Beginner
 

Hey guys, to put it plain and simple, I'm a newbie. I'm 19 and my dad, who I learn all of my "hunting stuff" fromhas never shot a bow and I don't really know of many people that I can talk to to learn about it.

I've got an old hand-me-down bow from my uncle, and since I've never been properly taught before, I'm just kinda trying to do the best I can by self-teaching myself from reading these forum posts about other people's form.

So my reason for posting this is this:

A) If you had to give the three main keys to shooting and being accurate/consistent, what would they be?

B) When you were learning, what was the most helpful advice that somebody gave you?

Like I said, I'm pretty muching teaching myself, and so ANY help is appreciated, I know many of you are amazing shooters that I hope to shoot like someday, so thanks for reading, and like I said, I appreciate it!

RE: Beginner
 

Number one best thing is to find a good bow shop with knowledgable people to help setup your bow and arrows. The right people can have you shooting accurately in short order. The average bow shop will not. By yourself, the leaning curve is steep.

Next, make sure your bow fits you. The draw length has to be correct or you will not shoot as well as you could. A good shop will get this correct on your bow or let you know that the bow you have is not going to work. They can also help with form.

Pay a lot of attention to your arrows. Learn the importance of high FOC and spine tuning your arrows. Even good shops will not do this for you. It's too time consuming and expensive for a shop to bother doing this. Shops also tend to guide customers into what they like. If they prefer fast arrows that's what you'll end up with. If they prefer a particular brand of carbons, you'll end up with those. Just keep in mind, the arrow design and tuning are many times more important than the bow.

Last, learn your limitations and use them to determine what you won't shoot at. You don't need to be the best archer in the world to hunt, but you should know what range and situations are within your ability to make a clean kill at least 95% of the time.