Aim Small, Miss Small: The Mystical Flight of the Arrow

Uncle Ted and his good buddy Razor Dobbs with a fat doe everyone enjoyed around the grill!
Uncle Ted and his good buddy Razor Dobbs with a fat doe everyone enjoyed around the grill!

Young Ted had it made. Had my very 1st bow by the time I could walk (which was before my 2nd birthday) and quite honestly I never put it down in all these 68 glowing arrow flinging years!

I don’t shoot arrows, I am the arrow!

I am also hopelessly human, which brings about a series of lifetime misgivings and human shortcomings. From the very beginnings of my mystical flight of the arrow life, I could really zing those arrows accurately, pretty much wherever I wished them to zing.

The untainted instinctive hand-eye coordination of youth is truly a thing to behold, and no squirrel scrambling along distant limbs or high-wire telephone lines was safe. 30-40 yard chipmunks were my specialty!

I couldn’t imagine hunting rabbits with a shotgun. Rabbits were the ultimate bow and arrow target!

Shemane Nugent captured Uncle Ted's heart more than 26 years ago and still is making him smile today!
Shemane Nugent captured Uncle Ted’s heart more than 26 years ago and still is making him smile today!

Graduating from my fiberglass youth bows on up through my Osage orange and yew longbows gave way to those early pieces of laminated recurve archery art by Wing, Ben Pearson, Shakespear, Herters, and ultimately Bear!

Swear to God I shot my bow every day no matter what. I treated those lovely Port Orford cedar arrows with gorgeous shield-cut natural turkey fletching like gold. Even when I broke an arrow, I would simply whittle down the tip and short-draw, enabling me to milk the maximum life out of my beloved projectiles.

Needless to say, as I am about to celebrate the beginning of my 69th year of archery, I know a thing or two about this wonderful aim small miss small world of the arrow.

And I’m here to help.

Now I’m well aware that I am not the ultimate archery coach or by any means the greatest bowhunter in the world, however, I have been coached and guided by the greatest of the greats and have picked up a few critical pointers along the way that I wish to pass along to my bowhunting BloodBrothers out there as we stalk into another glorious bowhunting season.

There are so many details that must be covered in order to become the best possible archer we can be, beginning with making certain the bow we shoot is the right bow for our individual fit.

A graceful, smooth drawing draw weight is critical. The exact proper draw length is critical. The exact tuning of our compound bows is critical. Paper-tuning for perfect arrow flight is critical. An exacting shot sequence is critical, and of course dedicated practice is critical so the archery experience is as mechanically second-nature as brushing our teeth.

Ted with whitetailBut it is here in my little deeranddeerhunting.com NugeBlog that I would like to focus on the two most glaring shot-sequence mistakes I witness all too often, virtually guaranteeing bad arrows.

Violation #1 is the widespread trigger-punching malady where I see so many archers’ trigger-finger pointing straight out above the release’s trigger prior to the shot. Then when the sight is all lined up and ready to fire, the trigger-finger makes that long journey southbound toward the trigger, and I guarantee you that the sight-picture is altered dramatically in that nano-second of trigger-finger drop.

The only way to get the ultimate and consistent accuracy when using a trigger-release is to own that trigger throughout the aiming process, putting as much pressure on that trigger as possible without actually firing.

That trigger-finger should be wrapped around that trigger like an orangutan grasping a branch. Ultimately, and this is according to every Olympic and champion archer out there, the trigger should be so fully engaged by the trigger-finger that the actual final triggering should occur with back tension.

This takes some mindful and dedicated practice but I can tell you first-hand how dramatically it improves your accuracy.

Violation #2 is the often witnessed grip hand grabbing the bow-grip in a jerking manner at the moment of release. There is no way the sight picture can possibly remain on target when such a gripping change occurs upon release.

Add the two violations together with both hands working against each other at the moment of release and you are going to be one very unhappy bowhunter after all we must go through to get to the moment of truth where we earn that shot at a deer, then blow it.

Like the release hand, the grip hand must remain constant throughout the shot sequence to form the solid front sight picture with the rear sight picture.

The grip hand should be just firm enough on the bow-grip to secure the bow, not too tight, and not to flimsy, but constant from drawing through aiming and after the release with no change in pressure.

I practice daily throughout the year and throughout the season as well, consciously imprinting my exact shot sequence on my inner predator psyche so that when the beast stands before me, I am able to go into my killer pick a spot mantra and let my ultimate mystical flight of the arrow disappear into the hair leading to the backstrap getting pumpstation.

And isn’t that a magical dynamo moment afterall!

Ted Nugent is an award-winning musician and writer, with numerous best-seller books including “Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto,” “God, Guns and Rock ‘n Roll,” and “Kill It and Grill It: A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish” with his wife, Shemane, among other books. Be sure to check out his website for more news on his latest music, thoughts and upcoming shows, and also at World News Daily, Newsmax and Daily Caller for more insights.

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