feeling OVERWHELMED
 

anyone else relate to this? I took up archery about 3 years ago- only really gotten really serious the past 2 years. Anymore Im feeling so @#^D*&&* overwhelmed with the whole technical aspect of it. Something that used to be so enjoyable, any more seems to be becoming a chore. Bare shaft tuning, paper tuning , spine, foc, tiller tuning, group tuning, adjusting a rest in 15 different directions to get the perfect flight, doing this and doing that to get the " perfect set up" ...... and yet still being a novice compared to probably the majority here sometimes I want to take my bow and throw it across the yard cause Im still not at that perfect set up. Ive basically got to learn and do it on my own cause out here in the " boonies" aint no pros or shops worth a hoot and the trips to 5 shots are few and far between. Heck I just want my arrows to hit where I aim them - or at least close- no matter what Im shooting, FPs or Broadheads- at a target or at a deer. Somehow Id like to just enjoy archery again without it being so complicated. :(
Just blowing off steam but seriously the way so many talk/ argue / disagree about so many things it just seems so overwhelming at times to someone who just wants to be good at shooting a bow.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Don' t let the verbal sparring on these forums get your goat. Most all of it is the result is there being more than one way to dance this jig and a lot of folks seem to think their way is THE way. Of course, my way is the only TRUE way to do it. :D

Really though, archery and bowhunting can be complicated as building a nuclear reactor or as simple as a bent stick with a string.

I' ve been at this game a long time and, quite frankly, I don' t buy into a third of the stuff that' s going on in the sport these days. Short bows with a godawful reflex in the riser and low brace heights, single cams, hybrids, fall away rests, high rolling sights, mechanical this' s and thats' s, light arrows, speed, speed and more speed....

I officially resigned from the arms race over a year ago. It got to the point where I got flat pissed when I missed the 12-ring on a 3D target, and that' s when I figured out I wasn' t having fun any more.

When I shoot a compound these days, I shoot a long, round wheel bow with a deflexed riser and generous brace height. I don' t have any sights on the bow. I use my God given fingers to release the arrow. My arrows lope along in the low 200' s and they' re so easy to tune I can do it blindfolded. When I hit a 12-ring now, I know that ' I' did it, without having to share the glory with speedy arrows, mechanical release and sights. That' s a lot more satisfying to me. Even at that, I' ve mostly gone back to my recurves and longbows now and they are just as enjoyable to shoot as they always have been.

I truly doubt you' re the only relative newcomer that' s being overwhelmed by all the technology. In fact, I' d be willing to wager serious money (I' m an archer so I don' t HAVE any money, but I' d bet it if I did) that there have been a lot of people that have pitched the entire idea and given completely up on bowhunting. In my opinion, all this emphasis on gadgetry and technowhiz fooferaw is having a terrible effect on the future of the sport. Lots of people are making lots of money and that seems to be all that counts. For the moment, anyway.

Of course, I don' t have a crystal ball to read the future, but I' ve been awful worried about the future of archery for quite a long time now. And I know there are going to be a lot of venomous posts disagreeing with me, but those are my honest feelings on the subject.

As for you though, you might be ready to locate yourself an old recurve that draws 45 pounds or so, maybe some wooden arrows, and just play with it some. See what you think of doing this the old fashioned way. But keep it fun and don' t go getting serious about it! At least not until you build up your confidence some. If nothing else, it will be a break from the frustration of your high tech rig.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Mordecia,I know exactly whay you mean.Sometimes we need to just shut up and shoot.:D

I went thru the same thing yesterday,I couldn' t hit the spot at 30 yards to save my life.IT HAD TO BE THE BOW,ARROW,ANYTHING BUT THE SHOOTER,RIGHT.[:-]Well I had to move something to make me feel better.I moved the rest right,I moved the rest left.I started shooting 1 arrow at a time to see if the arrows were the problem.I did have a couple that were' nt doing thier job but overall it came down to me.I even twisted the cable to get the cam 1/2 exact.I moved the sight in and moved it out also.

Well after some soul searching,I finally calmed down and relaxed.IMAGINE.RELAXING.I shot a 12.Bang,finally.And another,and another and another.That' s right 4 in a row.I shot two 10' s just left on the next 2 shots and then bam 2 more 12' s.I decided it was time to go in while I was still having fun and was RELAXED.[8D]


Did I mention relaxing.;)

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Archery can be as simple or as hard as you want it to be. You are fairly new to the sport so don' t wory too much about getting wound up into all of the hoopla. The best advice that I can give you is to just settle down and concentrate on you and not what everyone else is doing.

Some of the things you listed are simple measurements that only need to be done once. The different tuning methods all get you to the same place but in different ways and one is not better than the other but more of a personal preferance.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Tuning can sometimes be very frustrating; but, there can be many ways to reach the ' center' .

Frustrating to me is when my 11 year old son decides he wants to whip my butt on the range. Guess what? On an ' off day' I sometimes have to bear down to beat the little guy. Now that is frustrating!:D[:@]

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

If you want to have " fun" tuning a bow, try it here in Nebraska where the wind blows HARD. Good thing for me is I have a large shop I can shoot in if it' s too bad to go outside. All the new advancements in archery puts more stress on the shooter to do his part because accuracy is great with some of this new stuff on the market. IMO it' s good for the sport and the future of archery. I don' t fish or golf but I know lots who do and they spend lots of money on their hobbies that they can enjoy only for a limited time of the year. Recurves and long bows are good investments for fun shooting without the extra accessories and demands they bring. What ever you shoot just remember where you live and the fact that you can enjoy your freedom to do so. Don' t forget to have fun while shooting!!!

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Ahhhhhhhhhh..... patiences Grasshopper. You want have all the skills and knowledge of someone who' s been at this business for 30 years. To make archery FUN again... forget that you don' t know everything. Practice .... practice... practice.... only don' t think of it is practice. You' re going out to shoot some arrows and relax. You' re going to try and hit the bullseye 20 times in a row, or get 10 X' s in a row, or stack arrows on a horizontal line 2 inches apart and then 2 inches apart on a vertical line or something like that. Your bow will not get " out of tune or whack" on a regular basis. You' ve been at it for two(2) whole years. You can work on that form for another 10 years at least. I venture to say that all the technical mumbo jumbo is not contributing to you misses as much as your form and skills or lack there of. When you do get your bow tuned again, mark all bolts, screws etc with whiteout or something so you can get it back to that point. Unless you' re really hard a bow tune(once the string stretches in) should give you some extended shooting time..... at least good enough for someone who' s only been shooting 2 years. Right now your bow tune is FAR better than your muscles and abilities. I guess what I' m sayin' ........ it ain' t the bow or all the technical mumbo jumbo. AND... if it makes you so damnnnnned unhappy, put it down for a while. In other words... SNAP OUT OF IT.:D

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Mordecaia,

You' re trying to do too much and " overwhelming" yourself.
I have never bared shaft tuned and I no longer try paper tuning either.
Once I adjust my arrow rest, string loop, and peep, I shoot a few shots to adjust lefts and rights then elevation. Then I shoot a few groups at different yardages.
If my arrows fly straight and my groups look good. That' s it!
I set up my Bowman over two years ago and haven' t touched the settings since.
Same with my Super Nova I set up last August.
I tend to shoot the most " Murphy Proof" accessories on the market.
At least, imo, they are the most reliable going.
To me, this helps quite a bit with keeping your bow consistantly tuned and trouble free.
Like Arthur, I don' t go for any of the drop-away rests and other gadgets.
They' re trouble waiting to happen, jmo.
Actually Ol' Arthur is pretty sharp when it ccomes to explaining things and making them seem simple.
That is why I, also, enjoy shooting my recurves. ;)


Sag.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

You have just been blessed by Arthur P! Can you say, " AMEN?" Can WE all say " AMEN?" .

Although I am skilled in finger-shooting, I won' t finger-shoot a compound unless a field-emergency arises. I' ll keep my 1 sight pin but will keep my instinctive shooting ability well tuned should my sight pin fail in the field. Otherwise, Arthur P has just laid the gospel upon you. He nailed it!

If you really want to enjoy hunting with a bow, " scrap the crap," and go with the basic needs. Too much 3D mentality and gear has made many aspects of bowhunting too damn complicated, even for the most skilled. The pursuit of faddish gear and speed has subordinated accuracy and reliability.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Archery is supposed to be fun. Too often people get sidetracted into using more sophisticated gear than they really need. I believe that you can have more fun if you stay with things that you know are going to work well for you. For instance don' t try to use an extemely low brace height bow because they can be very tricky to learn to shoot with, stay with a higher brace height bow. Likewise a shorter bow has a more acute string angle at full draw than a longer bow, and will be harder to deal with than the longer bow. Choose your arrows from the correct spine chart for the length of draw and poundage of your bow and don' t max the bow out right from the get go, set it in the middle of its range or at least back it off a turn from its peak weight. Choose a quiet, simple rest like a whisker biscuit and you won' t waste very much time in tuning the bow to shoot. The rest is form and practice. Use a simple anchor point that you can easily remember, I like to just feel the cock feather touch my lower lip and I can use this same anchor point with either traditional bows or compounds with great success. Bottom line is this keep it simple and you can keep it fun. Enjoy archery because its the best sport there is.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

I try to keep it simple, but I also do like the technical aspect of the sport. I like to tinker with my bow, changing this or modifying that. But only go as far as I can fix myself. I paper tune at 6 feet then at 10 yards and if its good then I walk away. I never bare shaft tuned or group tuned my broadheads. I' m just not that experienced to do that. Hell I' m lucky to hold a pattern at 40 let alone group tune at 50. My advise would be to only do what you can handle. If it gets to confusing or frustrating then leave it and have fun shooting.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Shooting is the easy boring part[:-]

If I don' t have an allen key in my hand I am not having fun:D

I don' t know whats more fun -
screwing up a perfectly good set-up with useless junk
Or trying to fix it after you have screwed it up:D

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Get yourself a used recurve. It' s medicinal. When you' re feeling overwhelmed by the technical aspects of the game, pick it up and just go fling some arras. Not only is it a heck of a lot of fun and damned good exercise for building back muscles needed for back tension, but it helps you appreciate just how accurate your compound is and will help you appreciate the ease of accuracy you get with your compound. The downside is that you might end up liking it so much you eschew the compound completely.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

I know how you feel. Ive been bowhunting for 20+ years and the tuning process gets to me too. Just when my bow starts shooting good, all of a sudden something goes out of wack. STring stretch, loose part, serving gives and nocking point slips,
cam timing off, aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!
To make matters worse. These so called pro shops alot of times are filled with no it alls who definately dont know what they are doing. Instead of setting up your bow correctly to get you close where you need to be, they do everything BY EYE and you end up having to make major corrections instead of minor adjustments.
Todays lightning fast bows seem to make fine tuning even more of an art.
Anyway, I' ll quit rambling on. Try to find a good book on compound bow tuning and learn as much as you can. Good luck and dont give up. [:-]

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

To show you that you' re not in this boat alone, I had a unique experience with my personal bow yesterday. One of my shooters, who is a 4 time National Champion and just set new State and National records (Atlantic City), makes the best strings I' ve ever used.

He made me one and said it was the best string he' d ever made. I was anxious to put it on. Now that it is on, I' ve got to go through the whole tuning process again. When you want it right, you have to start from ' ground zero' - resetting the yoke, the ATA, the BH, and then the entire tuning process.[:@]

It was shooting perfectly and I had to go and change it.:D:D:D

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

heres a few parts of an anothers archers thread I found which really kinda hits home to me....
a rather well seasoned archer once said. The problem with many " potentially" great archers is that they become so technologically knowledgeable about archery that they become dysfunctional. their knowledge of archery forms a barrier between them and their target. " my initial thought was " how can you become too knowledgeable about anything and how could it be a barrier ? I thought knowledge was a vehicle to success."
Then a few days after a very poor performance at a local 3 d shoot as i sat on my couch reflecting on my performance the seasoned archers words came back to me and I understood.
There was a time not so very long ago when archery was simple to me, aim hard, and do everything on the last shot as you did on the first, have faith in your equiptment and dont count an arrow out till its hit its target. During that time I didnt even know squat about draw force curves, efficiency, limb tip travel, brace height, cam timing, arrow parralax, sight paradox, KE ,FOC, hysterious, tiller tuning, bare shaft tuning,plumb bob tuning,float testing shafts, 3rd axis, helical/ offset fletching,target panic,or back tension and you know what? I did pretty darn good anyway. At present I do know about all those things and you know what?
Im not near the point I wish I were as an archer. See ,I have let my technical knowledge form a barrier between me and my target. Due to all my reading , learning,and experimenting, I have become an archery Idiot. Sure I can be an asset to many archers when it comes to assisting them in bow set ups and tuning but I want to be a good archer Not a renowned bow mechanic! During the process of my archery education I have probably tried every process and gadget know to man... The result being that I have wasted many prime years believing that if I could perfectly tune a bow, understand bow function, find the ultimate release, and learn the techniques of the most sucessful archers, I would be a contender.

The fact of the matter
is , there is no such thing as the single ultimate tune, bow function is best left up to the engineers to worry about, the ultimate release is the one that works best for the individual,and the only successful technique is the one that works for you. We allow archery to become rocket science! Manufactures bank on us to believe that the next gadget we purchase is the answer to our prayers and archery magazine writers prey on our desires to find a magic solution to keep them in business.
This may sound like bad mouthing the archery industry to some or the technilogical aspect of archery, but my intention in this thread is to share with some of you a revelation Ive had to some who may be in my shoes. The moral of this story is just this: Keep the basics basic, do what works for you, focus on the aiming and repeating the shot process, and forget all the hoopla. All the information and gadgetry in the world will not help you like perfection of a natural form, technique and shot sequence will.
From this point on I plan to focus on what works for me. I have now gone back to my natural grip, not the one recommended by Joe Pro- I have gone back to my favorite release,not the back tension release that some designer/guru claims to be the only right way to release an arrow, and I have gone back to what works for me. I plan on keeping my tinkering to nothing more than elementary tuning....
Keep It Simple Stupid ! Aim Hard and miss small! If archery were rocket science NASA would have a label on your bow.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

Amen to that!!:D
I' ve wanted to wrap my bows around the nearest tree also.

A co-worker of mine got in and out of archery in 6 months time, he said it was " too" hard. A simple vane contact issue was his demise.

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

just do what you were doing before, if your arrows are grouping good why mess with them on the the hand ,like rack attack said whats more fun ,screwing up a good setup with useless junk or trying to fix it after you' ve screwed it up? :D:D
don' t let it get you down and if you' re not into the technical stuff ,thats why there are pro shops ,you can pay someone to fix the mess you or i call a bow! hang in there[:-]

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

I am sort of an odd ball as I love to tinker, but I agree sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming. I think you may be a little hard on yourself though. I have seen you shoot, and yes you have some room for improvement, as do I and 99% of the rest of us here, but for only being in the sport for a little over 2 years and alreay killing several deer I think your on the right track!

RE: feeling OVERWHELMED
 

I' ll give you a couple of suggestions that may help.

#1. Don' t worry about the perfect tune until a month or so before hunting season. You can' t maim a target so penetration is not an issue and your target arrows will fly just as well if they are slightly out of tune and may even group better. If you notice your arrows wagging a bit, do a little bit of tuning when you get the chance, but don' t let it bother you if you don' t get it corrected right away. You don' t have to get perfect flight to shoot targets. I just bought a dozen new arrows. I haven' t tuned them to my bow yet, but I know my setup is close enough that they will group well with field tips. I will continue to shoot them as is until hunting season draws near. If I find myself at home with no kids and not a whole lot of chores to do, I may pull it out and do the paper tuning. The next chance I get, I will do some bareshaft tuning. I just take it one step at a time until it is shooting as well as I can get it to shoot. Eventually you will develop a system for tuning that works for you and the stress will magically go away because you will know that you can get it shooting the way you want.

#2. If you like to tinker, get yourself another bow to tinker with. Set your main bow up and once it is tuned, leave the settings alone and just shoot it. If you want to tinker or experiment with the latest gadget, do it with your tinkering bow. Believe me, the stress level goes waaaay down if you don' t HAVE to get that bow tuned to be able to shoot/hunt. If the tinkering bow won' t cooperate and you feel yourself getting frustrated, put it down and go get your main bow.

Oh, and whoever said a plain old recurve was medicinal is spot on! Something about watching that arrow fly to the target in slow motion just makes me grin from ear to ear. My daughter has a little recurve and I think I' ve shot it more than she has. :D

As was said before, you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. The main thing is that you keep the fun in it. When the fun goes away, it' s time to drop back and punt.

Good luck.