I put my abysmal ignorance in all things archery due to the fact that my Red Indian heart is just not used to the white man’s fancy bows of the modern era.
So that’s the reason for all my idiotic mistakes, but I write this in the hope that out of my 600 or so half-shadow-banned readers, there may be one or two who want to take up archery (it’s not expensive and it has many benefits at least for me mentally) and might be starting from zero, just like yours truly.
So… total number of arrows fired as of last post was 11. That has now increased to 16, with five more shots earlier this morning after I had fixed a few things I had been completely missing before.
All of these details below, and in case you don’t care at all, I just have a few pictures at the end of the current target progress, with which I am quite pleased.
So… first the finger protection.
The ones I tried so far kind of sucked and my simple work-gloves I use on the farm were adequate.
This stuff (see image below) not only looked terribly gay, but the leather pad on it is so thick and unwieldy that I couldn’t feel the bowstring effectively and I think reduced sensitivity to the point I never even tried to use it after merely pulling on the bowstring a couple of times with it.
It was also mostly useless because they must be made in China and for children or something as my man-sized hands barely fit in them. So I split them open most of the way and tried to use them with only the side of the finger-glove, ignoring the thick leather pad. this was better but the adjustments I would need to do would be too much of a hassle to bother.
I then tried something that looked like a cheapo, non-workable thing, some Chinese made little rubber tubes…
Instinctively though… they looked like they would work. My main issue is that if I could do it repeatedly without issues I’d prefer to pull on the bowstring just with my bare fingers, as it gives me a better feel for everything, but at a 60 lbs pull, when you let go of it, the bowstring basically tries to slice off the pads of your fingers.
Now, as it turns out, these little plastic things actually work rather well. I can still feel the boosting after a few shots, and I did get a blood blister, but in all honesty I get all sorts of little dings, so I am not even 100% sure this was caused by the bow, but I can’t think of anything else that would have done it and I noticed it only after using it, so I guess it may well be the cause. Still, it’s all quite tolerable, even so, I have ordered leather (or likely faux-leather) driving gloves, as a thin extra layer for the fingers would not go amiss. I’ll let you all know how it goes when I use them.
As for the bow itself, I had missed quite a few things.
The “silencers” of felt to be placed at the tips of the bow as shown below,
And the bit of cowhide on the arrow rest. which has to have the direction of the hair going in the same direction as the flight of the arrow. I had no idea originally what the little piece of furred leather was for, but in doing a tiny bit more research, it became obvious this is what the self-adhesive backing was for. I cut the original piece in two so one is for the side of the bow and one for the arrow-shelf on it as shown below.
Lastly, the arrow nocking tabs (or whatever they are called). there is actually a tool to make sure you get the position right (a perfect 90 degree angle between the arrow and the bowstring, but I just used a scale ruler and a protractor, and I think it came out fine.
And here are the results of my 5 shots from this morning.
The first one was just over the tree trunk, the next two were low, and missed the tree-trunk altogether, but the last two (numbers 2 and 3 below) were close to the target. Although the arrows have a simple point, they get stuck into the wood hard enough you can’t just pull them out, hence the hammer and chisel you see in the picture.
Arrow 1 was the one I had fired yesterday and left in overnight. So number 2 was worse, but number 3 is pretty good. I was slightly closer to the target, so maybe 37 metres or so instead of 40 metres. That’s roughly 120 feet instead of 130 feet. The target is the little yellow leaf placed under a vine on the left of arrow 3.
And for perspective, here is my hand to show the distance between the leaf and the closest and last arrow I fired today.
There is still a LOT I need to learn, however, you might notice that the arrow that is closest is missing one of the fins, as I mentioned in the previous archery post.
I genuinely think I am more accurate with hat arrow than with the ones where the plastic fin bashes the side of the bow and as a result deflects in a somewhat random way. And in all honesty, I am not sure 2 fins instead of 3 makes all that difference.
I am sure some actual experts would anathemise me and label me a dirty heretic unfit to own a bow… but… all I care about is how accurate I can get with my own way of doing things.
Main issue I have so far is that there is no easy way to aim. I get the best results when I sort of “sense it” without really aiming in any specific way other than by literally just trying to perceive where I want the arrow to go. I am not sure that is a good way to do things, and I know a lot of people say you should find a spot on your face to “weld” a part of your drawing hand to so as to have good consistency, but I find that doing that tends to make me shoot even less accurately.
Anyway… this is more about Archery from a complete novice than anyone is likely to care about, so thanks for reading if you got this far.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
