Ep. 98: Fun Games for Archery Practice

a better hunter. Now, with archery season just around the corner, there's a lot of start dates coming up August September, and now is the time to kind of get in the repetitions, break the bow out, and get in some practice because when it comes to bow hunting, you really need to make that one shot count. If you think about it, there's all this energy difficulty just to get within bow range, and if you don't hit what you're

aiming at then it's all for not. In real hunting situation, you can encounter a ton of different obstacles, pressure, different weather during that shot. So this summer, I'm gonna give you six archery games that are going to kind of cover that gamut of what you might encounter. So when you draw back on a deer elk. The situation is not going to be new. While shooting dots and ten rings is fun, you know, if you're doing a league or something like that, it's really fun to just shoot

for scores. But I'm gonna mix it up on the range with some of my favorite archery games. But before we do that, I figured i'd share the story of a white tail hunt and an awkward shot. I really wasn't prepared for. This one takes place in northern Wyoming. I actually had an archery tag and a friend who had a ranch kind of down there run some cattle, and he's like, yeah, you can come down and uh, you've got some stand set up and hunt some white tails.

And I was like, sweet, I've actually this was like the first time I ever hunted out of a tree stand. Well, and I take that back. I'd hunted out of a tree stand before. I've never shot anything out of a tree stand, and I was like, okay, cool. So before I went down there, I was like, man, I better put up this ladder stand in the back are and I was like, man, I'm just gonna practice shooting from this stand because it was like it was foreign to me,

and I thought I don't know. I mean just I always have this mentality of like I need to practice shooting, like I'm gonna shoot. So it was like sweet. So I just put the target out there, a little three D target, went up in the ladder stand and shot quite a few rounds. It was like quite a few arrows, and I I like feeling good. I was like, sweet, Okay, I got this like pretty simple, and they're probably gonna be pretty close, so it's not really gonna be a

big difference. So anyways, I'm out there and the first day I get set up, like sitting in the tree stand, and it's like this area where they move off the feeding and they're moving into bedding, so we kind of like are cutting them off in between the bedding. So I'm sitting there and like alright, seeing nothing, and then all of a sudden, it's like the deer. Definitely, it's that time of morning, deer leaving the feed. They're moving

through these thicker areas. It's like all right, dear funneling by, and there was a lot of deer move by. I was like, this is pretty awesome. If this is if my tree stand hunting experiences were always like this, it's like a caribou migration. Under my stand, does small box you know, bucks moving And I'm like, okay, so this is early September, so there's no rutting action. It's not like I'm gonna be able to call him or anything.

You just got to be in the right spot. And so this one buck comes out and I was like, is a nice you know what I'll do it, I'll go white tail talk lingo. It was a nice tin point. I would call it a four point. That means it has brow times and four points off the main beam. I call that a four point on both sides. Uh. But just to build a picture for everybody of the white tail hunts, it's the ten point. So he's coming like right down the same trail that some other deer

didn't it. I was like, this would be the best wait till I've ever taken with a bow. And he goes off and like takes this trail on the back side of the tree and he's like going, he starts feeding like right behind I'm in this big cottonwood. I'm like, dang it, and I've got like all my stuff on.

You know, I'm sure many white tail owners have experienced this I've got this big old cotton wood and I'm like, yeah, he's behind this tree and he's on the so like I'm shoot right handed, but he's on the side where I can't really get around like the trees in the way, and me being someone that is like, yeah, he's close, I'm gonna get him, but there's gonna be no opportunity

once he walks past this. So like somehow like duck down, real quiet, get the harness around where I think I could draw back, and like, okay, I don't want my string to hit the safety harness that's into the tree. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get this the things. This harness is pretty tight, so I can kind of like lean out, and I'm like in the most awkward angle and I've got to like wrench my body around

this tree. And I'm thinking to myself, it didn't even cross my mind to practice this weird twisted around the tree shot angle, Like this is probably the closest I've ever shot a deer, And I'm thinking it's probably the hardest shot I've ever had to make. It like leaning out, completely off balance, twisted around the tree, aiming down. I picked the spot let the arrow go from perfect shot. I'm like, sweet. The deer like jumps, looks around and then goes back to feeding, and I was like, what

is going on? Did I miss that dear? No way, I missed that deer. But I was at like such a weird angle that I was like, man, maybe I just like torqu the bow weird or something happened. And I'm like watching him, and the deer's just like nothing's wrong, like huh, and he's like looking, he looks around and he just like starts walking out and he's feeding away perfectly fine, like nothing touched him. And I'm like, okay, what I can't see him that well because now he's

like behind this. So I'm leaning out the other side. I've got my binoculars and I look and I see where the arrow hit and I'm like that's perfect. It's like what happened? I cannot figure it out? And the deer's just like, no big deal. I'm thinking at any second like that that should have been that dear should have just run off and fell over dead. And he just goes back to feeding, twitching his tail all right. So I just keep watching him, watching him, and like

a few minutes later. I don't know, maybe it seemed like forever. I felt like it was forever. The deer just normal falls over stone dead, and I was like, oh, oh yeah, I think what had happened was like the arrow just zipped through him. Was so close and it just zipped right through him. It didn't hit any ribs or anything. He heard the arrow hit the ground, maybe the bogo off jumped out thirty yards and then just was like it was nothing, had no clues even shot

and then fell over. I went down. It was my best buck at that point. It was my best archery white tail buck. I was super stoked, and I remember thinking like, well, I definitely didn't practice that acrobatic shot trying to shoot around the tree. But I thought to myself, if I ever know, I'm gonna hunt from a tree stand again, and I'm definitely gonna set the target behind the tree that I'm sitting in, because that's probably the most likely option. I'm gonna have to shoot in a

really awkward position. They never come in where you want them to. So from that point on, I kind of changed my mindset to thinking, okay, just getting up in the tree stand, but just trying to kind of change my practice to the ways that I might encounter things are a more realistic ways of things go crazy when you're hunting, and I need to practice that way as well. One of my favorite parts about summertime is really just

this prepping for bow season. I mean, I definitely shoot you around, but when summer hits, it's like everything kicks into gear. I start visualizing those tags that I've got in my pocket, and I really start amping up my practice. No matter how long I've been bow hunting, hunting, whatever, there's always this kind of feeling of that awesome, excited anticipation and then that slight feeling of unpreparedness, especially and it comes like, Okay, I've got a new bow or

something that I'm trying to get ready this season. You know, I've got some great tags, And there's always those times where maybe drew a limited entry tag, and it's like this is a once in a life to that that reality of like this might be the only chance I get it something like this, or even you're planning a I don't know, uh, over the counter elk archery hunt, it's like this is my chance to be successful, or this is gonna be my hunt, and of course things

go wrong, things go right, but one thing I always don't want to happen is the thing that go wrong, be me having the perfect shot and doing something that messes it up, or getting into a situation where I did everything right. Now it's time to draw back and I can't get comfortable, I can't make the shot, there's I don't have enough type. Something goes wrong and it's like, well, it was maybe something that I could have fixed in my preparedness during the summer. So I really like to

just kind of start shooting. I mean during the summertime, I really ramp it up, and it's fun to just kind of create ways that my shooting really mimics my hunting scenarios. This year, I've got I actually got pretty lucky and drew a tag in New Mexico for ELK. I got a deer tag in my home state in Nevada.

I also kind of picked up a couple of different over the counter tags not knowing what was going to go on, but I have a general Montana tag and then ended up getting a later season Idaho General deer tag and then California General deer tag. So my my season is pretty full up. Now. If Canada opens its borders, man, I might actually be on a sheep hunt of a lifetime, and who knows if I would ever get the same

kind of opportunity again. So time to put in the work, put in the practice, and do what I do every summer, just like get out there and have fun shoot my bow, but also do a lot of training that's very similar to what I might encounter in the field. You know. It's like one of those things that you can incorporate it into camping trips, you can incorporate it in to a lot of different things that you do, but also

you know, just your day to day practice. There's a lot of different games and other things that I like to do, especially when it comes to like with friends or even out on the range. Maybe you've got a three D league where you live, and it's like that's

your way of getting ready, getting prepared. You can shoot at some three D targets or going to one of these events, just a little bit of a different way to kind of play the score game, to to kind of mimic a more realistic hunting scenario than just shooting at foam, shooting at dots or some tactics that kind of build on that idea of there's pressure or you've got to make that one arrow count. This first game I like to call kill, wound, or miss. This is

done with a three D target. So whether you've got your own, or you're shooting it like an event, or maybe you've got like a close by league that does like three D shoots every Thursday or something like that. This is a really fun game because the design of this game is the practice shooting it various three D target positions now and not shooting necessarily right behind the shoulders. So there's the tendering on a standard scoring target or whatever,

but that's not always where you should be aiming. So what this game is trying to do is really gets you thinking about the body position of the animal, how you should aim in a field situation, and it's to get you to think about hunting or think about shooting for hunting. This is also a really good game to

play for like angled animals. So if I've got my three D target, I can do this in my backyard or wherever to I just reposition the target in a different angle so I might have a quartering to you I might have a full broadside, I might have a quartering the way try to get angles that are very realistic to a hunting scenario, and you think like, oh, yeah, well I just always shoot right behind the shoulder, but that's not always the case. You got to think about

the body position in the vitals of the animal. And this game really kind of benefits that thought process that gets you in that mindset of thinking hunting, thinking shooting, and practicing like you will when you're out in the field. So when that dear steps out, he's walking broadside and he takes one step to the right as he's walking away, and now he's quartering away. You had that pin right

on the corner of the shoulder. Now you adjust and move back because if you shoot for that animal broadside, it's not gonna be is lethal of a shot as if you shot further back as he's quartering away. So this game is going to kind of play to that. And how it works is you get a score, so you can you can choose however you guys want to score.

You can do this with friends, or if you want to just do it on your own, maybe take twenty arrows, twenty shots and then you kind of tally up your score throughout the summer, keep track and track your progress that way, just to kind of pick the whatever scoring system you want to do. But what it's supposed to do is reward a point for a kill, negative point for a wound, and you can decide whether a zero

or a negative point for a miss. So kind of the thinking behind it is you're rewarded for a kill, you're penalized for wounding an animal because that's the worst possible scenario, and then you're definitely bummed about a miss. So one of the ways that'll do it is like a one score for a kill, a negative one for

a wound, or zero for a miss. Another great way to do it is even add more emphasis on how bad the wound is, so you've got one point for a kill, negative two points for wound, negative one point for a miss. So if you're doing this with friends, what you'll do everyone will line up to the target. You'll shoot the target, but you'll shoot the target like you're trying to kill it, like there's a real animal, not you're you're completely ignoring where the scoring rings are

on that dear. So if it's quartering away you're gonna think, okay, where is the best spot for this arrow to go through the vital. So on a quartering way shot, obviously you're gonna be aiming further back than you would wherever that ten ring is on that shot. If you're shooting from above, you know, maybe you're gonna be You've got to steep downhill angle. You just got to think about how that arrow is traveling through the vitals. Now everyone will go to the the target and then you'll analyze

your shot. Some three D targets. I've got this one here. It's a it's actually pretty cheap. Is a solid deal. Um what is it a Rheinhardt backyard buck or something like that. It's like a little white tail. The thing I like about this one of those, on the back side of the vital that I shoot at, there's actually like this foam. Um. It's got like the vitals foamed out in there, so you can see like, oh, here's

the heart, here's the lungs. Whatever. But now that I've shot it enough, my tips start poking through and it's sweet because you can see like, okay, here you can look at the backside and say this is the better shot. This went straight through the center of the lungs. This went through the heart, this did this, Oh, this was the liver. Whatever. But what everyone will do, you'll gather up at the target and you'll say, like, okay, you'll analyze it and say, yeah, this is the better shot.

If I was shooting a deer to kill a deer, this is where I was shooting. Yeah, I was quartering too, so I put it further forward. I tried to get on the inside of that shoulder. That went straight through the vitals that way. Oh, looks like this guy shot it behind the shoulder. Yeah, still would kill it, you know, but it's not as good of a shot. It's more of like a liver shot, whereas this is the better shot.

And then man, this other guy he shot way too far back or hit it high, hit it in the shoulder, whatever, that's a wound. We're gonna negate points for that, and just kind of a consensus. And it's more along the lines of just really getting your mind thinking about shot placement.

So when you're out hunting, I think that's one problem that a lot of people have their practice all summer shooting at that foam target shooting three D s they're like, yeah, I'm dialed in, and they're always aiming for that spot right behind the shoulder. But that's not always the optimal spot. It will probably work in many cases, but depending on

the animal position. You want to really start getting your mind thinking about, Okay, I'm shooting downhill, I'm shooting uphill, I'm shooting at a quartering downhill uphill, like I'm really trying to find the optimal, perfect shot to make a perfect, quick, clean kill on this animal, and get your mind thinking in that realm, not just the realm of Okay, I'm just shooting for that ten ring, shooting for that ten ring, because when it comes hunting time, you want that practice

to be so ingrained in you that when that animal moves in a different position or whatever you're you're already triggered in your mind to thinking that's the right angle, that's the right shot, that's right aim letter rip. The next game is one that I like to call one arrow practice. So if you think about a hunting scenario, you go out there, you're hunting all week, right, You've just hiked however many miles, you've crawled over countless rocks, maybe got a couple of cactuses in your knee. Who

knows what man you've just been. You've been living off dehydrated meals. You've been you've been grinding, and now you've stocked in your forty yards from a buck and you get one shot you might get. You're working your butt off, traveling thousands of miles maybe for that one shot. Now, when you go out in your backyard and you practice,

you get as many shots as you want. Your first shot might be perfect, it might be a little off, and now you're gonna shoot a group, and then at the end of your shooting session, you're gonna be like, yeah, man, I shot great today because you shot a hundred arrows. So this is kind of really trying to account for that cold bore type shot you get a one and done. So imagine imagine archery practice where you drive out like, let's say you can't even shoot in your backyard. You

gotta drive somewhere. You gotta drive out to some public land. Maybe you've got to drive to an archery range. Maybe it takes you ten fifteen minutes. Whatever, you gotta drive out there. You gotta take your target out of the truck. You gotta go set it up, and then you get one shot from whatever range you know, maybe it's a forty yard downhill shot, maybe it's a fifty yard flat

broadside shot, maybe it's a slightly quartering away shot. And you can kind of incorporate the kill wound miss type strategy to this of like, Okay, I'm shooting for not necessarily the perfect place where the target says to shoot, but based on how the target set up. Now you get one shot, and after that one shot, you've got to live with the shot till tomorrow, till the next day, till the other time. You go out and you gotta pack it back up and drive back home thinking about, man,

I really I killed that deer. That was perfect or that could have been better, and then you think about it and then you can go home. You can do whatever, you know, if you need more practice or what have you. But the point is being like, like you're putting an effort, you're putting in time. You want to be practicing with that one arrow mentality. It's like you're gonna get one shot and you need to make that one shot count.

There's a lot more pressure on that one arrow to say, yeah, I don't get to shoot a group here today, I just get to shoot one arrow at that target. I'll do that quite often. I'll pick a few days and I'll say this is my one arrow day. I'm not shooting any more than one arrow today, and I'm gonna whatever. I'm gonna randomize that shot. I'm gonna make it very realistic to hunting scenarios what I like to do. And

then I go out and I take that shot. And if that shot sucked, man, that's very indicative of a hunting scenario. That's very indicative of like, this is exactly what I'm going to encounter in the field. And so it puts a lot more pressure, a lot more practice, a lot more focus on that single arrow because I'll tell you what, There's been times where I was like, Okay, I carry the target all the way up the hill.

I'm gonna make this like off the cliff shot and I shoot and it's not where I want it to be. And then I got to think about that, and I'm like, man, everything in me wants to shoot one more arrow at it and be like nope, okay, I redo. But my mom, you know, because once you do that, once you correct it and redo it. Your mind's like, okay, that was good. But I like to just leave it at that one arrow and say it was either good or it was bad.

You don't get any more redos, And that mentality of building your mind like that really helps you when you go into the field and you might only get one shot. Now, this third game is a game that probably everybody knows. It's a game of horse. I like to play this game, especially when shooting with friends, because what it does is it it really creates these shots where it's like very I would say, like more realistic to hunting scenarios because

you're in an awkward position. You're probably shooting through or over or under something, and you're making the shot more difficult. You're trying to make the shot so difficult that somebody else isn't going to be able to shoot it as well. So the way that I play this game, just like you play a horse with basketball. First persons up, you know, okay, cool, they call the shot. Okay, it's a one knee up forty yard shot. You gotta shoot under this limb, and

it's the closest one to the best kill zone. If you've got like a scoring target, you could even do it where it's like tendering type shots, so tendering twelve ring standard three D scoring, or you could even do it on a block closest one to the bull's eye. Whatever. But the point of this is to get those awkward shot positions, to kind of think on your feet and do things different, mix it up where it's not just the static backyard flat shooting a spot, shooting a spot,

shooting it spots. That's great, and it's really good to have that knowledge and comfort with your bow and shooting consistently like that is good. But when you go into the field, I like to practice like I'm gonna hunt. So this game is it's fun. It's something really fun to do. You can I picture it like grilling up some elk burs in the backyard. We've got the target and now we're playing a game of archery horse where

you're getting some pretty crazy shots. It's like, hey, we're our legs are here, we're leaning back out around this tree, or you're shooting through these limbs, or you're doing something and it's a really fun way to get in a lot of realistic, real life practice. Alright, So the fourth game I call this the perfect run game, and this is a good one. Like if you just have you know, spot target or whatever, a block a reinhardt, you know,

just like a bag target doesn't really matter. What this is is this game is designed to kind of put emphasis on making every shot count and there's consequences if you don't make that shot count. So the way that I play, you can you can decide however many arrows you want, and this is a really fun game to play, Like if it's just in your backyard, You've got some backyard practice to kind of spice it up a bit. So it's not just shooting groups, shooting groups shooting groups.

This is one that you can do alone, or you can do against someone. I kind of like the little competition aspect of it as well. Or you guys, could you know, you can call a friend up and be like, hey, uh you they can do it in their backyard, you can do it in your backyard. You can see how many tries it takes you to run it run the course. So the way this works is you either start out you can say three to five arrows. Five arrows is going to be more difficult. Three arrows is going to

be a little bit easier. And what you do is you start at a close range and you pick a final distance. So let's say the final distance is gonna be fifty yards, and I'm running it with three arrows. So what I do is you start at your closest pin. Let's say it's twenty yards. So I start twenty yards, and you have to shoot the spots. So all three arrows have to be in the circle of the target. So like three different spots. I generally don't shoot at the same one. So I picked three different um spots

on the target. Like imagine a block target. It's got the side that's got I don't know whatever circles on it. So I picked three circles top left, top, right, center, and every arrow has to be within the circle. At some point you can decide how you count it whatever I mean, I generally do it like scoring system. As long as it breaks the line, it's good. So if you let's say you're running three arrows, boom boom boom, perfect shot. Okay, now you run it back. So we

started twenty Now we're going. Now we're at thirty. We shoot, okay, perfect, we go pick up our arrows. Now we go to thirty five. Let's say we shot one, we shot two. Now our third one is out of that that circle. Now we got to start back over. We start back at twenty yards and we try to walk our way all the way out to fifty yards running that perfect run. Sometimes that can take you. I mean, you might run it and your first chance try. And that's what you want.

You want to be able to just like make every shot count and know that there's consequences. So when you get out to forty five yards and you're like, okay, I'm almost there, I've got three more arrows, and you shoot and you miss one at forty five, Now you've got to start that course over. Um, you gotta start back at twenty. And you can do it in different increments, you know, depending on how much time you have. You can go every ten yards, you can go every five yards,

you can bust it out to further distances. And it's a fun way to kind of age your progress and say, okay, well it took me, I I messed up five times, I had to redo it, or I got to this one. And it gives you a good gauge but also kind of gets you thinking of like there's that perfect run and you're just trying for that really consistent shot after shot, picking that spot and being able to make the shot.

And then it also kind of adds, even when you're by yourself, a little bit of that angst of like man, something that you can kind of get in your own head, like man, I'm at fifty five yards, I've run this thing perfect, I'm almost whatever, And you can kind of start getting your own personal records and just it's a

good way to record your progress. And it's a fun game to play, something that I play a lot when I'm shooting it, like spot targets or block targets, especially if I've got like a good flat area where i can go out to some distance or all I have is flat, like you don't have like a lot of other options. It's a really fun one to play. Now if you don't have as much room, maybe you can only shoot so far in your backyard. You can do the same thing, but just increase the difficulty by increasing

the number arrows. Start closer and then keep moving back. It doesn't necessarily matter how far you're going. It's just to try to build up consistency. And it's also a really fun game to play to just kind of be like, okay, you get so far, and you can kind of track your progress. And there's also one that you can do with friends or with friends that are in different areas, like your your buddy could live completely across the country.

But every day you can say, hey, al right, here's how many here, here's how long it took me, or here's how far I got. So you set yourself up twenty minute time where I can shoot for twenty minutes. Okay, here's how far I got to walk out running it perfect, or that's my last one or whatever. Number five. This is probably my least well, I don't know if it's my least favorite game. It's a tough game, but it's the no range finder game. It's like three D targets, uh,

without using the range finder. And I know a lot of people are like, well, you have your range finder hunting, and that is true, but a lot of stuff happens when you're at full draw. Animals bounce out, or there's times where a man I've I've raised up clicked on the deer. I'm like, okay, it says it's twenty yards, it looks further than that, and it was catching the

brush in between. So this is a really good game to play because it's difficult and it puts a lot of pressure on not only guessing but making a good shot. The way that I can I'll do it is either at like a league or a three D kind of set up. Of course, you could just run that thing

with your friends or whatever without range finders. A lot of competitions actually do it that way, but I think a lot of people now like they trust the range finders so much that people just like, I'm just not going to do that because it's a good way to

break arrows. Now, another way that I do this, if I nodded a three D range or anything like that, is I've got like a you can do it either by roving, so you're just like walking through the woods if you're in an area has some softer I get like a plastic rubber blunt tip, screw that in and shoot pine cones and other stuff. Or another way that I found doing it, there's these little target balls that

you can throw, So I'll throw the ball. You can throw the balls out, you can roll them down the hill, rolling targets or whatever, pick them up, or you're like sometimes I'll roll the target down the hill, um or throw it out, shoot it, pick up the arrow. Then just kind of like try not to pay attention and walk out a certain distance or pick a spot like it's always better instead of walking to the target, like

pick three spots. You put the target out, then you've got like, oh, I've got this spot over here up on the hill. I've got the spot down here, So you can go to the spots before you actually go pick up your other arrows. That's another great way to

do it. Or just with any target, you set out three D target and then just pick some spots ahead of time, like Okay, I'm gonna go up there, there and there, and then don't range it, don't count it, do like a walk around so you don't know how far it is, and then just let your eyes and everything kind of adjust to this is how far it is, guess it, shoot it and see if you're right. Um. It's a really it's really good practice for those kind of hunting scenarios where you're you might be moving through,

especially still hunting man. You're moving through and there's a deer, it's like, okay, how far is you? Because the difference between may be putting an arrow on, ranging it, putting the rangefinder down, drawing back, settling in that animals gone. There's many times where I might be still hunting through some timber, or I'm stalking in, I've got a narrow knocked, I'm stalking in and that deer stands up and it's like, okay, action time. I know that if I range it, I

got to decide what what would be better. Would I rather not get a shot at this deer because I'm messing around with my range finder, or would I'd rather get a shot and potentially mis range. But the best case scenario is I would rather have been well practiced, not have to worry about it, draw back and shoot the deer and be successful. And that's what happens most of the time. So, um, that's a really that's a

really good game to play. I know I do that a lot too, just just in the summertime for fun. I take my trad bow out. It's a good way to just kind of gauge, like build that confidence with more instinctive shooting. But um, it's also I think by doing that a lot more, it's helped with whatever bow I have it doesn't really matter. It's just helped my gauging the distance and letting my brain just decide, Okay,

that's how far it is. I've talked about that in the past, but it's definitely a good tactic and a good skill to have to be a competent archery hunter. Um kind of picking up some of those old school skills and practicing those things that I think people don't really talk about as much anymore. So it's a it's a really good game, and it's a difficult game, but it's definitely beneficial in the long run. Now, this last game,

game number six. We're gonna call this game knockout, and it's just like you might have played in Pe on the basketball court. It's a good pressure game. It's a fun one with friends, especially during the summer. Get some friends together, get your bows out and play this knockout game. It's a good game. You don't have to have a three D target, or you can't have a three D target. You're pretty much center of the bulls eye or whatever. The not center of the bulls eye, but just within

whatever your target is. So maybe it's hey kill zone on a deer three D target. Maybe it's the white spot on a block target. Maybe it's the spot on a bag target. Whatever, you pick your range. You line up. The guy behind has to outshoot the guy in front of him. So it's a little bit different because you

can do it a couple different ways. You can line up like side by side, and it's like, okay, maybe you get two arrows, so the first guy can shoot if he hits the bull, then the next guy shoots hits the bull whatever, and once that person misses, the person behind him has to shoot it before they shoot it. So they've got two arrows. You line up side by side,

the first person shoots. After that first person shoots, the next person can then immediately shoot if they missed the center of the whatever needed to be to move on. So let's just call it like, uh, four inch circle. Okay, we're at thirty yards. We've got a four inch circle. The first person shoots, hits the four inch circle. Next person shoots, hits the four inch circle, third person shoots. You know, you kind of start rotating in positions. Next

person shoots misses the four inch circle. The person that's shooting after them has to shoot that four inch circle before they get another arrow in it. Once that happens, then they're knocked out, and then you go through until there's only two guys going head to head, and it's kind of like whoever can shoot the most consistent wins. It's a really fun game to play. It's awesome because it adds a little bit of pressure, a little bit

of excitement. It's a good game to just kind of gather up some friends, enjoy the summer, talk about your tags, talk about your hunt plans, and all prepare to be successful and get better with your bows and build up that pressure of like, yeah, when you're in a hunting scenario, pressure happens. There's a lot more pressure obviously than backyard knockout.

But it's a good way to kind of have to think fast, to kind of get under the pressure of shooting around people and building that something similar where you've got an excitement level, you're trying to do something and you've got a bow in your hand and a target that you need to be precise on. I hope this gets some people excited, get them out with their bows. You know, maybe you've got an archery tag coming up.

Think about these ways of practicing that are a little bit different that kind of play towards something you might encounter. Just as kind of like a last thought, it's really good to do these as well in inclement weather, in wind, in rain, um, any of these times you can go

out and practice in some kind of elements. Man, that's really good practice, and it's really good to kind of add those same types of um, you know, precision ideas and goals and whatever when there's kind of inclement weather, wind, other things unfortunate. Where I practice, it's always windy, so like, man, I don't even know how to shoot when it's calm. But um, it's really good ways to practice and get

you out there. Maybe you don't have an archery tag and you're just thinking about getting into bow hunting or whatever. These are fun games to play, good ways to kind of keep archery fun and also kind of build up those skills for when you do go out in the field and hunt. I think one of the fun things about archery about bow hunting is just the fact that you can enjoy it and like go out and have

fun shooting. I mean, archery is a great on its own, um it but doesn't even compare to bow hunting, but it is really fun. So you can do these kind of fun things in the summer when you're out camping, when you're hanging out with friends, or even just throughout your backyard every day or however often you can shoot just different ways to mix it up and really try to match some of the things that you might encounter into the field. Speaking of archery hunting, I actually am

gonna be at the Pope and Young Club Convention. It's gonna be in Reno, Nevada this year. I know a lot of like hunting shows and other things have been canceled because of COVID, so it's been a while since any of us have been to anything. But if you want to check that out, I'll be there Wednesday, July four at the Pint Night kick off, so you can find me there. And then I've also got a live

Q and A Friday the sixteenth. I think it's um it's tentative on the time, but I think it's like around three pm something like that, so it will be very similar to the Q and A S I do on this podcast. If you enjoy that or have a question and you can make it to Reno, sweet check that out. I'll be there I'm not super tick, said be, but it would be pretty cool if I could do my podcast Q and A at that life event. I don't know, that just popped in my head. Maybe I'll

see if I can make that happen. That'd be cool. Uh. So I'd be stoked to talk with you guys, and uh, if you see me there, come say hi. I'm pretty relatable. Love just talking hunting and the Q and A is a really good way to kind of talk about some tactics and some other things if anybody has questions, So if you can make it to that, sweet and then on the vein of Q and A, uh start sending your questions because we're gonna be having a Q and

A here coming up pretty soon. But next week I'm gonna be doing a podcast on this idea of butchering with limited space. So it's like you've you've gone out, you're successful, but maybe you who know, it's like maybe you've got very limited space at your house. Maybe I've talked to people it's like, hey man, I live in an apartment, or I've got roommates and we don't really have anywhere to hang ad or like what do I do? So just an idea of how to kind of butcher

with limited space and what I do. There's been many times where I've like legitimately butchered a couple of deer in a hotel room. It's like, it sounds horrible, but it's yeah. I mean, or like at camp or in the back of my truck out and somewhere just like because I didn't have time or I didn't have like adequate space. So kind of this idea of butchering with limited space and some really good tips and tactics to

help you out with that. So until next week, keep shooting and hopefully by this fall you'll be cutting the distance. Oh it's starting. It's starting to feel good, all right, See you guys,