For those that aren' t familiar with my knuckle dragging ape arms, my draw length is 32 1/2" with a recurve. I' ve always had a problem with finger pinch on ' curves less than 64" long. About 3 months ago, I got an old beater recurve that is 62" long. Refinished it and worked the horrid twist out of the limbs and started shooting it.

Pinch was killing me until I remembered seeing some pictures of a guy shooting a short compound 2-under. That got me to thinking, definitelya dangerous exercise in itself. After my headache stopped , I decided to start dropping the index finger off the string when I hit anchor.

It winds up that my middle finger carries most of the load and the ring finger assisting.It felt wierd at first and it took a couple weeks to work into it. I' m even using the technique on my longer bows, seems completely natural, and am shooting better now than I have in a long time.

I did some shooting with a friend' s bow at the range last week. It' s a 58" Cascade, 55#@27" , a bow length I' d only dreamed of shooting since I got all growed up. Imagine - a 58" recurve drawn to 32 1/2" ! No finger pinch to speak of and the arrows were flat screaming downrange! Didn' t scale the bow, but I' d estimate I was shooting my full length 2216' s at around 73 pounds draw weight. My 2216' s should have been way underspined for it, but they were shooting great. Maybe the smoother release let me get away with it, but I don' t know.

I don' t think I' ll ever buy a bow that short, but just knowing I CAN go that short if I have to opens my possible selections up to a whole lot of bows I' d never even considered buying before.

Just thought somebody out there would be interested in the technique, especially if they had bought a shorter bow than they really wanted (like, maybe, lamb1647). Eh, Bill?