Ep 551: Randy Ulmer’s Archery Masterclass

and today we're kicking off Shooting Month. All this month of July, we're gonna be chatting with the best bow hunters and shooters in the world about different ways to improve our accuracy and effectiveness, both with a bow and with a firearm, all with the goal of making this next season are very best. Today, no more mrs, no more shank shots or wounded deer. I'm sick of it. I bet you're sick of it too. This is gonna be the year that we can all take a significant

step towards becoming a better shot than ever before. That's my goal, and today we're gonna kick things off in about the best possible way that I can think of. With Randy Almer. He's on the show of Me and Tony today. If you're not familiar with Randy, he is a long time outdoor writer and television personality. He's a world champion ternment archer and one of the very most regarded and most successful bow hunters in the country, if

if not the world. He's truly one of the best has ever been and I'm thrilled he was willing to join us today to dive deep into all things archery. Today's episode it's it's really a masterclass, I gotta say for taking your archery skills to the next level. We cover some of the most important gear upgrades to improve your accuracy, and whether or not gear is really all that important these days when it comes to accuracy. We

cover uh target panic, we cover buck fever. We talked about the keys to improving your archery form, Randy's step by step shot process, a series of in depth instructions for creating a perfect archery practice regiment, and a whole lot more. I mean, this is, without a doubt, one of the very best podcasts we've ever done about archery and the skills necessary to become a more effective bow hunn So sit back, and get ready to be inspired to grab that bowl and hit the range, because that's

at least what it did to me. I mean, I was fired up to get out there and do some shooting. So I hope you feel the same way and hope you enjoy this one. Here we go all right here with me and Tony on the line, we have the one and only Randy Almer. Randy, thanks for being on the show. Hell, thanks for having me. We are we're excited for this one. We've got a new series kick and off this month. It's all about shooting, all about taking our you know, skill set with a bow or

a firearm to that next level. And I don't think there's anyone else we could kick this off that would be better at this to help us talk about these topics than you, Randy. So the pressure is on though, because you're you're leading us off. Can you can you? Can you care that? Okay? From everything I've seen of yours, read of yours, heard of yours, I don't think we're

we're gonna be in trouble of of missing expectations. But I gotta ask you this, Randy, I kind of want to start with a low point with a missed expectation. This is what I'm curious about. Can you remember the

course of your illustrious hunting and archery career. Is there any moment in your past that you can remember some kind of breaking point or some kind of fork in the road low moment where you said to yourself, I gotta fix this, or I gotta get better at this, or I got to crank this up to a new level when it comes to your shooting, has there ever been that moment where you had that conversation, well, how many hours do we have? Yes? Always? It's the thing

um about archery. It's a lot like golf. You can never perfected and and you have always got to be working on on issues that you have. Um. And if if anyone ever tells you, any professional archer or any really good shot tells you that they don't have any issues, uh, they're lying here because um, it's it's a constant, constant struggle. Yeah.

Can you can you think of any specific example or story of one of those moments that you could could share with us both like what that what that incident or moment was that kind of caught you or shook you? And then what did to try to address it. Is there anything that stands out over there, bed? Um, I'll

just I'll just start with the most recent one. Last year. Um, I had to have last spring, not this this spring, but the spring before two thousand twenty one, I had to have cataract surgery and they didn't get my eyes quite right, and my right eye was the worst. Well. I Uh, my first hunt was a deer hunt in Colorado in the high country, and we backpacked in about seven miles and uh, this deer lived in the in in in cliffs like goat cliffs and just about the

toughest country you could imagine. And I had snuck up on this deer several times, uh, you know, within a couple hundred yards, and he was just never in a place where I could get up through the cliffs or the wind wasn't right. About the fourth day, I was able to get into position and I had a good shot. It was fifty yard broadside shot, and I pulled back my bow and was pretty steady, and I shot well, I missed the buck about twenty to the left and I had and he ran off, obviously, and I had

absolutely no idea what had happened. So I thought you know, maybe my arrow had come off the arrow rest, maybe my arrow was banned something. I didn't think much about it other than I was very disappointed. Um. It was the last night that we could the last day we could stay, and I had to have I had to go back to to Arizona to to get some things done and the hike out. We we got out about three o'clock in the morning, and I had to drive home that night. And I just thought about it, thought

about it, thought about it. Couldn't think why I missed. Um, Sometimes things just go wrong and you really don't know why. Well, fast forward, UM, I had an Arizona elk tag and there had been a bull that I knew about, uh for a couple of years in the unit. I got drawn and we couldn't find the bull, and my son and I climbed up to the top this giant mountain where we could last for three or four miles in

every direction, and we finally found the bull. Long story short, about three or four days later, I was able to get on the bull. And again it was a is that easy shot? Well it should have been an easy shot. It was forty forty yards shot broadside. He didn't know I was there. And I shot, and I missed him about fifteen ft to the left, and he ran off, and all of a sudden, I thought, wow, this something's

going on. Well, what I did not realize is, in the heat of the moment, I practiced all summer with my bad right eye, and and and I was able to shoot. But what I didn't realize is both of these shots were in low light. Uh. And what I didn't realize is in the heat of the moment, my left eye had taken over and I was actually sighting with my left eye, and that's why I had missed fifteen ft to the left. And I'm sitting there, and

I actually sat on the ground. It was. It was raining in Arizona, and I was sitting on the ground, and all of a sudden it dawned on me what had happened. And so I I always keep some duct tape on my walking sticks, and so I underrolled some of the duct tape. I made a little patch that I attached to my hat for my left eye so that when I drew back, um, I couldn't see through my left eye when I was at full draw, and it blocked my left eyes vision and the bull didn't

know really what happened. It was lighting and raining when I shot, and he just ran off. And so I thought I knew which group of trees he was in, uh, several hundred yards away. So I waited there and and that later that evening, Um, I heard him bugle, and I snuck in. And I wasn't a hundred percent sure that it was my eyes, but I was pretty sure.

But anyway, I snuck in as as absolutely close as I could, while I ended up sneaking into about ten yards and uh, and I and I shot him, and and uh it turned out that that was what the issue was. So um, yeah, you're kind of always trying to figure out what what's going wrong and why and and with our archery, archery, just like golf, there's just so many mental and physical as well as equipment issues

that it's just a constant battle. So so we're Randy Kent on that at first encounter with that high country buck, when you missed that far or missed by that much, I'm assuming you went and shot, and when you shot, you know, target practice, you didn't have that adrenaline going and your eye didn't you know, your non dominant. I didn't take over. So did you just kind of get to a point where You're like, this had to be just an anomaly with with my gear because I had

been literally climbing through cliffs and and brush. There's a lot of brush in the cliffs, and I've been dragging my bow, plus I had backpacked it in um So you know, I thought, what, you know, maybe the air arrest, maybe the maybe what I really thought happened is that the arrow had had not come up with the air arrest because I missed by so far, and so you know, you kind of have to just let it go otherwise you know it's going to affect your confidence on the

next shot. So yeah, I shot. I shot a lot between the deer season and the elk season, and ever had an issue because you know, I'm one of those fair weather practicers. I always practice when I'm hunting in the middle of the day, when you know there's plenty of sunshine and and and you know it's not raining, nothing's going wrong, and and and so when I practiced in the middle day, I was just fine. I was completely confident until I missed that out at fifteen feet

or missed him by fifteen feet at forty yards. Then I knew something was wrong. So just ballparking fourth quick? How many big game animals heavy shot with archery tackle brandy? Oh boy, I have no idea. I've been hunting for forty five years with the bow, so I don't know

a couple right, Oh yeah, yeah. And yet you still had a situation where shooting, you know, no pressure target practice, you were dead on, and then something happened to you in the excitement of the moment where you changed you know, you changed your shot process in a way that probably be like if we would have told you that beforehand, you'd be like, no way would I do that. But it still happens, No, exactly. And and the thing is is is in the heat of the moment is when

everything goes wrong. Um And And that's why I kind of changed the subject a little bit. That's why I discourage people from shooting long distant shots, because you'll get a false sense of confidence at the range or in your backyard. Um. I I like to tell people that. And and and for me personally, I think my effective range in the field in in true hunting conditions, especially in the West, may not be true so much for

white til hunters, but for hunting in the west. Um, in true hunting conditions where you're hanging from the side of a mountain, the winds blow and could be raining, and your adrenaline is all kicked up. I think your effective range is about half what it is at the shooting ranger in your backyard, so I can insistently hit you know, uh, vitals of a deer hundred twenty yards. Well that's with you know, with with no win, no nothing,

sitting in my backyard, warmed up, very comfortable. Um. And but I will not shoot um at game past sixty yards.

That's my dead stop limit. Yeah, I think this is a This is a really good place to start with with a lot of what I was wondering about, because I think a lot of folks, you know, coming into the new year or maybe even they'll have this kind of moment in season, but they'll have this realization like I've got a problem or I'm not doing this well enough, or something's not quite right, or I know I can

do better. But that next step of figuring out, like what's the thing I need to do to get better is a lot harder, Like how you diagnose what your problem is, like what your issue is, or where your opportunities for improvement are so randy, like what's your what's either your process or your recommendation for someone else to go about trying to diagnose, like what your issue is or what your weak spots are so that then you

can start addressing them. How do you figure that problem out? Well, I've had just about every problem there is to have, so most of the time I've had the issue before, just because I've been doing it so long. But the the you end up having a lot more problems early on in your archery career than you do later because later you've kind of figured most things out and and when things start going wrong, you oh, I've seen this before.

But what I really encourage UM beginners to do is if they're having a problem, and if you live in a place that you know it's big enough or it has somebody that that can coach you, most of the time they'll be able to figure out your problem very very quickly. And that's one of the reluctance but hunters have is to get somebody to actually watch them or

coach them. UM and most bow hunters, most people that are not target shooters are not three D shooters that just primarily bow hunt have a lot of issues that they don't even know they have. And that's the other thing I'll say is you have to be honest with yourself, um, and once you've addressed the problem, be honest with yourself and and do what you actually need to do to make it better. And while we're on that, the main problem most people have is is not having a surprise release.

They punched the release, or they have target panic. And if you punch the release or you have target panic. And just so some of the listeners that don't know what target panic is is, oh, it's a whole plethora of conditions. It's it's a lot of different psychological conditions kind of placed under one roof. And the most common, uh, the most common manifestation of target panic is that you can't put the pin on the spot or the place you want to hit on a deer and squeeze the trigger.

You have to kind of do a fly by or a drive by shooting. Um. And then punching the trigger is something that most people have that are bonners that don't realize And the problem with this is just like my situation. The more stressful, the more high pressure the situation is, the more likely that those conditions are going

to manifest themselves. And that's why people get so frustrated, because you know, they can sit and and they can get in their tree stand and they can hit at deer sized vitals over and over and over again at thirty or forty yards in practice, but when a deer comes uh comes by, the intense pressure will cause there they're you know, they're subconscious issues to manifest themselves. So the main thing is get somebody to help you. And the second is is just um, try to stay focused

when you're making that important shot. Otherwise again on those important shots where your problems are going to manifest themselves. Randy, do you think when you talk about this, you know, there's obvious benefits to shooting with somebody who really knows what they're doing, watching you for your form and your execution. But you know, most people when they're sitting up in a tree stand and they shoot out a buck, you know nobody's watching. And you know you said something a

little bit ago about being really honest with yourself. Do you think a lot of people are a little bit too dismissive of their misses and don't really reverse engineer them in the field to try to figure out what actually went wrong, because you know how it is. You hear the same excuses over and over. You the wrong pin, hit a twig, you know, jump to string, whatever. But we know that a lot of it is just a

mental meltdown. Yeah, and n tell you you know. And I discovered this when I started competing years and years ago. Is um. I found that a lot of my competitors and myself originally, uh had issues. And it's you get into this comfort, You get into this comfortable groove where you like doing things the same way. And you know, and again you liken to any sport. If you have a bad swing in baseball, um, you have to fix

that swing if you're gonna be a great baseball player. Um. And again, those things manifest themselves, those bad problems to manifest themselves, always under under stressful conditions. So you just you have to be honest with yourself and say, oh, this is my problem. I've got to figure out a solution. And you have to take it all the way back to the source of the problem before you can truly fix it. And And one of the things I did when I was competing so much is I would write

down my problem. Okay, let's say it's punching the trigger um, and then I would say, Okay, here's what I'm gonna do during this practice session. I'm going to focus completely on this practice session on fixing that problem. And what most people do when they practice as they just go

out and fling arrows and they don't actually work on anything. UM. In order to get better, you have to work on the things that you have issues with, and that's where a coach comes in because they'll identify your problems and they'll give you a program to fix it. And most individuals just won't go through that multi step process to

solve their issues. So if I I might be wrong on this, but if I had to break down the different types of problems that might be impacting our archery accuracy, I feel like there's a bucket that could be you know, process or form related. There could be a bucket that could be like the mental game target panic, punching the trigger, like that melted mental meltdown stuff Tony mentioned, and then the other bucket might be just like your gear and

your setup and getting that stuff right or wrong. Um, I want to address all three, but since you brought it up as the most common, let's start with the mental side, the target panic side. Um, that's something that I personally have been dealing with. And this year I'm trying to break everything down and rebuild again to really finally not put a band aid on it, but but but replace the but the full organ transplant new thing

that's going to finally break through this barrier' head. Uh. When you hear about somebody having those problems, in my case, it's rushing the shot and like as soon as the pens on the vitals, man, it's it's usually gone that the arrow is usually sent. So that's what I've been dealing with. And like you mentioned, there's a lot of

different ways it's manifest. But when you talk to somebody who's having problems with that target panic, rushing the shot, punching the trigger, whatever it might be, once you recognize that's the issue, this is, this has been diagnosed. Okay, now now what what's what do you do or what do you recommend someone do to start addressing that? Both you know what the simple fixes, and then how do you actually practice that enough or do it enough that

it becomes part of your being well. First of all, yeah, it's it's it's like having a disease and you really need a doctor to help you get rid of that disease, because, um, you're going to if you don't know how to fix the disease, you're gonna be putting duct tape and chewing gum and bathing wire on it. And it's not ever going to be fixed. You have to go all the way to the route of the psychological problem and and

almost all of the sleeves can be UM. All the things you mentioned are kind of lumped under target panicum, because really the complete lack of target panic would be being able to put your pen on the spot you want to hit and squeezing the trigger and having a surprise release. So if you can't do that, I'll just put that all under the umbrella of target panic and target plant panic. Uh. There's many different methods people have used or tried to use to get rid of target panic.

I have one particular method that I like to use

and it's been very very successful. UM. And I've had and and and what it involves with me is is during the off season not during the honey season, but during the off season, UM switching to a hand your back tension style release that's a surprise release, and shooting with your eyes closed for a long period of time until you get ready, until until you've actually until your actually able to have a surprise release without any of that weird tension that you build up in your shot process.

And once you've done that, you start shooting with your eyes open, and then you slowly back up and anytime you start feeling that that tension, that anticipation, that that feeling of panic, h then you have to back up a step and start over again until you're able to uh execute a shot. And then it goes further. And I've actually never had what I would say was even close to full target panic, but yet it's always there in the background for every shooter. And that's why all

year long I practice with a hand release UM. And then when it actually comes time to hunt, I typically hunt with a a index finger release, and I always carry a hinge in my pocket in case I have a long time to shoot, like let's say there's a buck bedded down, I'll actually use the hinge because it just keeps you completely honest, because you can't you can't cheat it. And once you've learned to shoot a hinge properly, it trains your subconscious, your unconscious, your brain to to

squeeze through the shot. So even and once you've got that muscle memory and you you've you've trained your brain to actually squeeze through a shot, it will translate even into the most high pressure shot situations. And I've had several people that we're really ready to give up. Uh, well, I'll mention Dwight Shoe since you guys know him and Dwight is passive. A few years ago, but Dwight had such a such an issue that uh he was missing

game and relatively easy shots. And he came to me, and we spent quite a bit of time and do I got to the point where he was willing to hunt with a hinge release, even though obviously a hinge release is not the best hunting release because of an animals moving or you need to make a quick shot, you really can't very well. But he was willing to to take that gamble just in order to be able to make a good shot most of the time, and

and and and until the end of his life. He continued to hunt with the hinge release, and I've got several other people that I've worked with that that that do the same thing. So on the topic of releases, Uh, would your recommendation for most people then be to train with something like that, but then jump back to an index finger or a thumb button or do you have a do you have a recommendation on what the actual in field best option would be if you are, you know,

jumping back and forth between the two. Yeah, I actually go you can use the thumb button. The thumb button is just a little like you're a little less likely have target panic or uh, punch the trigger with the thumb,

but you can certainly do it. And a lot of people do have issues with the thumb button, but especially if you're shooting a hand because they're both handheld releases, and for some reason psychologically, it's much easier to yank the trigger or punch the trigger with your index finger

than it is pushing with your thumb. Because with the thumb button release, you can kind of you can you can shoot a release such as that more like a a a hand release because you can kind of lay the web of your thumb over the trigger and then just squeeze with your hand and the release will go off and it will be more of a surprise release.

But if you get to where you can shoot a hand release very well, very comfortably, and not have any hint of target panic, what I do is, even when I'm out hunting and I shoot my practice shots in camp, I will actually use a hinge for my practice shots because what's what you're doing is you're forcing your subconscious mind and your muscle memory to hold that pin in position until the release goes off as as a surprise, and you're much less likely to punch, You're much less

likely to peak, and you're much less likely to have all those issues that are going to cause you to mission in a high pressure situation. Yeah, so Randy, let's take into account here. So the people listening to this are probably, you know, almost all primarily white tail hunters who are using index finger style releases. Uh. They you know, a lot of them aren't going to go buy a hinge and use it. What what would you tell them? Is there anything they can do that crowd can do

to get a little bit better at this? But the surprise release um not without a lot of discipline. Uh, it's it. Once you've got the issue of punching the trigger. Um, like Tony said that he's dealing with. Once you've got that, it is so hard to get with rid of unless you go way back, um and go to the beginning and then practice a lot, you know, and you can get a good because hinge releases aren't complicated, the very simple ones. And you can get a good hinjury lease

for not that much money. And to have that in your tackle box and use it exclusively. That's where the discipline comes in, is because it's so much more comfortable and so much easier to shoot a trigger release. But once you've learned to use the hinde release, you will, UM, you will be so glad you did. So if you're serious, you know. If you're not serious about your actuacy, then

no big deal. But if you're truly serious about making your really good shots in the clutch, UM, I would practice with the hinge release almost exclusively, and and and and there's a little bit of a learning curve, so you I always encourage people that do start shooting the hinge release with their eyes closed up close to the bail, uh, right after the hunting season ends and just get in the wintertime maybe and just get really really comfortable with it.

So when they're ready to go outside and and or you know, start shooting targets, they are very very comfortable with the whole function of the hinge release. Before we move on from this, Randy, how closely related? Because you keep talking about target panic and I guarantee you there's a bunch of white tail hunters who have it who don't know it. How closely is how close is that uh relation to buck fever? In your opinion, it's well buck fever that okay, buck fever is just getting really

really really excited and hurrying everything. And how they're related is that the hurrying everything is where the issue comes in. Um, what happened. Most people would define target panic as something where you cannot They wouldn't consider punching the trigger target panic, and I kind of roof them under the same umbrella because of both psychological issues. But buck fever is just

getting really excited and we all get it. And for me, what it is is just incredible anticipation that you know you've got this big buck right there, and you want him so bad and you just want it all over with really quickly, because the anticipation in the excitement um is so overwhelming. You just want that arrow gone because you're afraid something's gonna happen uh, and the buck's gonna run off and you're not gonna get your shots, so

you hurry the shot. What you have to do is tell yourself that, yeah, the buck might run away, but but you're much more likely to miss him. Um if you don't take your time and squeeze the trigger. UM, I know that I've screwed up if I don't remember what happened during the shot process and you know the arrow is gone and you don't even know why. If I can remember every part of the shot process on a big buck, that means that I actually had a

surprise release and I followed through. Yeah, I gotta believe there's a lot of folks who can't do that. While you just describe remember every part of that process. I mean, I can tell you myself most of my shots. It's even as I've tried to get better at this, I still fall into an autopilot. And my autopilot historically has been better the last couple of years. But I still couldn't tell you, all right, I remember anchoring, I remember

doing this, I remember thinking, I remember that. Now usual it's that train and gets on the tracks and that's going. So that's that's been in the animals I have shot with the hinge relise. I can remember everything because when you have that hinde reniase in your hand, you realize that you have just I call it staying with the shot.

You have to stay with the shot through the very end. Uh. It's it's very strong psychologically and knowing that you when you're on the animal depends on the animal, You're subconscious knows that you have to stay with stay with the shot. And what it does is it causes you to aim better because you're focused, focused, focused, because you don't know

when that release is going to go off. And I can almost guarantee you if you shoot something with if you shoot an animal with the hindered they Sho're going to remember the whole shot process. So speaking of releases, then that being one of these tools that you know, you have a lot of belief in and being able

to help you. One of the things I was curious about would be if someone was wanting to address accuracy, somebody wanted to level up, and they were going to look at the gear side of things, and they weren't necessarily wanted to get more speed or more penetration or something like that, was simply more accuracy. What's the one gear category, like the one bucket stuff you would look

at addressing first. Would it be the release or is it the bow itself, broadheads or arrows or what would be that category that you think is the most impactful. If someone worse started oh by far now years ago, thirty years ago, I would have said, you know, it's it's it's a big part of it's the equipment. The equipment nowadays, if you've had your bow set up by someone who knows what they're doing. The equipment is is so good nowadays, so good that the vast majority of

accuracy issues are with the shooter. I can, I can. You can take almost any bowl off the shelf, a decent bow and put good accessories on it now and bows are so well engineered now um that that the bow is probably not a big part of the issue unless something has happened to to it's gone out of tune, that sort of thing. But the bows and arrows and all the equipment nowadays are so good. So if you want to be a better shooter, h you're not going to do that by buying a new bow, um, you know,

unless your bow is over ten years old. You're going to do that by working on yourself. And that's where most people want to buy their way to accuracy, and it just it just doesn't matter. You can take a really good shooter with a really crappy, a very cheap

bow nowadays, and they're going to be incredibly accurate. So I would say as long as you you know, you know your your bow is shooting well, and you can do that by going to your local pro shop and having them look at you shoot and you know, shooting it through paper, make sure everything's good, um, and make sure all the bolts are tied of course, and there's nothing loose. And as long as as the bow shooting good,

I'd say the equipments ten percent the shooters. What about like matching arrows to your bow or weights and anything like that. There's a whole lot of talk these days about you know, different arrow setups, heavier this, more front of center. It's a very trendy thing in the last few years to dive further and further down that road. How important is that for people to do We need to go really really deep into that and obsess over that,

or to your point is no, absolutely not. Um, you can again, I can take a good shooter and get a boat an arrow that's that has really almost no front of center and an arrow that is not really even spined well to the bow, and he's still going

to shoot very very well. Um, it's not nearing his critical now if you most of that stuff comes from Western hunters that are shooting a hundred yards, and it does make a difference because you know the Olympic shooters or uh competitive compound bow shooters that are shooting long distances. You know front of center is going to make a difference. But it's front of center and the stiffness of the arrow and and I'm into all of that stuff, don't get me wrong, And I've written about all of it.

I've talked about all of it. Um. But that's taking you to a point of diminishing returns. That's when you're already completely well versed at shooting form and discipline of the release that all of that stuff will make the difference. Let's say you can shoot. Let's say you can shoot a tenant group at a hundred yards and you know you would just a regular setup, and and that's a

very very very incredibly good shooter. You start working on front of center, uh, different stiffnesses of arrow, you know, you might be able to get down to an eight or a seven inch group. That's what that stuffs for. It's for the elite shooter that really knows what they're doing. For the average white tail hunter, it doesn't matter much all Now, it matters a little bit. I don't want

somebody to say that he said it doesn't matter. It matters, But it's so much more important that you're able to put the pin on the target, squeeze the trigger, not interfere with the bow. That's the problem most people have. You take the average bowl you would buy at a bow shop right now, or even if you were to go to a big box store, buy an average bow, put it in a shooting machine after it's been tuned, and it is going to hit. You know, it's going to shoot a two three group at fifty yards. The

issue is the shooter. People interfere with the bow. They interfere with how that bow shoots. The arrow, they turket, they yank the trigger, they have interference with the bowstring on their face. They do all these things to interfere with how that bow shoots the shot. The only thing good form does is it make sure that you allow the bow to shoot the shop without interference. That's it.

Let's talk about form so that if that's really the foundation that's going to allow our gear to actually perform as well as it can, how do we make sure our form is as good as possible. I know there's a million videos out there, and there's a million articles that talk through all the different aspects of good archery form.

But but could you walk us through the Randy Almer take on you know, whether you want to walk us through the foundational elements of it, or if it's more interesting to you just maybe break down the big problem areas you see most often. Um, I'd love to just kind of get your take on how we can establish

better form and consistency. Okay, the thing to remember about form is with archery, h you can be an incredibly good shot and you can have a really bad form as long as you do everything exactly the same way every time. And there's some shooters just like some just like some golfers that have really radical swings that are still really good. That's because they do they're able to

do everything exactly the same way every time. Good form, what I would call good form, is merely increasing the odds that you can repeat from shot to shot to shot. So really, obviously the most basic part of form is having a good foundation. But unfortunately, and when I say that,

I'm talking about stants, puts, put placement. Unfortunately, most of the times, at least when I'm shooting, I'm either on my knees, or I'm I'm leaning around a tree, or the winds blowing uh, or you know, you're on uneven terrain. The nice thing about white tail hunters is usually they've got a good solid foundation to shoot from. And a lot of white tail shooters will try to stand up to shoot, but some shoot from sitting down. And if you do shoot from sitting down, obviously you need to

work on your form. But really the foundation is just the bottom part. The foundation allows your upper body, which is the critical part two, not be wiggling. Um, as long as you can have good t form with your upproportion, and what I mean by good tea form is that your your torso your spine is relatively vertical, and your bow arm and your release arm are in the form of a t um and you know you're everything. The more aligned your body is with the bow, the less

likely you are to interfere with the bow. And what I mean by that is if, if, if you were well, Let's start with the handle of the boat, because that's the one place that most people have. The issue is how they put their hand into the boat. You have to be able to put your hand in the bow consistently. And the best way to have a consistent shot process from shot to shot to shot is to have bone on bone contact. Now, if you'll if you don't take your middle finger and put it, it's too bad. This

isn't visual. But basically what you want is you want the bow, the pressure of your hand on the bow to be in the bottom part of your palm, where if you were to follow the two long bones of your forearm, the radius and the aulna, if you were to pretend you had a a a rod that rent perfectly parallel to those two bones and and came out in the bottom of your palm, that's where you want all the pressure on your bow handle because that way you don't have to use any muscles to control the bow,

and you won't talk your boat from left to right. So pretend you had no thumb, no fingers, no hand other than the the the end of your forearm where it comes out on your palm. You could put a bow right there, and if you were holding the boat correctly, that bow would not fall off that point. That's what you're trying to do, and you want want no pressure from your finger or your thumb, because what happens is as soon as the string is released, the bowl will

start rotating whichever way you have pressure on it. So pretend you have no hand and all the pressure is straight down your forearm. That's what you want because it's very repeatable and it will never change from shot to shot. The next thing is you need to have your release hand in your release elbow to have a perfectly straight

alignment with the arrow. So if you were standing straight above a shooter and you were to look down the arrow, and then you were to look down their forearm and their hand all the way to the tip of their elbow, it would be a perfectly straight line. A lot of people will break that line by bending their their wrist or by bending their hand in some way you don't want to do. They wanted to be in a perfectly straight line, because the the and the best way to

do that is just to completely relax everything. Because if you completely relax everything, it's going to become it's going to go into winement. If your elbow is to the left or to the right of that line, small changes in the position of your elbow is going to have a major effect on the the forces that that that

are created. If your elbow is perfectly in line, you can have your elbow off a quarter or a half an inch either way, and it's going to have very little effect on where that Harald Boes another very important form, and you guys can jump in any time if you have a question, because I'm kind of going just down the line again again. Your entire goal is to let the bow shoot the shot. Don't make the bow shoot the shot. People create tension, and that tension interferes with

the bow shooting the shot. If you don't interfere with the bow the string at all, and you you contact the bowl, well you should only contact the bow in two places at the string where you've got the release attached, and and and and and and your bow hand. If those could be completely relaxed and everything in alignment, the arrow is going to hit exactly where the pin is.

If you take a shot and the arrow hits somewhere other than where the pin was once the bow sided, and obviously and the arrow hits anywhere other than where the pin was, it means that you interfered with that bow. And you have to figure out why. One of the most common places that people are going to interfere with the bow is once we've eliminated hand torch in the front. The other place that they're going to interfere with the bow is contact with their face or clothing. But the

main thing is the face. Um. What you'll see people do is is for the last thirty years, since people have gone away from shooting with their fingers um and people started using peeps, there's one bit of dogma that has stuck in the archery industry and I don't really understand why, and that's that you have to have a rock solid anchor point and and what that causes people to do is really dig into their face with their hand and the string and what happens is you get

chin drag or nose drag, and people will press the string so hard into their face that the string actually has For a right handed string shooter, the string actually has to come out around their face to the right, dragging their skin, and it will make them hit to the left. So if you have inexplicable right or left shots, it's usually either from hand tork or from face interference.

What I like to tell people is just have a baby breath, touch of their string to their face or to the tip of their nose, again not interfering with the bow, so the string wants to release. This is triggered. The string has no interference moving forward again, you're letting the bowshoot the shot instead of making the bowshoot the shot. So really good form is extremely simple. Um it's just doing everything the same way every time. And the best way to do that is really to watch video of

the very top pro shooters. They'll almost all have the exact same form, and that's the form that's proven to be most repeatable. And that form is standing up straight, no stress in the face. You want the boat, You want the string. When you pull a bow back, you want the string to come to your face. Okay, if you're standing, If you're standing like you're going to shoot your bow, but you do not have a bow in

your hand. You're standing, and your feet are Actually most people their feet will be the tip of their toes if you were to to lay an arrow down at the tip of their toes, and the air would be pointing pretty much straight at the target. So you're you're you're at a ninety degree angle to the target. And what you want to do with your head is you want to stand there, completely relaxed, looking straight forward, and

then you want to turn your head. For a right handed shooter, you're turning your head ninety degrees to the left and just as comfortable as can be. When you pull your bow back, you do not want to move your head or your face. You want it to be in a completely perfect position, perfectly relaxed position. Most people will pull back their bow, most most people that aren't really really good shooters will pull back their bow, and then they'll move their face and bring their face into

the boat. And and that's not relaxed. You'll see them cocking their head down, or cocking their head up, or cocking their head further to the left or the right. You want your head to be in a perfectly straight up and down, relaxed spine, relaxed neck position, and and looking at the target. And when you draw the bow, the bow will come to your face and you're not manipulating your face to put it into the bow. What you're seeking with good shooting form is complete, complete relaxation.

You want bone upon bone. You want everything to be resting upon bone. Obviously it takes some muscular contraction to hold the bow back and up. You want that to be as minimal as possible. I've got a quick question when it comes to you know, the face and the anchor points, and you know, as you mentioned, it's been drilled into us so much about the importance of those anchor points, and your point about the possible chin drag

or nose drags is well taken. I'm curious what you think about some of these anchor um anchor point tools, stuff like a kisser button or more recently like the nose buttons that are becoming popular, or either one of those good ways to still have an anchor point, but have that lighter no like like you said, like a very very light anchor point is that a good way to do it, or do you think those are not? You know, I've never been a fan of kisser buttons.

Now if you kisser buttons came around when there were no peeps. Okay, I can take my bow mhm, and I can shoot my normal way with just the my tip of my nose on the string and just a whisper baby's breath touch of this of the of the string on my chin, I can shoot. Then I can take my bow and I can I can pull it further forward from my face, so I actually have to

kind of tip my head a little bit. And if I'm completely relaxed and I'm looking through my peep and it's lined up with, uh, the spot I'm trying to hit, it will hit in the exactly same in the exact same spot because I'm not interfering with the bow. So again, the more things you have touching your face, the more you're interfering with your bow. That that really the peep

site is your anchor point. If your bow is complete, if you're if you are completely relaxed, you if you are completely relaxed and your your barm and your release arm are completely relaxed and in alignment with the bow. You do not have to have an anchor point. You can just look through the peep and shoot. Now, I'm not advocating that, I'm just telling you that to illustrate a point that a solid anchor is absolutely not necessary. Now,

a solid anchor, A solid anchor is not necessary. But again, in order to be as consistent as possible, you need to repeat. So a light anchor is plenty. All you have to do is just do it the exact same way every time. What happens is when people hear the words solid anchor, they feel like they got to dig their hand into their into their into their jawbone. And what happens is you'll notice if you dig your hand into your job zone, what will happen is it will

break your wrist. And what I mean by that is your wrist won't be in a straight line. Because you can do it right now, just just just while you're sitting there. If you take your hand and let's say what they what people tend to tell you to do with a hand held release is to put those first two knuckles of your of your of your fist, against your jaw bone, say, against the back of your jaw bone and push it there, and that's gonna get you

in the same anchor point every time. But when you do and you push it in hard, what you're gonna notice is it's gonna break your release. Your release is no I mean your wrist. Your wrist is no longer in a straight line. It's very important, in my opinion, to keep your wrist in a straight line as possible because whenever you break the line of force, if you break that line of force and you change it, say half an inch from shot to shot, it's going to

affect the left and rights on your arrow. However, if you relax your release completely and relax your wrist completely, and and maintain that just that very light touch of your of your knuckles to your face, not digging into your bone to get that solid, but just relax it, all of a sudden, you'll see that your wrist becomes

straight because everything is relaxed. And the more relaxed you are, the more consistent you're gonna be, and the less likely you are to interfere with the bow because what's happening is is everything is just hanging. I like to imagine my my bow arm, excuse me, my release arm from the tip of my elbow all the way through my fingers to be like a rubber band that just stretches out. And the more it stretches out, the more relaxed it is, the more consistent it's it's going to be because you're

not using any muscles. Whenever you incorporate muscles into the shooting routine, the more muscles you incorporate, the easier it is to change from shot to shot. If everything is totally relaxed, the less likely things are to change from

shot to shot. Yeah. When you bring up the issue of consistency and all this are the anchor points and everything, the next thing that came to mind for me was how our consistency is as white tail hunters changes when we try to perfect all this form you're talking about in the backyard, but then all of a sudden, we're in a tree at an elevated position pcent of the time, and all of a sudden, now things start getting wonky. Can you talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that's

why that's why your house has a roof. Yeah. No, seriously, you either you know, you either put a tree stand up in your backyard at your shooting range. And and the key is, you know, most of the time, let's say you're let's say you're fifteen feet up in a tree um and you're shooting, say twenty yards, Well, you're shooting downhill fairly a fair bit. What I found is to use extreme practice. And when you can use extreme practice, the less extreme the average. Let's say the average what's

what's your average tree stand high? Yeah, it's say, yeah, okay, so so and your average shot is going to be twenty or thirty yards I'm guessing. Okay, Well, okay, now, now I don't have I don't have any way of calculating that that angle right now. But the angle is not severe, but it's it's significant. So what I do is like I'm in Colorado right now, and just outside my archery room door is a thirty seven degree slope, which is nearly a cliff. I mean, it's hard walking

up it. And at the top of that is ninety yards away is a target. And I shoot my arrows up and then I shoot myrows down. And that's a very very significant angle. But the reason I do such an extreme angle, you know, you're very rarely gonna have

a shot like that in real life. But what it does is it teaches me an extreme what what I'm doing wrong and why Typically when I'm shooting uphill and for right hand or shoot is this is most often when you're shooting up there, you're gonna miss the lap from you're shooting down here, you're gonna miss to the right um. Not true for everybody, but but on average.

So what I would encourage you to do is is put a tree stand up in your yard, if you have a tree or at the range, you know, thirty feet up, and then shoot at a target fifteen yards from the base of the tree. And what that's going to do is it's going to exaggerate all the issues

that you have. And you've got to remember to do it standing up and sitting down because obviously it's it's going to change your form and when you're shooting at such a severe angle like that, your misses are going to be more significant, and they're going to be more significant missing to the left um. And what you have to do is teach yourself. And and this again this is you can look online videos shooting up hill and down hill. I have some stuff online and a lot

of other people do. But what you'll find is that the more you practice in it in extremes, the more likely you are to identify your problems and then and then be able to resolve them. If you shoot like let's say you only climb up ten ft in a tree stand and you're shooting thirty yards away, you're not really practicing any extreme. It's it's it's almost as easy to shoot that shots is a shot on flat ground. So practice extremes. And and while we're talking about shooting,

you guys always shoot downhill. I'm I'm shooting uphill half the time when you know, in the west and the really rough terrain. But you guys just need to learn how to shoot down here. And the main thing to remember is to maintain that te form shooting. What a

lot of people are doing and it causes problems. Is rather than bending at the waist and and keeping that tea form where your spine is perpendicular to both of your arms at full draw, what they tend to do is they tend to stand more straight up and just lower the left arm, which completely changes your shooting form and it completely interferes with with the bow shooting the shot. Yeah, and it does. There's a different feeling too, when you when you try to focus on, you know, swiveling at

the hip the proper way. If you don't do that enough, you can feel different muscles being activated, and it can be harder to get comfortable if you don't practice that. I remember early on, it's just really hard for you to relax. And the tea to shooting a really good shot is is to be as relaxed just possible a full drawn If if you're tweaking your muscles while you're trying to do that, it can be very uncomfortable and

you're you're more likely to interfere with the bow. Yeah, I want to I want to talk practice now, but I guess before before we jump to that, Tony, do you have any other form specific stuff before we shift into how we make form a part of who we are with practice? Um? I think no. The only two things I would say is I've never fake drawn my bow as much as I have in the last hour, and I've never faced the reality of how much bullshit I've written in my life. That's probably wrong as far

as how to be an accurate shooter. So this is making me question everything. Randy, Well, yeah, now and Cabiat out there that just because I'm saying it. The one thing, the one reason I was so successful as a competitive archer, is I didn't I always question dogma. The one thing that you have to remember is there's a lot of dogma in the archery world, and everybody wants you to shoot exactly the way they shoot um, and that's not

always going to work for you. You do have to You do have to question yourself though, and you can't assume that the way you do things is the right way. And when someone like me is you know, is beating on their chest and saying this is the way you have to do it. This is the way that works for most people, it may not be the way it works best for you. But it goes back to being honest with yourself. If to do things the way you've always done it is the easiest solution, but if you

truly want to get better, you have to experiment. And I did a great deal of experiment experimenting when I was seriously trying to be better as a competitive shooter. To see and there were a lot of things that were dogmatic that that that I challenged and I did differently, and and and Since that time, a lot of those things have become dogma. So again, what you're saying that

you know you're doing everything wrong because I say it's wrong. Um, you know, don't believe every person that proclaims their guru out there. There's a lot of stuff on the internet that just horrifies me. Well, can we talk about something

quick then, Mark? I know you want to move on to practice, but there's something I always think about, uh with you know, and it's different in your world, Randy, because you're you're you're doing so much Western stuff and you know, up and down terrain, just a different kind of hunt than a than a typical white tail hunt. But one thing I know about you, uh, you know.

I don't know if you remember this or not, but I met you at that Peterson's Bow Hunting meeting or dinner we had at a t A and like two thousand and six or something, and you were you were talking about a couple of the really big meal dear you had killed that year, and I remember you saying I think maybe it was your Colorado buck that year, but saying that you had spent like fifty days scouting that deer. And I just remember thinking Holy cow, how

familiar is this guy with this animal? And you know, so throughout this conversation we've been talking about form and you know, blank bail shooting and all of these kind of like fundamental technical things that make you a better shot, but you also work really hard to get a familiarity

with these animals you're hunting. And I think people kind of take it for granted that you're this amazing shooter and you kill a lot of big stuff, But there's that sort of piece in the middle that we don't talk about much, which just you putting yourself around these animals, probably to get a comfort level that most you know, average hunters couldn't even understand. Well, yeah, and that's a

completely different podcast. I mean, that's that's just even to touch on that, it's just going to take a long time. But yes, uh, and that's you know, if if you guys want to move in that direction, we certainly can um. But again that's kind of a different podcast. Yes, I spend you know, all spend literally thirty nights out on the mountain, you know, sleeping on the round because it's what I enjoyed. I've fortunately, over the year, has been able to put myself in a position where I have

a lot of time. In the summer, I do most all my work. Um, I work in the summer, but I I I'm able to get out and at least thirty days every summer scouting and mule there is kind of my you know it used to be out, but I've really gotten into meal there so and and and yes, and most of that time is spent just trying to

find that one deer that I want to take. But but the take home point on on on me spending that much time is when you spend that much time looking for one deer, um, and you get an opportunity at that deer. And this is the same. This translates completely for white toil hunters. You know, you've got your

trail cameras out there. You know there's one deer out there that that's the deer you want to kill, and you're you know, you're doing your food plots, you're doing you're scouting, you're putting up your tree stands, you're doing all the preparation. You guys do as much preparation as I do. It's just mostly done in the middle of the day. Um, But you've got all this preparation, and it all comes together. Your whole season is going to

be a successor of failure. And I'm not measuring success purity as killing an animal, but for this particular conversation, let's let's use success as getting that animal that you've been putting all this work into. It all comes down to that one shot. And people assume, because of all my you know, target shooting championships and all that stuff, they assume that I shoot a long ways and I don't, and and and there's a reason I could, you know,

because again I can. You know, I can consistently and again this is in my backyard with no end and I can consistently shoot very very well at very very long distances with my broadhead set up. However, I will not on on on an animal that I've scouted, or

any animal for that matter. But I have a hard and fast rule that I don't shoot past six yards, um, because you know, I've got so much time invested in this animal, and the last thing I want to do is wound him or missing, because these are smart old deer. And and if you wound him or missing, it's done. You're done for the season. You know, you're gonna have to go to your number two dear, hopefully if you

can find him. But so this does tie in a little bit too to working on your shooting, because you guys spend so much time all the intricacies of of of and I don't even know the half of it what you guys do to get position yourself in the right place at the right time to get a shot at this one deer. And yet these guys that do this, And and I'm friends with a lot of extremely successful bow hunters, um and I'll shoot with them, and I'm sometimes I'm just affle at at how the issues they

have in their shooting. And they spend literally thousands of hours a year, hundreds of hours a year, uh doing everything else, but they're not willing to go to a shooting coach and improve their shootings so that when they do get this opportunity they can kill it. And I've got a good friend, Jack Frost. He's one of the best bone hunters of all times. And and and I'm not picking on him, well, I guess I am a

little bit, but he'll pick on himself. Jack is probably the best hunter, certainly one of the top five hunters I know of all time. Um. And Jack will tell you that if he could shoot better, he would have had multiple world world records, but he will admit that he's not the best shot in the world. And and you know, Jack is a Jack is a orthopeak surgeon. He's an incredibly intelligent individual. But I don't know if

John Jack's every bondo shooting coach. But it's just you know, he likes hunting and he likes he actually likes shooting. But the thing is is is he's told me that, yeah, if I could shoot better, I would have all these world records. So my point is, take some time and study and shoot, join the target league, get a coach, and then when you do have that one opportunity, you're not gonna blow it. Yeah, So so let's go there. Then let's talk about shooting, practicing, making sure that you

don't blow that moment. If if we've got our form, we we know the right way to to be operating our bone, we know the right set up for our bone, and we know certain things we to do control the mental side. Now we've got to just get out there practice enough that this that this stuff is is part of who we are. I first I'm curious about one

simple thing, that being how much practice is enough. Like, there's some people I know, pretty darn good hunters who don't touch their bow until like a month after the season, and then they grab their bow and they'll shoot, you know, a dozen arrows a couple of times a week, and then they're like, oh, yeah, I'm good to go, and

they're and they're great. And there's some people who say, I shoot a lot, and maybe they shoot from July into the season, and then they shoot a couple of times here and there during the season, and then you hear other people who shoot all year round, and they say, you've got to shoot every day all year round and

really be good at this. Um, What's what's the truth of the matter, Randy, What do you think is is the bar that someone who really wants to be extremely proficient, what's the bar they need to pass as far as how often and how you know, how how much practice is needed to really be fishing at this? Okay, so remember this perfect practice makes perfect and it's very very true. Okay. When I was winning my world championships, i was I was working as a veterinarian sixty hours a week. I

did not have time to practice every day. It just wasn't in my schedule. I shot anywhere from thirty to sixty arrows every other day, and my competitors were shooting two to three arrows a day. The key is, we'll go back to what I said earlier. The key is every day that I let's say I had an hour and a half to practice every other day, I wrote down what my issues were, what I needed to work

on that day. And let's say I was working on um relax in my front hand, which was is an issue with everybody all the time constantly, because instinctually your front hand of your bow is is is incredibly hard to relax perfectly every shot. But I would, let's say I'm working on that well during my practice session. That is my top priority is to focus and work on

my practice on that hand. But you know, you don't let everything else go, but you are focused on that, and I would shoot my thirty to six arrows and they would be perfect arrows. And the other thing that I did is and I still do it to this day, is I shoot at least my first five arrows and my last five arrows at a blank bell with my eyes closed, And I know that just sounds completely whacked to people that don't understand. But what it does do

is is it teaches you. And it has to be something that you teach yourself, and you're kind of like an alcoholic. It's one day at a time. You have to teach yourself over and over and over again. What a perfect, relaxed, perfectly executed surprise release shot feels like. What it actually feels like. When you've got a target involved in the equation, you quit thinking about what's going

on with your body. You start thinking about the execution of the pen when the when the depends on the target, and everything else kind of goes way back into the background. By shooting with your eyes closed, you you you teach yourself what a perfectly executed shot feels like. Perfectly executed

shot feels really good. So I get myself in the groove for a perfectly executed shot, and if I'm not feeling at all, shoot fifteen or twenty arrows at the blank bail, just tell and tell I can feel that perfect shot and the same thing at the end of my practice session. So I haven't answered your question. If you've got a lot of time, then yes, practice a lot, but you cannot practice mediocrity or you're gonna be mediocre.

Don't just go out there and fleeing arrows. And what happens is if you go out and shoot a hundred arrows, pretty soon you're just gonna be fleeing arrows. You're not focused on the perfect shot. I'd much rather you shoot ten shots every other day and have those shots perfect shots than to practice two hundred arrows every day. So that's probably the difference between the two individuals you put

on each end of the spectrum. If if okay, my son Levi, he wanted to be a target shooter, you know, before he discovered girls when he was from thirteen to fifteen, and he we you know, we went to the nationals into Vegas and all the big tournaments, and Levi very very very good student listener. He did everything exactly like

I told him. He never learned, he never was able to develop bad habits because he because I coached him from the very beginning, and I coached him from the very beginning with a you know, once he once he put away his recurb bow shooting with fingers just to watch the aero fly. And he wanted to shoot a compound bow. I put him on a hand release. The kids never developed a bad habit because he's never had

the opportunity to. LEVI has killed Okay, he's twenty. By the time he was nineteen, he had killed six book you know in the three plus class. Yo. It's just because he lives in and I was hunting with him. Um, he has never he has never shot. He's never missed at an animal, and he's never it's never taken. Well, no animal he's ever shot at has gone more than seventy yards. Okay. He my whole point, I'm bragging on him. He's my son. But my whole point is he and

I are going on a carabra hunt in August. My whole point is he can pick up his bow because he has no bad habits. He will come He's coming up to Colorado here shortly, and he will pick up his bow and the very first shot at twenty yards I can guarantee it. After he hasn't shot all years since last honey season, his very first shot at twenty years yards will be in the yellow on a Vegas face.

It's just phenomenal because he has no bad habits. And his form is perfect, and if you're capable of having if if you've learned perfect form and he've not developed any bad habits, you don't have to practice very much. But that is not the average shooter. The average shooter has bad habits. It has to practice a lot. The more bad habits you have, the more you have to practice, because, uh, you're kind of just you're kind of just hoping for that magic and you have to kind of form that

magic by practicing a lot. It's kind of like recurve shooters, you know that don't use sites or anything else, you have to practice all the time because they kind of have to get in that magic groove. If you have perfect form with a compound and you're using a site and a and a peep site, you it's kind of

like shooting a gun. Seriously, you don't really have Like if I were to go rifle hunting, which I haven't done in thirty years, but if I were to go rifle lining, I just go to the rain, shoot three shots and say I'm good to go, because really there's nothing to it. If you have perfect archery shooting form, it's it's basically the same thing. There's really not much

to it. You don't if you're fit, and my son is very, very fit, he's very very I was going to ask the fitness to be able to hold your bow back, like how important is the specific like archery muscles and keeping that set of muscles toned and in good shape. And mean, I've always wondered that I'm not like the super weightlifter upper body dude, I'm a runner.

And I've always thought if I were to really get the weightlifting or doing something with that really helped me, or or is it not that important other than just shooting your bow? I mean, how important is that side of things? And does that factor into how accurate you can actually be down? It definitely does. Like when I was shooting and even nowadays, when I when I was shooting competitively, I would work on my archery muscles are

are are not used. Archery muscles are very specific. The muscles you used to pull back the bow and hold the bow back are very specific. And and that is one thing I would say about practice is saying that that you do need to do. And when I was shooting UM at my highest level of competition, I would work on those specific muscles every other day UM and even now, one of the things that I do, and I've always done, is at the end of every practice session, if I at the time, I'll pull my bow back

to exhaustion. And I'm by doing that, I'm working on the very specific muscles that are used to pull back and hold the bow. And it's very simple because you know, let's say I shoot thirty shots, and my average practice session is about nowadays it's about thirty maybe forty shots. At the end of that, I don't want to be I don't want to have to shoot so many shots to keep my archery muscles strong and in shape that I'm you know, practicing mediocrity. I practice really good shots.

But then at the end, in order to get the equivalent workout of shooting you know, say a hundred shots, I pulled my bow back to exhaustion. What I mean is my hunting bowl. I can usually pull it back fifteen to twenty times in a row. UM. And then once I pulled it back as many times as I can, I'll hold it up for as long hold it back and hold it up as long as I can. And what that's doing is training those specific muscles. And there's really nothing better than that. But but but to answer

your question, it is important. If those muscles aren't strong, then you're gonna shake. And by having those muscles stronger than they need to be, um, you're you're you're going to have a much steadier shot. And also, you know, there we all get in this situation. It's not as bad now that the bows have such a great let off as it used to be when the bows had

let off. But you're gonna get in a situation where you draw your bow back and the deer's behind a tree and he stays back there for forty five seconds, and if your muscles aren't really really good shape, you're gonna be shaking like a dog when he steps out. Hey, Randy, on that, on that, No, is there a is there sort of a counter argument there for uh not being overbowed?

You know? I mean, I think a lot of people want to get really manly with, you know, shooting seventy pounds, but they might be more way more comfortable and relaxed shooting sixty. And it really wouldn't matter in the deer woods anyway. Absolutely, it's it's madness when I see these guys shooting these really really heavy bows, because no matter who you are, you you can't shoot a really really heavy bow as well as you can a bow with a lighter draw length, a draw weight. Um and really

especially for for white tail hunters. I mean, fifty pounds is plenty. But the average man, you know, the average whatever, thirty if you're old man, can shoot sixty pounds pretty comfortably. And if you can't, you know, just a little bit of working out, we'll do it. But yeah, you're gonna get in situations where you have to hold the bow back for a long period of time, or where you're really cold and or in an awkward position and can't

draw the bow back. So that's absolutely critical. Uh. I like, I like a few of these things you've outlined here as far as what your practice sessions look like. You know, the work in those muscles at the end, holding back as long as you can, drawing back as many times

as you can until you until you reach exhaustion. You mentioned blind bail shooting at the beginning and the end, but can you elaborate on anything else to make for this perfect practice session, because I think that was a really key point, Like perfect practice is what we're going for here. But I think what the average person does myself included a lot of the times you fall into this autopilot. If you go behind the house, you're fling

yours or whatever. Your mind's kind of this place in that place, and it's kind of therapeutic and fun, but but like you said, probably not the most effective use of your time. So other than those two things you outlined and just being focused, what else can you do

to make for that perfect practice session? Or are there any other specific exercises or drills that we can do to help us address some of the problems we spoke For me, if I'll shoot my and this is you know, a very very very few people do this, but if

you'll do it, you'll see such great rewards. And because it's boring, but shooting with your eyes closed, you know, once you have good shooting form, shooting with your eyes closed and feeling the shot is just phenomenal because you what will happen is you realize the things that you're doing wrong when you're shooting with your eyes closed and you don't even realize it. The second thing in practice is be honest with yourself and if something's going wrong,

figure out what it is. And then be honest with yourself about how to address it. And then you have to address it full on and work on it and make it better. It's not going to get better all on its own. Like if one day you go out and then you're just occasionally getting a miss to the left and you can't explain it, figure it the hell out. Don't say, oh, you know, it's just probably me. Well it is you, and a lot of people say it's just me. I'm just doing something to the bow today.

Figure out what you're doing to the bow and while you're doing it, and eliminate it, and then work on that in a specific practice session. Work spend your practice sessions working on your issues, on the issues that are keeping you from being a better shot. And it takes discipline. It takes mental discipline because shooting bow is fun. It's supposed to be fun and and and and and and it will be fun. And trust me, the better you shoot, the funner it is. But it takes a little bit

of mental discipline. And if you don't want to do it, if you just want to shoot your boat, that's fine. But if you do want to get better, you have to have mental discipline and and figure out what you're doing wrong, why you're doing it, and then figure out

a way to resolve the issue. Yeah, can you walk me through your shop process, like what it looks like and and maybe I'm curious if it's in any way different from the practice session versus in the field, But could you walk me through like every step in your process and what thoughts are going through your mind and what's actually happened physically in my backyard or do you want to shooting in a buck Well, I guess I'd like to know are those two different and in some

substantial way other than the obviously really they are. They are because of what you mentioned Nelier buck fever, So let's talk about both them. Could you do that? Yeah? Well, in practice session is really easy. I've been shooting both for so long that that it's just everything is natural. I don't even think about my shooting process to speak of when I'm shooting. Uh, my main thing is once I've got the boat to full draw my my, my,

um my. I have a little mantra and I use like when I'm shooting, just on the day and and and that is just relaxation, relaxation, relaxation, patients, patients, patients, and what that's doing for me because I'm shooting. Most of the time, I'm shooting the hind release. It's just waiting for the boat to go off and aim a name, and you're just letting the pin float around the target and you're the relaxation part is critical. So it's relaxation patients,

aim a name, it's just letting your just aim. All you're doing is aiming and remaining. What people tend to do when they think of aiming and holding the pin on the spot, is they thinking of grabbing the bowl, controlling the bowl and holding it on that spot as tight as they can, uh, and shooting when the pin goes by the center of the bull's eye. Well, what I do is I try to continually think about relaxation. Now, yeah, I'm I don't focus really the on all the other parts,

but I probably should go through for the listeners. Uh. But yeah, it's if you want to start at the beginning, it's putting your feet in the right position. You know. Typically for me it's shoulder with the part and I shoot with a little bit of open stance, meaning that you know, my left foots a little bit away from that perfect line. It's way back, a little bit back from that perfect line, straight to the target. And for me, everything is naturally because I've done it. But basically it's

putting your hand. I usually try to rest the bow um on my leg. Put my hand, I'm my release is hooked up. I putting. I kind of put my hand into the bow as the bow is at about a forty five degree angle, and I'm trying to find that sweet spot where the bow will will again get in that center part of those two bones of the

forearm um. And it goes very naturally for me. But then it's it's it's lifting the bow up and I try not to sky the bow, meaning I don't lift the bow above, you know, above the level of the target much. And then pulling the bow back and and again not moving my face to the string, but bringing

the bow straight back to the string. Anchoring. And again be careful with that word anchoring, because it's not a rock solid anchor point, but it's a point that comes back naturally and there's very little contact with skin and if if, if, if I've done that properly, my peep will be right in the center of my eye and and and and on the and and on the on all the and the pen will be in the center

of the peep. Then I really focus on relaxing everything and and most people don't, but it's just so important that you think. If you think about relaxing your face and relaxing your hands, the rest of your body will follow suit. And again, what you're trying to do is you're trying to relax all the muscles that aren't used in the shop process. And I try to maintain and I again, this term really kind of bothers me. It's it's it's called back tension, but but it's not really tension.

You don't want a lot of tension. But but the muscles. I don't want to be holding the bow back with the muscles of my arm. I want to be holding the bow back with the muscles that are closest to my spine, like the rhomboids and all the terries, miners, all the all the tiny muscles they're back there along your spine there they they they're much more stable than say the muscles of your arm. So I'm trying to hold my bow back with my back instead of with

my arm, and it will be much more stable. And if I need to move the bow to the left or to the right, or up and down, I don't move my hand my my bow hand. I do it with my back muscles. Like I'm right handed, so I do it with the bustles of the right hand muscles of my back. I move left, right, up, down, so that my form is always perfect in the linement. I don't move my bow hand to to put the pin

on the target. Then I just focus on relaxation, aiming, squeezing, and surprise release, and then follow through and follow through. A lot of people will I think they have really good follow through when they shoot their bow and their boat doesn't even move. Now that means that they've incorporated muscles. Exactly at the moment of the shot, They've activated muscles, and you definitely don't want do that. You Naturally, a big part of what is holding the boat up is

you holding the boat back at full draw. So naturally, when you shoot, the boat is gonna fall away. If the boat doesn't fall away and it stays in position, you're not following through properly. It looks like a good ball through, but it's not. The bowl has to fall away or you're incorporating muscles during the shot that you shouldn't incorporate, so follow through is important as well. That's uh,

that's I guess. The next question then is what does that look or how does that look different than in the field. You mentioned that there are some different parts there or something happening in the field. In the field, I'm always talking to myself when when I draw back in the field that let's say, a big bock I I I'm telling myself my form is natural, it's just comes. I don't even think about any part of my form um. But what I do think about constantly is pick a spot.

And I know that's like the fundamental first thing everyone learns when they're going to be a bow hunters pick a spot, pick a spot. But it's so important. I tell myself pick the right pen, use the right pen, use the right pen, pick a spot, pick a spot. Patience, patience, patients, I tell myself patients, because I do not want to hurry the shot um. And and that's the biggest thing, because the thing that's going to cause you the most problems are the most mrs is if you hurry the shot.

And so I want to make sure I'm using the right pen, and I always I always range fine unless it's within you know, under thirty yards, but I will, I say, pick the right pen and put it in the exact right spot. Patients, patients, patients, patients, and and that helped me to stick with the shot to the very end. And that's the key. Most people miss especially you know, at a at a big buck or something they're very excited about shooting, they missed because they hurry

that situation. So my whole goal in in shooting at game animal is sticking with the shot, having patients, letting it be a surprise release. Yeah. I know you mentioned earlier that you haven't really had issues the target panic at all, But do you ever still get physically excited? Like you know, I guess what I'm getting at is some people that have issues of buck fever or excitement, they talk about controlling your breathing or deep breathing or anything like that to try to calm yourself or to

try to regain control. Is there anything like that you ever do or is that even not even of need for you? Oh? No, I get extremely excited. Um. What I tell myself is and I get the same thing like it at really big tournaments, let's say a shoot off. I used to try to tell myself, Oh, no, no big deal, it's just this is just a just pretend like it's in the backyard. What every fiber of your being, No,

it's not. Knows it's not the backyard. So what I've done that really works well for me is I tell myself, yeah, I'm as nervous as hell, I'm scared shitless. Excuse me for that. But basically it's I tell myself, yeah, I'm gonna you know, when I'm sneaking up on a buck, I go, man, i am gonna be a mess when I draw back on this bow. But what I tell myself is I'm gonna make the very best shot I can. In spite of the fact that that that you know, I'm excited as can be, and what that does from

that actually kind of calms me down. I'm gonna make the very best shot. I'm gonna be shaken. I shake a little bit on every day I shoot at almost um and I said, yeah, I'm gonna be shaken. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna execute the very best shot I can. And if you punch the trigger. You can't do that. If you get have the surprise release, you can do that. Because you're sitting there, you're thinking,

I'm thinking, stay with the shots, stay with the shot. Patients, patients, patients, And I'm shaking, but I'm still sticking with the shot. I Am not going to punch that trigger and screw it up. And seems like something you've mentioned I've heard from a lot of other people too. It seems to be a pretty consistent. AH factor in being able to handle these moments. Is that self talk? Is that that mantra or that that voice in your head that's keeping you in like you said in the shots, keeping you

in the moments, keeping you in control. It seems like that's not a trivial thing. No, it's well and it's it's what's really helped me because you know, I can look back thirty years ago when I was first trying to shoot big meal there. I would get on one a good meal there or something, and and literally from the time I hooked my Ronissa until the deer ran away, I couldn't remember any of it. And it was like, wow, what happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, the

very first six point bull I ever shot at. I missed by two ft at twenty yards um And to this day, all I remember is the air. He was on top of ridge and I was on top of the ridge. All I remember is the arrow sailing way down into the canyon and me thinking what in the world just happened? And it was just a complete bucked fever blank out. And so through the years I gradually said, you know, yeah, and I didn't have any self talk.

I I just pulled back and shot. Now, in order to keep myself present in the moment, I have to have this self talk. And my self talk is pick a spot, make sure you're the right pen. And if you're focusing on the method, on actually the the the process. If you're focusing on the end and not so much on like the process of you know, making sure your anchors right and all that stuff, if you shot enough, that should be completely instinctual. The problem people get into

is the patient's part. They want that arrow gone, and they want it gone right now because they're so much anticipation and so much stress and anxiety. You just want the moment over with. So self talk makes me stay in the moment, Okay, Okay, do you know exactly how far the dear is? Where are you gonna Okay, let's say it's forty five yards, where are you gonna put your forty yard pan? Okay, you're gonna aim right there. And then once you're a full draw, you're seeing they're

going patients, patients, patients, you know, am am, aime. And then also the narrow is gone, and you know you've made a good shot, but you're gonna shake. You're you're never shooting at a big buck. If someone tells you, well, there's been a few that I've shot at work for some reason, I didn't shake a lot. And usually it's if they're further distances a fifty or sixty yards, um, and I have a lot of time to to get

everything in order. But um, you know, if it's happening fairly quickly and they're fairly close, you're you're gonna shake, and and so you have to So, okay, I'm going to be shaken. That's okay. If shaking is gonna be okay. If I execute a good shot with good form, yeah, I find that encouraging. I find encouraging that you still get excited, that you still shake that you still are mortal.

I think everyone listening should find that encouraging and to know that if you can have this process though, and if you can execute that surprise release, it's okay to be a human. Well. And that's why that's why the a couple of severe cases that I've worked with that really literally we're thinking about giving up boning. There's a guy, very very good hunt hunter that he he didn't actually call me. A mutual friend of ours called me and said, hey,

he's he's gonna just quit BONI. He's gonna start hunting with a rifle. And anyway, I talked to him and went through the whole um hind release process with him, and he completely back to normal. He's he hunts with the hinge, which is an ideal, but still he's able to execute a good shot. Uh and and and what the hinge does again is it makes you. It forces you to stay in the moment. It forces you to stand a moment and stay with the shot till the

very end. Which is why index releases are so bad is because they allow you just a second year opin gets on that dare you you shoot? You haven't thought about much of anything. You just want the whole process over with, which is fine if you're twenty or thirty yards away, but it doesn't work very well, you know on a difficult shot. Yeah, Tony, what are you get over there? Uh? Two things. I also love listening to

Randy talk about his mistakes because it makes me feel better. Randy, I can listen to you, guys if you ever needed, if you ever need me to make you feel better, I'll give you some psychotherapy. I'll just tell you about almost mistake things I wouldn't dare mention on a pet podcast, and you feel so good about yourself that you're just your self esteem will be sky high. Yeah. I might need that. I might need that after last year. I

love it. The other thing that I want to bring up here, Randy, because you haven't really touched on this, but you've talked a lot about rushing the shot, and we know, we know the anticipation is huge, and you know it's a big part of you know, losing losing that ground between your ears when you when you need to just keep it together for a little bit. But what I'm curious with you is with your like vast experience hunting a bunch of different game, and you know

you killed enormous animals throughout your career. Have you just learned you know, like when you're talking about how you tell yourself to be patient and you're going through your kind of pre shot routine and talking to yourself, you've also probably just learned that even when it feels like it should be a really rush situation, you almost always have more time. Even when you're calling a bull or you know it's maybe a running buck that's cruising passed

pretty quickly. And I think a lot of people look at that and go, man, I've only got you know, a couple of seconds to make this happen. And if you look at the difference between executing a bad shot in three seconds or a great shot in ten, you probably almost always have that tent. Well you just you just said it all for me really, Um, it's a numbers game. And what I found is if if I rushed them first of all, well I've learned this because Okay, thirty years ago, you know, if there was a decent

bowl or a decent buck, I was just gonna shoot it. Okay, Now I spend so much time finding that one animal that that if he gets away it's no big deal. I mean, it's a big deal. But if he gets away and I don't shoot, I'll get on him tomorrow or the next day or the next day. And back then, I didn't have as much time as I do now, you know, I kind of needed to get things done because I was I was working full time as an editor and had kids and all that kind of stuff,

um and needed to get back. But now I have more time, and that's that's the luxury a lot of people don't have. But now I've I've discovered that I am much better off waiting for a good shot and a relaxed shot, and if the animal gets away, then fine. And I've had this happened many times. I'm you know, and people that may be watching from a distance with binoculars going, why in the hell didn't you sue because it wasn't perfect and and and again it's because I'm

hunting one animal. But it's true, and you said it really well, it's very true that that. Okay, let's take a hundred situations where you think you have to shoot within four or five seconds. Now, out of that hundreds, hundreds hundred situations, you know you're going to miss that shot or wound the animal maybe thirty times because you

brush your shot. Now, say out of those hundred times you go, Okay, I'm gonna wait for a better shot, I would say seventy of the time, you're at least seventy percent of the time you're going to get a better shot and a more relaxed shot, and and even and the key is is even if you don't shoot, then you're gonna get another opportunity at the animal. But if you wound him, or with these really older age class animals, if you shoot at him and miss, you're

pretty much done for a long time. So the numbers are with you in being. And you're also a more ethical bow hunter, which is really important to me, especially as a veterinarian. You know, I don't mind harvesting an animal, but I don't ever want to wound an animal. I do everything in my power not to wound an animal. It's just not fair. So if you keep ethical considerations in mind, and and actually just the it's a numbers game, just a numbers game, you're much better off waiting for

a better shot. You almost always are. I can't argue with that. I think, Randy, this has been phenomenal. I mean, this is this is everything I could have hoped for for an opening conversation in this series. Um, and I have I have like a physical uh just like charge right now to get out and shoot my bow. And as we've been talking, I'm just like thinking about how great it's going to be in September on that first hunt, having this perfect in control shot and making that come

to fruition. That's the kind of thing I'm imagining are today. It's got me want to go grab my bow right now and and just make it happen. So thank you, Thank you for this. Randy Bay, I'm gonna leave you with one word, and that's discipline. You have to have discipline to get better. So true, is there anything that you will want? Do you want to leave folks with

any called action? Is there anywhere you want them to go to to to read some of your stuff for to see any of your past content or any future projects or anything folks you know about? No, no, no, I'm you know, uh no, if they there's certainly I mean in in I have a calm and every issue of bo Hunter and Peterson's Bow Hunting. Uh, then I just write about shooting and life experiences. But no, there's

no call to action. Really really, if you want to get better, to have discipline, there's so many more resources now than there were twenty years ago. Uh, you just have to be a little careful because they're they're they're Most of the content online is really good, but there's some of it that's that's a little whacked. So you have to be a little careful. Yeah, like that Tony Peterson stuff. Well, you know, he's you can't expect much out of him, keep expectations. They didn't name they did

name the magazine after him. I mean there must be something. Yeah, and then they fired. And on that note, the perfect way to end all podcasts by Rasing Tony, We're gonna we're wrap this. Thanks so much for having me. It was fun. Thanks Rand, absolute blast. Thanks Randy all right, and that is a rap. Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.

Best of luck to all of you out there on the range, because I'm sure you've got your bow in hand here soon and you'll be out there for lions marrows. I've been doing the same thing. This is good stuff and there's more to come this month, so get ready. Shooting Month continue soon. Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay wired Ton