Letting Loose

My time has been consumed. I've only touched the bow twice in three weeks!

My skill level hasn't dropped from short range, at least. 

I've done a lot of farting around since my last post. I've tried facing away from the target, twisting, and releasing. I've tried holding a second arrow in my brace hand and my draw hand. I started picking up arrows and shooting them back at the target as I collected them, but one arrow got stuck in the chair back and broke (which stopped that)!

Lots of silly little things without any real method. 

But there were some things I was more methodical about. 

I put a second knot in the string to bring my brace height to ~9". The string stopped hitting my wrist when I first bumped the brace height out to ~7" but it'd still glance the bracer from time to time.

It dropped the draw strength of the bow several lbs and I think I preferred how it shot from 7". I could try to restring the bow and aim for 7.5-8" of brace height, but I figured I'd shoot for a while to see if my opinion changed.

I think the next goal I want to tackle is to increase the distance I shoot from. I tend to hit with about 33% accuracy when I stand at the fence closest to the house (~73ft/22m give or take).

I shoot volleys of 15 arrows and usually hit with about 5. The best rate I've hit with is 8 out of 15. 

Frequently, I come close and hit the chair. The arrows usually bounce back, but one time the chair lost.

The arrowhead came off when I yanked it out of the broken plastic. I didn't risk reattaching it either. I learned my lesson when first reattached arrowhead vanished to places unknown. 

Unfortunately, the distance shows the wear on my equipment. Arrows with damaged feathers/vanes fly erratically. I've had to retire the aluminum arrows for anything other than close range. Two of the arrows are blunt, but I don't know if that really affects their flight.

I read about clout archery where archers try to shoot arrows from further away to land near a target. I gave it a try and learned a few things.

First, arrows can go really far when you aim up! I overshot one up near the house. When I collected it, I went ahead and shot a fully volley of arrows all the way back to the arena. I had some success, but there were plenty that overshot by quite a bit!

Second, I learned not to direct fire anything into the grass. I shot an arrow up and tried to aim where it landed.

I wasn't far off, but it took me longer to find the blasted thing than I spent loosing that day! I didn't want to leave an arrow in the yard and grabbed the magnet from the barn.

Do you see the arrow in the picture?

Surely you see it! It's not like they're camouflaged. The feathers are a different color from the grass, too!

Yeah, that's what I told myself, but that sucker was pro-level at hide and seek. I started walking around barefoot in the hopes I'd step on it if the magnet didn't find it.

I got lucky and finally spotted it with my eyes. It somehow submarined through the grass and would've stayed there for all eternity (or until a hoof calamity) if I hadn't retrieved it.

Lesson learned loud and clear.

I need to buy more arrows at some point, but my latest purchase was a $10 glove specifically for archery.

I should have bought a larger size. It feels...odd.

Honestly, it feels like a mankini version of a real glove. 

Even if it fit well I might still feel that way.

I haven't used it much yet. I need to get out and loose some more arrows! Archery has been my warm-up to exercising, so when I stopped shooting I stopped working out. 

I'm hoping to get back to it....eventually. When I do, I'll set a goal and try to track my progress.