WATCH: Three Great Tips for Fiber Optic Bow Sights for Low-Light Situations

Fiber optic sights for bowhunting are great in low-light situations because they help hunters, but knowing why and how they work is important for success.

All of a sudden, what once was getting to “hmmm, better” with my bow practice went haywire and turned into, “hmmmm, what th’ heck’s going on now?”

I am not a diehard bow guy with tiny broadheads in my bloodstream. I enjoy everything — bows, muzzleloaders, my Smith & Wesson .44, the old lever-action .30-30 I bought in a pawn shop, my various rifles, and my crossbow. Some guys like one thing and that’s it. I know of some bowhunters who never put it down. Others mix it up.

To each his own, and I say hunt legally and ethically, have fun, and please don’t be a hater. Don’t help further divide hunters. Seriously. There’s already too much garbage going on around the world for us to have things splinter among the ranks of hunters. 

But I do enjoy shooting my bow, which got into my blood more than 30 years ago when my father got into it. I shot well at targets but didn’t go bowhunting — we hunted with rifles then, and I was still cutting my teeth hunting, and eager for anything as youngsters will be. But I enjoyed the old Jennings bow, big Easton aluminum arrows and feather fletchings. The came college, marriage, work and I got out of it for a while.

And then I got back into it 15 or so years ago with renewed enthusiasm. As with any bowhunter, I want things to work right, feel right, shoot correctly and to be accurate. So when things started going kooky with the shots from my PSE Evolve, it was time to make a visit to the guy who has helped me for years.

Do this, he says. Try that, he says. A little adjustment here, a little tweak there. Raise this, lower that, move this a nudge there. He doesn’t try to fix or radically change anything so much as offering suggestions based on how I shoot. I appreciate that. Everyone shoots differently.

Within a few shots, things were in the groove again. Bingo. Confidence back up. Gold Tip arrows back in the right places. Smiles again.

More practice is in store, of course. Partly because it’s necessary, as part of being an ethical, confident hunter. Part of it because it takes me to days with my father by our barn shooting together. But mainly because it’s fun, and that’s as important as anything.