Just SHOOT BETTER with mental steps FIRST! - Archery, Bowhunting, TAC Shoots, Competition 3D ASA-IBO

Hi, I'm Nate. This is Average Tech Archery. Well, I'm not exactly the pro shopping range in Philipsburg, but we are in Philipsburg at my buddy's property today. He's got a couple of 3D targets strewn out here. Need to judge a little bit how we got the PAASA coming up here in a couple of weekends, the first leg, and I haven't seen some targets in a while and so I figured even though the shooting conditions are absolute garbage, you'll probably be hearing a bunch of wind noise today, you need to break out the target bow. But even though I'm shooting a target rig and I'm gunning for 12s and I'm judging distance, a lot of this applies to tack, a lot of this applies just to shooting in your backyard, and I want to talk about making smart shooting decisions because we've all made a poor one, particularly in the woods, that we regret, right? We think about it every single year when we head back out into the timber. So holy cow, do we have some guts today. Let's get some shooting. All right, so culprit number one is this guy right down here. He looks a lot further away on camera than he actually is. I'm going to judge him a little bit but kind of talk through the shot process. First and foremost, on a windy day like today, particularly if you're going to shoot tack and it's a hot summer day and you have a lot of wind, you're up on elevation, depending on where you're at, or if you're in the ASA and it's flat as a pancake or IBO and you got some swirling winds, I first want to notice which way the wind is going. So as I'm standing right now, it's coming off my back and going this way. So I'm going to have a natural left to right fade of my arrow. Now, I'm shooting a 27 today, right? This is the target arrow. Weighs 460 grains though, so this is about very indicative of what I'm actually going to be shooting in a hunting situation. Shooting 31 and a half inches, around 70 pounds, about 295 feet a second. So that's definitely my ASA bow, my IBO bow, and then of course for hunting, I'm really not going to be any much different than that because, well, I have to follow speed restrictions for target and so why change for hunting, right? So I know in this distance that I'm looking at that I'm probably going to have, you know, a solid two inches of drift if it's a really good gust. As I'm standing here looking at this, you know, I could pull up my rangefinder, I have it right here, and I could click this distance or, you know, if you're in a hunting situation, you can click the trees, but I know automatically I'm going to have a left to right fade, so pay attention to that. When it comes to scoring, I know I probably want to stay on the left side of the lower. I'm shooting, I like lowers and ASA, so I'm going to stay on the left side of the lower and if I do drift, I still stay at 10. I don't want to gun right at it because I'm probably going to go too far to the right, miss the 10 ring, I'm going to be in the 8. I'd rather live to fight another target, right? I would rather not shoot this deer in the guts in a hunting situation and I'd rather aim closer to the shoulder, right? Shoot a good cut on contact, fixed blade broadhead, and you'll be totally fine. So I'm going to judge this animal here just looking at my distances. If you're interested in judging how I do it really quickly, I look at the halfway distance, what I assume to be the halfway distance between this target. I visualize like I'm throwing a tennis ball, like there's the net right in the middle of the tennis court and I'm throwing. Where would I hit that middle of the court for it to bounce up, okay? Just how my brain works and then from there, I find the absolute, which you'll hear a lot of really high-level target archers talk about their absolute. For me, it's 20 yards. I can really find 20 yards and so since I shoot in a 50-yard class, I know that if I find 20 and that halfway distance looks beyond that, I know this target is beyond 40 yards, okay? If I think it's beneath it, I know it's underneath 40 yards. That's a really good gauge for me when I first step up to a target. Same thing's true if it's a deer-sized target like this in the hunting woods. I have not ranged, I think the past three or four deer that I've killed and they've all been relatively close, like 25 and in, but I haven't needed a range finder, haven't clicked the distance. I just am able to guesstimate based on where I think that 20-yard proven number in my head is and then where the halfway distance is between me and the animal, okay? So looking at this target, I can tell that it is definitely under 40 yards. I'm finding my 20. It is definitely well inside of that 20. Realistically, I don't think it's any more than 35. I really think it's between that 30 and 35 number and I think it's actually closer to 30 than it is to 35. If I was being really aggressive in a target situation, I'd probably put, I think here, I'd probably put 31 on it and gun right at it on the left side. If I was being safe, I'd probably put it around 33 and make sure that I rise up because I'm shooting at the lowers. So I'm going to set this for 32 because this is my first shot of the day. I know my tape's good. This is my first shot of the day. Gun right at this lower and this is true in a tack situation, right, where you're dealing with a lot longer distances more of the time. You know, you're playing with your buddies, hey, closest to center or, you know, closest to the IBO 11 or actually hitting the scoring rings, right? You actually want to make these safe choices because if you're shooting 50, 60, 70 yards, wind compounds everything. Lighting compounds everything. But definitely in a hunting situation, I want to make sure that I'm good mentally. All these checklists, they happen immediately, right? Here in target situation, I can take my time and actually think it through. But I'm set to 32. I know where that lower is at. The lower on an ASA target, the upper is always going to be closest to the head and the lower is going to be further away. They're always at an angle. IBO is center 11. So I know that I have, I want to aim closer to the head to deal with this left and right. The wind was coming from the other direction. I would actually gun right at the lower because it's further to the right. And if I drift left, I'll stay at 10 there as well. So 32 yards, here we go. First arrow of the day, that hurt. And just as expected, I'm about a yard and a half, two yards a little high, right over the lower though. The wind kind of died down on me. So I was able to gun right at it and I'm at 10. Yep. About two yards hot, right? So 31 was the aggressive number, 33, 32 was the safe number. It's probably even 30 just judging off of that. So that's a nice safe 10. You can see my fletchings in there. You can see my fletchings in there. They are right above the lower and a good safe shot, good safe 10. And for a first shot of the day, not half bad. Let's go to the next. Got another deer target here, a little half racker. This guy is in the gotta have it distance, okay? Whether you're shooting tack, whether I'm hunting, whether I'm shooting an ASA course, I gotta have this, right? I gotta make a perfect shot. This is in the wheelhouse. I'm looking at this target going, this thing is basically 20 yards, maybe 21, 22, but he is right there. So this is a gotta have it kind of target. So I know mentally I'm going to be aggressive on this target, okay? If the wind is good, if I'm feeling good, I'm going to make an aggressive shot on this target. If it was hunting, I'm going to wait for him. He's obviously walking this way. I'm going to wait for him to clear all these trees. I'm not going to rush the shot. I got plenty of time, wait for him to hit this lane. And again, these are the type of mental checklist things you have to have as that animal is approaching in a live situation. Or in the case of this target, I can see he's fully broadside. He's not really quartered to, not really quartered away. Just bam, one thing checklist after the other, okay? And it's all, it's all mental, right? You just want to have all these thoughts immediately before you even think about drawing your bow back. Yeah, I'm going to give him 21 just in case I dip out the bottom a little bit. On an ASA target, that lower usually ends up being a hard shot anyway, at a minimum double lung, right there to the left of the elbow. Give him 21 in case I dip a little bit low. I don't really want to shoot at eight here. Again, strong left to right wind. I think I got it. Yep, I got him. Right there, almost inside out on the bottom half of the lower. So again, easy shot adjustment, easy shot thought. If you're just shooting for hunting, right, you can practice the mat, you know, if you want to stop a deer. Because you'd be surprised when you come to full draw and you, I like to click actually, so I don't even have to open my mouth. I'll just come back and I'll just be here, and I can do that. That's usually plenty, that high pitch clicking noise. You're planning on going mat, because you open your mouth, I might throw off your anchor point, using a kisser button, might kind of throw you for a loop. And then you've got to resettle. I want to be on, settled. Stop, deer, stop. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Shots, breaks, okay. That's what I ultimately want. So let's take a look at this guy. Tough to tell, because I don't have the highest zoom in the world, but that's right there in the bottom of the lower. So let's head to the next target, which it looks like it's going to be a doozy. So I'm going to zoom in here and show you this first. So this is the javelina. This target, in a competition setting, is for me, never a got to have it target. This is a keep it in the tent. We've got the big blesbok. He's right over here. We're not worried about him. It's that heavy way in the back. He's very hard to aim on. There's not a whole lot of high evidence of where to aim. He's down in a tunnel. We've got this big tree on the left. We've got all the little trees there. We kind of lose the ground there behind the big tree. We lose the ground there on his back half. So judging him is going to be very difficult. And so when it comes to me approaching this target, I want to make sure that this is a target that I make a safe shot on. Same thing with tack. You're going see a ton. I'm actually going to move you guys over a little bit. You're going to see a ton of these kind of shots. You're going to see a ton of in tight lanes, in tight windows, and you want to make sure you don't send an arrow off in the gene weeds. So looking at this target immediately, I can tell right away that he's in that 40 plus range. I can see right now that halfway distance of me in that 20. He's definitely in that 40 plus range. I lose ground. See how much ground I lose. Yeah, there's definitely, there's the log in front of his rear end. And then there's ground behind him still because his feet are disappeared. And I don't know how much ground that is, right? It could be one yard. It could be two yards. It could be three yards. And when I play that halfway tennis ball game, that can really throw, I mean, two yards at 40 plus is a lot of distance. That's the difference between a 12 and eight, a 12, a 10, you know, et cetera. So I know I want to make a good shot. Also, I'm an, I'm a lower guy and looking at this target and all the stripes on them, I can see that big wash of stripes on the left-hand side finishes at the general area of the lower, the big dark spot. That's the upper, and that's all 10 ring. So that big dark spot, there's a one random white spot all by itself. All that's 10 ring. Again, big left to right here, a wind. He's probably 40 plus. So this is a safe shot. There is no reason to gun at this lower here. A lot of times if I'm on a stake, I'll actually move. Like I'll go over to this side of the stake, kind of triangulate that distance, find that halfway point. I'm actually just going to do that. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at the stake where I'm going to shoot. I'm looking at the target. I step off and I try to triangulate that halfway mark. You'll actually find, you'll learn a lot. You can maybe at a different angle, you can see how much ground is missing, how much ground is actually there. I can say right now, this target's tricky. A safe number, because I know I'm going to gun at the lower, safe number here, I think is 44. What I'm going to do is I know I have tons of room to the right side of that lower, because remember the lower is further away from the head than the upper. So I know that big swatch of dots coming down is going to be where the lower is at. That big dark spot up there is all 10. So if I land up in that all 10 there, I'm in business. Well, he definitely yarded me. I'm actually in the pie slice between the upper and the lower. I'm going to pull up my rangefinder. I got the other two. I figured out their numbers. I'm going to pull up my rangefinder, see what he actually is. Judging on that, he's probably 38, 39, getting 37, 7. So I was off by like, what, seven yards? Although it's a dark target, so I'm betting he's closer to 40. Just judging on where I broke and where that arrow's at. It's hard for a rangefinder sometimes to pick up black targets. So he's probably in that 38, 39 range. So I'm in that five, six yards too high. I must've broke low enough that I didn't completely leave the 10 ring. Either way, I'm at 10. If I had shot for the upper with that number, I probably missed the whole dang target. And truth be told, I've missed the Javelina in competition before. There's a lot of wind out here today. But let's move over to this Ram, see what we can do with him. So I'm skipping the Blesbuck here. I'm going over to the Ram on the far right. He's out there. So I've moved us back here a little bit. I know that heavy, I don't know what the distance is that heavy. So moving back, I don't even know. But looking at this target, this is one of those, it's probably all of it targets. So I'm judging, obviously, you're going to pull out a rangefinder, you're going to click it. But if I look at this target, I'm like, this thing is out there. And again, tack, known, hunting. Do I want to make that highly executed gotta have it shot? In a hunting situation, this sucker would have to be a pretty daggone big deer for me to take this shot. A lot can happen between me and this distance. Looking at this animal, he's every bit of 45 plus. He might even be close to that 48, almost a 50 range. And with how much wind there is today, do I really want to take the chance of wounding an animal? If I'm playing against my buddies here, do I really want to take the chance of making a weird shot? I just want to focus on making a clean executed shot. And in an unknown game, I want to make sure I'm having the safe number and make the safe play. So looking at it here, I'm looking for my 20. There's a stump up here, which looks to be about that 22-ish range, maybe 23. And again, I can see that that's actually about my halfway point. There's a tuft of tulips or some type of grass up here that's growing. And I think that's about that 20 yard mark. So I think that halfway is between that 20 to 23 range. Let's just call it 22. That would put this target around 44. So that would be that aggressive number. Do I think it's 44? Am I going to gun right at it? I don't think it's 44. If I gun 44 right at it, I think I'm going to blow out the bottom of this. I might have a left-right and I don't want a left-right. There's not a whole lot of air on this target. In terms of if you're aiming off that elbow where you want to aim in a hunting situation as well, if you're going to get blown to the right, you might get blown low and then you're an eight or worse, a nickel, a five. Another thing too in competition, if this isn't like the first target you've shot of the day, I shoot in the semi-pro class. So we shoot after the pros shoot in ASA and IBO. And so sometimes you can look at the target and see where is everybody hitting. You see a whole bunch of arrow holes low. Do you see a whole bunch of arrow holes high, left, right, whatever. This target does not look like it's quartering. It looks pretty broadside to me. Yeah, the more I look at this target, I cannot be convinced that my 20 is right. Like this, just the body size alone, everything about it is telling me it's in that like seven, eight range. It doesn't look like it's all of it, but it could be. And if I wanted to be safe, I would put all of it on it, which in my class is 50 and gun really hard at the lower. I'm going to put 49 on it. Actually, I'm going to put 48 and a half on it. And we're going to go center 10. Cause I can aim at center 10 all day long, right? I can see the core, the core line. I can see the outsert or the insert of the core. And I know how much meat I have. I know where the 10 ring is in relation to that core. Cause I can see the core with the naked eye. I probably won't be able to see the 10 ring and the 12 rings with the, even with my six X lens in there, but I can see that big core. I know that center IBO is basically right in the middle of that core. And so I'm going to put 48 and a half on it. I'm going to go right at the bottom side of the IBO, right above the lower. And if I'm hot, if I'm hot by a couple of yards, I'm probably still going to hang 10 at this distance. And if I'm cold, I'm probably going to still hang 10, maybe catch the lower if I'm, if I'm lucky. See if this wind behaves. Right now, it's all right-ish. Pushed me pretty far, right? Yeah. So I was hot by about a yard or two and it pushed me really far to the right. So I aimed right at the IBO and with 48. So it's probably around that 48 and a half. So it's probably around that 46 and a half. So let's go 46 and a half and let's focus on aiming more at the IBO on the left-hand side. Oh, that's close. I got to know. Let's go down and look at this target. I figured since we're pulling all the arrows, let's come look at all the targets. So here's the lower. I was gunning. I thought 31 was the aggressive number, which it would have been. This is about a two yard distance at 31. I shot it for 33 or 32. I can't remember. So I'm right in line with it. My left right was great, but I was a little hot on my number. Safe shot. Really nice safe shot. And also in a hunting situation, definitely a really, really, really nice safe shot. Definitely going to kill the animal there. Second deer target that got to have it target. I set it for 21 gun right at it. I'm right there. He might be 21, 22, 20, but that's a 12 all day long. And again, that's one of those aggressive shots either in a hunting situation or in a target situation where I don't mind taking that shot because I feel confident in it. Feel good about the shot. And in that case worked down to 12. Although with a bad bobble might be an eight. All right. So here's the heavy. This is the spot on the stump or on this log rather that I thought, and there is a solid yard and a half, almost two yards of distance there. Did I catch 10? Yes, I did. Skin of my teeth, but I caught 10 there just barely in the top side. Now my height, my left and right is actually really good because this target actually ended up being angled more this way. So I would have been right here on the the left edge of the lower, at least as I see it, your right side, my left. So my left right was actually fine. Definitely way too hot on the number, but that's okay. We still stayed at 10. An absolute classic coulda shoulda woulda right? So put 48 on it. I was aiming right here and I got pushed. So I was aiming right here again, about a yard and a half, two yards, too hot. I shot 46 and a half on it and I'm definitely in the lower here, right? So I went from making a safe shot, ended up with an eight, made a really aggressive shot, ended up with a 12. That's a great thing. Do you want to make a safe shot and have it work out and be fine? Or in this case, try to make a safe shot and it was poor, made a really aggressive shot and it worked out. I've had way more really aggressive shots work out poorly than work out well. So I can't be super mad about this. Obviously I'm way happier about that. So there's a couple of target shots today going through all of that. Run out of camera battery here. I'm going to wrap this up before I lose it. I got a few more targets to shoot before I hit the road. But again, just talking about the mental checklist, okay? Applies to tag, it applies to hunting, it applies to the known game, it applies to the unknown game. If you just definitely think, I'm going to click a rangefinder and just make a shot and see what happens, you're never going to end up in a truly, really good spot, okay? When I say by that is you want to have something that's consistently going through your head every single time you fire your bow. Bag target in the backyard, foam target just for practice, foam target for competition, having a good time with your buddies at tag, and definitely of course when you're on a live animal. You want to be able to run through this all spring and all summer long so that when the fall happens and you get that one shot, right? You get that one chance of a lifetime, you're able to make that well executed shot because your brain just automatically goes through all those motions even before you draw your bow. Gives you the opportunity to practice judging yards, it's a lost art. I know it's not for everybody, right? But I hear so many guys that come into my shop like, oh I just get up in my stand, I click a whole bunch of trees and I move on. Well in the heat of the moment, you don't remember what all those trees are sometimes, right? You get a big 150 plus inch deer that walks out there, I know I'd be peeing myself and you'll forget those distances. So if you can train to have some sort of checklist that goes through all of those things, it makes safer shots, smarter shots. And no, it's not perfect, right? I have a lean over there, I whiffed him down at Coleman, down at the Classic last year at like 36 yards, plain up whiffed him, shot right underneath him. So even with all the mental checklist, that's not perfect. But I feel so much better when I enter the woods because that's really all we're gunning for in the United States as bow hunters, is really gunning for to have that mental checklist and that perfect shot on an animal every single time. Because if we miss a foam target, whatever. We make a bad shot on our bag target, whatever. No harm, no foul. But when it comes to wounding an animal, missing an animal, a shot that you really want to have happen, whether it's a doe or a big buck, you want to be able to have that mental checklist to go through. So anyway, there's lots more to talk about this topic, but I need to, with 5% battery, I need to move on. If you have any further questions about mental checklist, setting up a bow, setting up a target situation, setting up a hunting situation, please do reach out. Drop a comment down here on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, Average Jack Archery. You can't miss me. Feel free to message us there. You can always go into our website, AverageJackArchery.com. You can shop a lot of the things that I'm showing today, like these Ultra Arrows, the Elite Bow, the Stabilizers, and Hamski Rest that I'm shooting, and all that fun stuff. Build target arrows out for yourself, build hunting arrows out for yourself. Order's $99 and up. Get free shipping to anywhere in the lower 48. Hope you're able to get outside. Enjoy some, finally, some spring weather. The northeast is finally breaking. Hopefully, it's warming up where you are as well. You southerners, I don't want to hear it from you. Get outside, enjoy God's beautiful creation, and we'll get to see you next time.