that doesn't really work for them, and then they just go and buy the cheapest arrows they can find, which could be severely underspined, could be the wrong kind of arrow for the type of bow that they're shooting, and could be dangerous as well. So when you go to buy arrows, you need to find an arrow that's that's

right for your bow. Almost every manufacturer has arrow charts out there, and what it is is it'll give you your draw length, your draw weight, and then it'll suggest the spine for your bow. And this is a really good starting point. So what an arrow does is as the arrow gets shot, it flexes. It's being pushed from the back through the knock and propelled forward. When that happens, that arrow is moving and you want a certain amount of flex, not too much, not too little. So you think, oh, well,

I'll just get the stiffest arrow. But a lighter bow shooting like a like a really stiff arrow that's too stiff, it's over spined, is going to cause it to not be as accurate as a bow that's shooting the correct spine. Now, you're also going to have to factor in the weight of your tips. So just starting out, if you're shooting, I would say in that fifty two seventy pound range of weight for bow, you're probably gonna want to shoot hunter grain tips. Now, hunter grain seems to be the

most standard. It's like the gold standard of tip weight is a little bit heavier. Some guys with higher poundage bows will shoot those, or guys that want a little bit more weight forward will shoot those. And then really light bows, like if you're a kid or um female or you just have a lighter bow, you could go sub hundred grain. But I think hunter grain is the easiest to find, and so I kind of suggest shooting that. It's kind of a standard for a lot of different bows.

So if you're just getting started, that's probably the one you're gonna be looking for, and then you'll find your arrow spine dependent on your draw length and your draw weight for your specific bow. Now, the length of your arrow is important as well. Just getting started, you could always if you if you wanted to shoot a full length arrow, but you're gonna have a little bit more weight out there, but you're also um gonna lose speed.

So when it comes to selecting an arrow without getting I mean you could there's guys that just are all about arrows selection. They talk about wait, forward, front of center, all this stuff. The way that I think about choosing arrows is me personally, I like a good arrow for hunting. That's my main purpose. So guys that shoot targets a lot.

If if all you want to do is to get into our tree to shoot targets, I would say go with a real lighter arrow because it'll be faster, it's gonna drop less, but you also lose kinetic energy for impacting the target. To shoot foam, you don't need a lot of energy out there. Um. I've found that heavier arrows, while they might go slower, they have more mass. That more mass has more energy, so it actually you get

deeper penetration. You can maybe hit the shoulder and it goes through the shoulder and makes a clean kill as opposed to getting stuck in the shoulder. I learned that the hard way when the whole rage was using faster arrows, faster bows, faster this. So I lightened my arrow up by you know, it was still spined correctly, so it flecks the right amount from my boat is accurate. But the man wasn't fast, and because it was fast, I

had a lot less drop or less pin gaps. So the difference between shooting twenty and thirty yards was smaller. And the difference you know, from twenty to fifty yards was smaller than a heavy arrow. And it was all well and good until I got out in the field and made a great stock on an animal and shot and hit it in the shoulder, and the arrow went in about two inches, and the animal ran off and didn't kill it. It just hit it in the shoulder.

And later on the arrow fell out, and I saw that animal walking around the next day or two days later, just going back to his daily routine. But I knew that years prior, if I had hit an animal in that same exact place with that same bow, with that heavy arrow, it was all over. I would have been punching a tag and packing out backstraps as opposed to having to re stock that dear a few more times.

So understanding that I prefer a little bit heavier arrow than a light faster because my intentions are all hunting based. Later on, when it comes to broadheads, you're gonna be hunting with. So you're gonna start out when you're just getting started, you're gonna want field tips. These are just

tips that go into a target. Now, obviously you're gonna need a target or somewhere to shoot, and then as you progress and get into hunting, then we're gonna kind of switch that tip into a broadhead, which will be your hunting type. Tip. One of the questions that I get asked a lot is what's a good bow for a beginner? And in some ways I have a good answer. In some ways I don't really know, because the bows that I use are always based on really high performance.

I haven't shot a lot of what I would consider beginner bows because I haven't needed to. Um. I moved through that stage pretty young in life, and so I kind of moved with through beginner bows as a teenager, as a kid. Um. But I will say that, in my opinion, here's some really good things to look for.

Many of the major bow manufacturers have what would be like a an underlying brand, so they've got their their main brand, Like Prime bow that I shoot has an underlying brand called Quests, so it's more of just an entry level bow, and they're they're still high quality. Matthews has I think their line is called Mission bow Tech has a Diamond. So a lot of these major bow companies have these lines that are a little bit better

price point. Um, there's still really good bows, but they just maybe don't have all the bells and whistles, maybe not as you know, demanding on skill or you know, a lot cheaper price point than some of their higher end like mainline bows. Also a really good thing to look into is, you know, you go to some of these stores and you see what I would consider a kit bow. It's got a bow that has completely set up with a site arrest and you know everything you need a quiver. I forgot to add quiver to um

the other stuff. You need something to hold your arrows in. UM a quiver and they're kind of set up. They've got all the bells and whistles, they got everything you that's a great way to get into it. Another great way is there's a lot of people that just love to have guys that are really into bow hunting that want a new bow every year, and so you can once you understand your draw length and in a good draw weight, you can start looking for those used bows.

That's another great way to get into a really good bow or a more advanced bow, a faster bow, maybe a bow that you can progress with better at a better price. And then there's the other school of thought where it's like, hey, I'm the type of person generally when I get into something, I just go all out.

So it might not be a bad idea to just get the bow that you want two years down the line now, something that you're going to progress into, um and really dedicate to you and maybe just get you know, higher end bow. It's just like anything, you kind of get what you pay for. In some aspects um the main bow companies, I think a new bow set up,

it can be very expensive. In thousands of thousand dollars plus with the whole everything is not uncommon, So I understand, you know, if you're trying it out, just getting into it, maybe look for a better price bow, maybe a kit bow, maybe a used bow. That's a great way to kind of get started. Now. One thing that I will say is that as bow hunters, bow shops are needed in

a very integral part of the archery experience. So just kind of like anything that's very custom, having a bow shop or somebody that's an expert in setting it up and getting you started is just a part of the experience. I remember the first really good bow that I got, UM, I got from a local bow shop. He set it up, we ordered it, you know, we measured my draw length. He put in the peep site. Because to work on a bow, you need a bow price. There's a lot

of things that you're gonna need to know that starting out. One, most people don't have the equipment and to most people don't have the knowledge. That's a very common thing. So I suggest you know, when you're thinking about purchasing something, it's always better to spend a little bit more, but go to a bow shop where you're going to have the help getting it set up. If you just buy a bow off of a guy on e Bay, you're

gonna need someone to set it up for you. And uh, I think that it often gets overlooked how integral bowshops are to the sport of archery and to getting people into archery as well as people that are very experienced. I don't have a lot of the equipment to even work on my own bows. I've got friends that have the stuff, so I can go over and use it or whatever. But you know, having a bowshop that knows what they're doing and can set things up for you

is really part of the archery experience as well. And I know kind of COVID slowed some of that stuff down, but it's a great way to find a bowshop near you, maybe one that has a range a league other things, because that's a really good way to get in and make sure you're getting the right stuff, getting the right knowledge. I think a lot of those people are very apt to seeing a lot of people that maybe just getting into archery and know nothing about it. So I think

that that's a really good place to start. Just understanding the basics of archery and what you're gonna need to get into it. I think puts you leaps and bounds ahead, or at least gets you pointed in the right direction. I know for a lot of people that reach out, sometimes all you need is a nudge in the right direction. And so I hope that this kind of breakdown. This is just the simplest, most basic, but it gets your mind thinking, and it's really something anybody can do. Getting

into archery is not hard. It's just there's kind of this barrier of understanding all the nuances, understanding what you might need, an understanding where you might go to get into it. But I think that the first step is just understanding this is something that I want to do. It's not hard to get into. I mean I got into it as a child by myself, with no one to show me anything, and look at me now, Mom, the top of the world. No. Um, you know, I'm hunting and and doing it and I figured it out.

But I think that if you do it the right way and take some of this advice and just kind of really put your mind and your focus on this is something I want to get into. I think that's the first step, and then going out and acquiring what you need, and then we're gonna go over over the course of the next few weeks how to kind of build that skill and go from this stage of wanting to get into it to being consistently successful. Next week is going to be archery one oh two. We're gonna

be covering everything for shooting. This is great advice for anyone starting out in archery, or really just any archer in general. We're gonna be covering things like repeatable consistency, the difference between accuracy and precision, and then some of the nuances when it comes to maintaining a bow, like

tuning your bow. That's all gonna be next week. We're gonna be getting into the nitty gritty and really the fun stuff of taking that bow out shooting being better so when you go out into the field, you have the right kind of practice and the knowledge to make a perfect shot. I also really wanted to just congratulate all the winners for my Christmas giveaway. I want to make sure that I could contact everyone and everybody's replied.

I got things sent out, but before I announced them, I just want to make sure everyone was contacted, because otherwise I was gonna pick alternate winners. So congratulations on our mug winners, Justin, Andrew, Mike, Ernest, Dakota, Seawan, just to name a few. And then we've got our our bino winner for that Looking Forward photo contest was p J Great Photo, and I did I picked quite I picked about fifteen and my favorites and then did a random draw on that. So he's getting sent a new

pair of Vortex binos. And their knife winner was Andrew. I went back found a good knife post Um pick. He actually got to design a custom Grauber knife. Turned out awesome. I'm stoked on that, so that'll be he'll have that shortly. Thank you all of you guys for listening, for playing the game. I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Um So until next week, get that bow and get ready to live life. At full draw, Catch you guys later.