Can a single one of us, regardless of expertise and/or experience, fully guarantee our form is going to be perfect, or even adequate, in all circumstances in the field? I think not. I've blown my share of gimme shots over the years, and that's an unfortunate fact. That's why I place such a high priority on bow design and demand forgiveness over speed.
Well Arthur, you had to open that can-o-worms.
I agree wholeheartedly. Form will be less than perfect in many if not most hunting situations, if for no reason other than the fact that hunting will put you into many positions you hardly ever practiced before. Combine that, with the archery industry's "need for speed" and you have the formula for failure. You gotta practice those odd angled shots and use equipment that's forgiving - if you can find it.
Another thing that has greatly affected the shooting experience is the overwhelming dominance of the parallel limb design. Imagine what a 42" parallel limb bow would weigh. The desire to overcome forward jump has proven to be an overwhelming favorite feature of new bow buyers, yet I'm not sure it has actually done anything to improve hunting success. I know, when I take my 62" longbow, weight about 1 lb, into the woods, it's a whole different experience to lugging around my 4.5 lb compound (and it's now where near 42"). For me, the longbow is a much more pleasureable weapon to tote through the woods. Even though much longer, it is much easier and faster to get the longbow into shooting position Yes, heavy bows are more accurate - with all else equal, but when hunting, accuracy is not the ultimate of what I'm trying to acheive.
My goals are to get into position on every opportunity without missing it, send an arrow designed for forgiveness and penetration towards the animal, and hope my choices enable me to hit a relatively large kill zone at what turns out to be an average of about 8-15 yards. To accomplish these goals, I will always choose forgiveness over speed or penetration over speed. In fact, there has never been a situation where I would choose speed over anything else, and yet few arrow, bow or broadhead manufacturers offer a product for a person like myself.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. In my opinion this is largely the fault of the popularity of 3-d with hunters. What's needed to be successful in 3-d is almost the opposite of what works best for hunting, yet it's billed as the way to prepare to hunt. To me, that's laughable. To prepare for hunting, the format should allow whatever a hunter can reasonalbly have access to. Rangefinders should not only be allowed, but should be encouraged. Shots should all be inside 30 yards. Brush and twigs should be in the way, forcing an archer to crouch, lean and take other off-balance positions. The use of forgiving arrows should be encourged with the strategic placement among twigs and grasses. And the best rule - shots should be timed on most stands. A person should take no more than 6 or 7 seconds to draw and shoot on some stands. On some stands you should have to take 2 shoots within a certain number of seconds. I have to make an effort to keep from laughing out loud when I see guys taking a minute to draw, aim, let down, draw again, hold for ever and then release an arrow with a back tension release - yeah, just like hunting.
TFOX, sorry to take this so far off topic - you can blame it on Arthur!