Ep. 538: Foundations - Shoot Smarter, Not Harder

folks to get your start shooting this year. I made the case that you should do it now, even if the season seems like it's really far away and there are so many other things worth doing right now. I hope you listened and you're at least kicking around the idea of shooting a few airs each week or making a monthly trip to the rifle range. Because that's good and it put you ahead of your competition this season, but it's not enough. There's still room for improvement in

time for implementation of a long game plan. I know this isn't as exciting as sweet scouting tactics or I don't know something that promises big dead bucks, but think of it this way. The right shooting routine is as good as any tactic I can tell you about. Actually, it's honestly probably way more likely to put a buck on your wall than any of that other stuff. For me, it's not such a grind to get into the groove

of shooting all while thinking about white tails. This is because I get most of my procrastination out of the way when turkey season draws closer. Living in Minnesota, it's just not much fun to go outside in February to fling some arrows. I hate it. In fact, I don't know. I must be just getting old because I hate and cold unless there's a really really good reason to be cold, like I don't know, the chance of a buck walking by, or maybe the promise that a couple of roosters will

get up in front of my dogs. But talking myself into going out into the yard to bust through snow to shoot cold targets with cold fingers, that's hard. But as February gives way to March and then April threatens to show up, I forced myself to do it. Hitting turkeys with a bow is a special skill that I seem to only possess at random times, and in random seasons. Some years, I'll go for for four on gobblers with

archery tackle and I'll be flying real high. Other seasons, I'll go over four by the time I should start breaking into my coffee and snacks on opening morning. I guess you could say I'm consistently inconsistent, but I don't want to be, so I force my happy ass to go outside and get all the procrastination as the way

before turkey season. And now when turkey season ends and I really want to focus on fishing for a while instead of shooting targets and anticipation of the bow season, I'm already kind of in the swing of things, so it's not that hard. It's easy to get into a couple of sessions a week when it really becomes a habit. So that's what I do. But what about you? Did you bow hunt turkeys this spring and force yourself to

get into some level of shooting routine. If not, did I convince you last week to blow the dust off your bow and get out there? I hope so. But if not, listen again, listen to that episode, then come back to this show, A show dedicated to shooting smarter with each practice session so okay, we aren't going to advance that fast because I'm not that good and probably neither are you. Instead, let's think about a few things

that we can do to make us better. We can work on now and in the weeks coming up by focusing on first what we often do wrong with our shooting sessions. Now, to do this, I'm going to assume that your weapon is already sighted in. If it isn't, do that first. Do it with your bow, Do it with your rifle, your slug barrel, shotgun, your muzzleloader, whatever you use to shoot deer. Take the time to make sure that it is truly sighted in and not just

in a good enough category. Take care of that by shooting dots, bulls eyes, bright orange stickers on your targets, or whatever you have to in order to dial in and understand where your accuracy is really at. Square that away at short distances first, and then think about what is next. And what's next should be mixed of shooting bulls eyes and shooting targets that don't have bulls eyes on them, while thinking about gradually increasing your shooting distance.

The first point is one that I really believe in and I know I've said this a lot, and I've written about it a whole bunch, but I'm going to say it again. You need to own two targets for archery practice. I said this last week. It's important gotta have one with spots or diamonds or bulls eyes of some kind, and you've gotta have one that looks like

a deer. This is because it's nice to shoot tight groups on bulls eyes, and it's easy to shoot type groups on bulls eyes, especially if you're stretching out your effective shooting range. But dear don't have bulls eyes on their sides. They just have hair and the vague definition of muscles and bones and skeletal structure underneath. You want to be able to aim at them as well as you aim at a high contrast target face with super visible aiming points. And this goes for all you gun

hunters out there as well. While your margin for error is pretty big with a three away, bigger than it is with a bow anyway, you still want to hit deer in this sweet spot. Shooting paper targets that allow you to center your cross hairs on a series of concentric rings is great for seeing just how tight your groups can get but even when you have a rifle in your hands and you head out into the woods,

the deer won't have bulls eyes on them. Remember this might seem like an exaggeration or that I'm collecting secret payments from target companies, but I'm not. If you don't believe that, do this for me. Take your chosen weapon and just figure out how to shoot at one target face that has nice colorful bulls eyes and that in find a way to shoot at a three D target of a deer or a photo realistic print of a deer design for firearms. Shoot them at easy ranges, and

then start to back up. Pay attention to your groups on the deer targets as you stretch out the distance a little, Do they stay as tight as they do on the bull's eyes? Okay, well, keep putting on a little more distance. Eventually you'll get to a range you might consider shooting at an animal at or maybe not, but that your groups are different between the two targets.

This might not seem like much, but you also have to remember that there's going to be some performance attrition when you've got an actual buck out there in the woods and the light is fading, and there's some twigs hanging in your shooting lane, and it's the biggest buck you've ever seen all season or all year, all your life. And you'd really like to show your co workers a photo of that trophy buck in your hands, that buck you've been droning on and on and on about while

they pretended to care. This is the shot you're preparing for, not the one that occurs at noon with tons of sunlight while you're standing flat footed in your yard, or snuggle up on a shooting bench with all the time in the world and no pressure. Now, you can't really

simulate the real thing. You just can't, but you can get a kind of close closer anyway in anticipation of the real thing, so that if you do experience a little bit of attrition in your cool headedness and accuracy, you'll still do your job correctly and get to celebrate a quick kill. This is what a couple of weekly archery sessions or a monthly range session with your rifle

can help you do. Provided use the right targets. You should also consider shooting in different conditions while using everything you might use during the hunt. Now, I say that with a great big asterisk attached to it, because I know that you're not likely to suit up in your full camel. Then hang a stand in your yard to shoot from. Very few people actually do this, especially when it's like eighty degrees out, but if you do at any point of the year, you have my respect on

pure commitment alone. But we don't need to go that nuts. You should shoot at different times of the day and in different weather conditions, though. The easiest way to make a practice session a little more valuable is to shoot in low light when the mosquitoes are out. This is one of those times when you realize how big of a difference there is between aiming at a bright orange dot versus aiming at a bunch of brown that represents a dear side. Low light shooting will help you diagnose

a few issues with your gear as well. For bow hunters, this might be a peep site that is too small or doesn't come back to the eye perfectly square. It also might just be that your side pins suck and don't gather as much ambient light at the times when deer should be moving as you really need them to, or maybe just see that your rifle scope is a bit of a cheapie, and it really doesn't gather the

needed light for a clear shot in the gloaming. Maybe your scope isn't a cheapie, but it's adjustable, and you realize that while you might like to keep it set at say, I don't know six power for most hunts, when you practice in low light, you shoot better with it backed all the way out to three. This is really good stuff to figure out before a monster. Once in a lifetime, Buck steps out with five minutes of

shooting light left. Low Light shooting is also a great way to figure out where your effective range really is. But it's not just impending darkness that should get you out to shoot, because you should shoot in different weather as well. I've never really had a problem hitting during the rain, and I hunt in the rain a lot. In fact, it's the condition I like the most in the early the mid season, which will be a topic

for a later podcast. But it's also not a bad idea to throw on a rain jacket and shoot when no one else will as the skies open up. I do this a couple of times each summer, and while I feel like an idiot and I'm probably regarded as such, by my neighbors. It makes me feel like I'm putting in real effort. It also makes me keenly aware of what rain does to my site, my peep site, so that when I'm out hunting, I know I'll be fine. I want to know that, because, as I just mentioned,

I really really like hunting in the rain. In the wind is another story. I can tell I'm getting old because I get mad at the window a lot. I curse under my breath at it, and I feel a deep revulsion build up whenever I check the weather and see that the wind will be blowing past like I don't know fifteen miles truly long rifle shots bring the wind into focus real fast, but even normally acceptable shot

distances can be affected by wind. Part of this comes from what you'd expect as far as projectiles and the influence of cross wind, but part of it comes from just taking you out of the game mentally a little bit during the shot. This is something worth learning about yourself, because if you rifle hunt enough, you'll spend time out there in the wind even better. If you use shooting sticks or a tripod, you get bonus points for shooting with your actual system in the wind. That's often a

telling experience for bow hunters. Practice in the wind is a must. This is patently obvious to Western hunters who target meal deer antelope on the prairie, where the wind is always hocking and the shots are often far as or than the ones we take in the white til woods. But even at close range, wind can be trouble. It might not blow your arrow off course for a twenty yard shot, but it might blow your bow around while you're aiming. Uh not forget that it will blow your

bow around while you're aiming. I'll never forget. In two thousand and ten, sitting on a stand as a nasty weather front blew through northern Wisconsin, I was watching a melanistic dough, the only one I've ever seen, and one that I thought was a bear at first. When I glanced to my right and so a decent eight pointer haad in my way. I switched gears from that black dough to focus on the buck, and when he got

within range, I drew. But as the wind blew me and my tree and the bow around, I watched my pin go from his ass to his nose and back. I let down and panic, thinking I wasn't going to get a shot, so I drew again. He walked a little closer, and I aimed as best as I could until I hit just a moment where everything settled down so that I could shoot. I'm sure that window was only maybe like a couple of seconds, but it was

all I needed. That encounter went my way, but it easily could have gone in a lot of undesirable directions. Wind sucks, but it's just something you have to live with, so practice in it. Shoot with your quiver on and your quiver off. Like I talked about a few episodes ago, shoot close, and definitely shoot far. Shoot with your bow or your rifle or your spear or probably your air gun or whatever. But make sure you practice in the

right conditions. I also think you should practice by standing, sitting, and kneeling at least with a bow. Don't shoot off hand at deer with a gun if you can help it, please. Arrest is one of the main components to firearm accuracy, and they are easy to have with you no matter what. But bow hunters, on the other hand, should know how well they shoot while standing, sitting, and kneeling. This is easy to do during practice sessions and something that's worth

building into your routine. I tend to mix it up with some practice sessions all spent just standing flat footed and shooting for bull's eyes, but other times I sit on a chair or I kneel down and it changes the session. It also helps you figure out how to shoot better in the positions you'll probably shoot from in the field at some point. Repetition and familiarity lead to confidence, and you really want as much shooting confidence as you

can get. It's also, regardless of weapon, important to think about distance as a long game thing. Shooting long ranges all the rage and it can be good, but there are a lot of considerations to be made. The first is that it takes time. This is just like training a hunting dog. If you don't spend a year or two, which is a significant portion of a dog's life, on obedience and foundation work, you're not going to get that dog to the next level hunting wise. They need the

basics down before we get to the sexy stuff. Yet we consistently try to move them to triple blind retrees and advance hand signals as fast as possible because it's more fun. It's also generally a really bad move, and we'll come back to bite in the ass when you're hunting and you have no control over your dog, or you figure out that your hot prospect doesn't really like dummies anymore because he's had too much early exposure to bird wings. Take your time and don't start with a

hard stop on distance. You should make rules about how far you would shoot in the field, but not when you're practicing. In fact, I think everyone should try to expand their distance at the range through consistent sessions. Shooting a boy at like eighty yards it's pretty fun, and he'll tell you a hell of a lot about your setup and your form and your shot execution. The same goes for pushing the limits of your rifle out I

don't know, four hundred, five hundred yards or more. The process of getting really good close and then incrementally shooting farther in a variety of conditions will make you a well rounded killer. It will show you what your weapon is absolutely capable of and what you are absolutely capable of. It will tell you, in no one certain terms that you could shoot super far but shouldn't when you're dealing with an actual animal. And it will also make those

close shots so much easier. But again, this stuff takes time. That's why I wanted you to start shooting last week, and why I really want you to think about how you'll increase your skills by the week or by the month from here on out. So shooting highlight and shooting low light, shooting all kinds of weather conditions, shoot close, shoot far, and shoot all the distances in between. In fact,

that's something worth wrapping this episode up on. I know you've heard it before, but do you actually practice that distances that are always in increments of ten yards with your bow or fifty yards with your gun. For bow hunters, those middle distance shots, they're going to happen on the field, and practicing for them matters. As I've mentioned, I'm a single pin mover kind of guy, so I tend to just walk to different spots, take a range, reading dial

in my sight, and then shoot. This gets me into the mindset of having to think about exact distances and then dialing into them before every shot. The multi pins shooters should absolutely do this as well. If you don't practice gap or holding your forty yard pin high or your thirty yard pin low or whatever you're not preparing very well for the shots you'll actually get in the field. And for the rifle hunter, these shots help understand hold

and drop. They also get you thinking about aiming top heart or bottom lungs or whatever precision stuff, picking a spot type of stuff. They forced all of us to get into the headspace where we need to be thinking about distance, point of impact, and what we need to do to make perfect shots. And that's really the goal with all of this stuff, and it is a good one.

All right, my friends. We got through a bunch of gear and shooting episodes, and next week I'm gonna talk about something more fun, taking inventory, or more importantly, I guess I should say, taking summer deer inventory by using mineral salt, blocks, cameras or whatever you have available to you and what's legal. I'm gonna cover a whole bunch of that stuff next week, so please tune in. Well, that's all for this week, my white tail obsessed friends.

I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening and for supporting us. And if you want to get more white tail content. Head on over to the meat Eator dot com slash wired to read our latest articles, or visit our wire to Hunt YouTube channel to see our weekly how to videos.