Practice in Less than Ideal Conditions

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#6741

All of my target practice is hunting practice, and so I’m constantly thinking about how to mix it up and get out of the comfort zone. For example, it’s all too easy to look out the window at crappy weather, and say, “I’ll wait until it gets nicer to go outside and shoot.”

It’s kind of a cruddy day here in eastern Idaho: 33F and snowing with a 12-15mph crosswind. Truth is, these are not unusual hunting conditions in our part of the country. So I took advantage of the opportunity to get off my arse and fling a few arrows in some realistic conditions:

http://youtu.be/I5dQTkPqQSA

These were “cold” shots (no warm-up before shooting the video) at a distance of 18-20 yards. Part of the arrow’s trajectory was somewhat protected from the wind by my house, but the latter part was directly exposed to the crosswind described above. Not unlike a common hunting situation of being hunkered in the woods and protected, but shooting out into a clearing where there may be more air movement going on. First arrow dropped (you can see it below the paper target target at the end of the vid) but the rest were at least in the ballpark.

How often do you deliberately get out and practice in less than ideal conditions? What else do you do to make it more challenging and realistic?

[Troy Warner]

#54285

When I have the opportunity to shoot with high winds, cause the wind blows a lot in SD, I take it. Gives me confidence in my equipment and set up.

[jason samkowiak]

#54425

Good on ya for taking advantage of practicing in that crap.

it can be hard to convince yourself to get dressed up and head out.

I do the same thing. Practice in all the conditions i hunt in. rain, wind, snow, etc. I also think its importnat to practice in your gear, especially cold weather gear. I also make sure to practice cold shots when on stand in the winter. on the cold mornings after sitting in stand for hours with no action i always take a practice shot with a judo to make sure i can shoot good after a few hours sittings still in teh sub zero temps.

[David Coulter]

#54432

Smithy,

Nice video. It reminds me of one of George Stout’s videos. You also hold your draw about as long. Well done. Good to get out in it to practice. This winter I have to admit I didn’t get out to shoot as much as I thought I would. I did get some snow shoe stumpin’ in and had a blast, but the weather was nicer. Thanks, dwc

[wahoo]

#54435

dude thats not crud thats heaven — you could be at work – think about that – it was a cold day thats for sure – go ahead you just keep rubbing it in – happy St Pats

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#54446

Thanks, folks. That crosswind was definitely making it interesting – if you look close, you can see my arrows kicking right a little (from the camera’s POV) as they get near the target.

And yeah, DWC – it’s always interesting to see your own shooting on video. I tend to think that I pause at anchor longer than I actually do.

Happy St. Pats!!

[Charles Ek]

#54456

OMG, the camera-shooting virus has spread westward against the wind. 😉

Good on ya for getting out to practice and thanks for the video!

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#54517

eidsvolling wrote: OMG, the camera-shooting virus has spread westward against the wind. 😉

Ha – if I’d ruined yet another camera, I’d be checking myself in to “Chateau Bow-Wow” right now…8)

[James Harvey]

#54796

Nicely done video Hammer 😉

One of my practice challenges is to shoot late in the afternoon with the sun blazing in the corner of my eye and my target in a shady spot. It can make it a tricky challenge to pick and focus on a spot.

Probably not as tricky as that snow and wind though 😀

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#54900

ausjim wrote:

One of my practice challenges is to shoot late in the afternoon with the sun blazing in the corner of my eye and my target in a shady spot. It can make it a tricky challenge to pick and focus on a spot.

That is good practice, Jim. When backyard shooting, I’ll also do things like balance on a small stump that’s just big enough for my feet and shoot, sit down and shoot around/through various obstacles, etc. Anything to break out of the, “perfect shot under perfect conditions with perfect target shooting positioning” which can easily become a habit with backyard shooting. My backyard range is oriented in a southerly direction and so it’s not uncommon that I’m facing into the sun when I’m shooting as well.

[Ralph]

#55001

tradhunter1 wrote: When I have the opportunity to shoot with high winds, cause the wind blows a lot in SD, I take it. Gives me confidence in my equipment and set up.

That’s the way it is here in the Panhandle with the wind. We just go shoot. Messes with us when it ain’t blowing:D

[Troy Warner]

#55292

R2 wrote: [quote=tradhunter1]When I have the opportunity to shoot with high winds, cause the wind blows a lot in SD, I take it. Gives me confidence in my equipment and set up.

That’s the way it is here in the Panhandle with the wind. We just go shoot. Messes with us when it ain’t blowing:D

Ralph, I’m in Clovis, NM working again and I will concede that the wind in NM and Texas is much worse than SD. At least the dust storms there are limited to where the farmers are plowing or planting, well mostly. West river does get some dust storms, but nothing so far like here. 🙂

[bruc]

#55343

Enjoyed the video ! Good shooting as well !

Bruce

[paleoman]

#55385

Good for you for getting up and shooting. Outside of work I have not wanted to stick my head outside all winter.

[sinawalli]

#58641

One should always practice in less than ideal conditions. “Train the way you fight, fight the way you train” is what my military bud always says. Lance Armstrong used to train in the crappiest of crappiest conditions for that reason.

[SteveMcD]

#58712

Smithy.. Nice video! 8) Normally I do the same I will practice in cold and raw weather, because that’s what we deal with hunting anyway. I won’t practice in high winds though, only because then I can’t tell if it’s the wind or something I did wrong! But on yeah, cold raw cloudy weather, low temps, standing, sitting, kneeling I try it all. Especially kneeling because as a ground pounder most of my shots are going to be from a kneeling position anyway.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#12000

Called up my buddy yesterday and asked him what the weather was like at his place. “Pretty windy, raining and snowing…” was the response.

“Perfect – let’s shoot!”

So here’s a quick little vid from yesterday’s session. I’m playing around with learning some new video software, so bear with me…

http://youtu.be/Oxc1s1_Tfkg

Of course, this isn’t really about “braving the elements” which are no big deal, but about what can be learned from shooting in these conditions. And yesterday’s conditions were pretty educational:

You can see in one of the shots where my friend is shooting that the cross wind is blowing pretty good – take a look at the flags.

I was shooting identical weight/FOC arrows, but with two different fletching setups (see the “Feathers” thread in the FOC forum for more detail, and other learnings). If you look closely at my arrow flight in the video (when the camera is facing toward me in the first shot) you can actually see the tail end of my arrow kick out to archer’s left, and then straighten out again – but if you look really closely – the point keeps tracking straight, in spite of what the ass-end of the arrow is doing. At first when I watched the video last night, I thought that it must be something with my tuning or release, but I’m confident that my tuning is spot-on with this bow/arrow combo, and I’ve shot many times with it in calm weather with no such issues. So it must have been the effect of the crosswind, which makes sense, given the direction/strength the wind was blowing, and which direction the arrow was being affected.

But the important part is the end result – my smaller fletched arrows were hitting the target accurately. The larger fletched arrows were consistently grouping left of the center of the target – again, consistent with the wind direction. Even with the same point weight, the larger fletching was catching more wind, which the arrow couldn’t entirely recover from, as it was with the smaller fletching.

My friend was also experimenting with two different fletching setups similar to what I was shooting, and was finding the same thing, effectively ruling out that it was some idiosyncracy specific to my tuning or technique.

Now to be honest, the wind was definitely at the upper limit, and at times beyond, what I would feel safe taking a hunting shot in unless I was pretty close to the animal. But that’s why I find practicing like this to be so valuable.

[Brennan Herr]

#12568

Smithhammer,

That’s is a great video and nice shooting. That Thunderchild is an outstanding looking bow. Almost as nice as my Elkheart!:wink:

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#28781

Thanks, Brennan. I guess I’m just going to need to get an Elkheart some day and compare! 😉

Here’s a little follow-up video shooting the same small, straight-fletch setup that is in the video above. As previously mentioned, you can see the arrow kick out after release in the above vid, which if you didn’t know which way the wind was blowing and how hard, might just look like a weak-spined arrow.

Here are the same arrows shot on a calm day, with the video slowed down as much as possible:

http://youtu.be/03zB9w39I7A

GT Trad 5575, cut to 28.5

200 gr. point

100 gr. insert

5 gr. carbon collar

4 x 2-1/4″ fletch

25.6% FOC

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