The year was 1988, the place Seoul, Korea, the event the finals of the Olympic archery competition. Jay Barrs, representing the United States, carefully watched the flags posted near the course. His competitors were watching them, too.

As each archer took their turn, they “read” the flags on the ground, made their adjustments in aiming, then sent the arrows toward the target face, some of the shots covering 90 meters (99 yards). Jay, however, was the only one who had noticed a small, but significant detail during his practice rounds: The flight of the arrow could be determined more accurately by how a high Olympic flag nearby was reacting to the wind rather than the lower ground flags. The competition discovered this too in a couple of days–but it was too late. Jay Barrs had captured the Olympic gold medal in men’s archery.

As this example reveals, a razor thin edge can mean the difference between winning and losing when the world’s best archers gather to compete against each other. Each man, or woman, has spent years practicing and studying their sport in order to become skillful enough to qualify for the competition. Both physical and mental conditioning has been an important part of their regimen, with the mental part being the most significant factor–most say as high as 90%.

10 Ways To Gold Glory

Whether you are a beginning archer or a seasoned veteran, I believe you will gain knowledge as you read the following tips from Jay, given in his honest, but articulate, off-the-cuff style of teaching.

Hours at the range practicing from all sorts of angles and distances will put you on the fast-track to more bow kills.brad herndon photo

1. Form.

Actually, the very first step to successful archery is to start with a basic, decent form. I mean it’s amazing how many guys out there just do not pull their bow properly. They generally have their bow set really heavy and they are improperly pulling the bow with their arm, not their back. Start out by getting someone who knows something about archery to show you the basic foundation of form. And then practice your form first; don’t worry where the arrows are going– which is totally against human nature, especially with archery because you get an immediate feed back. As soon as you let the arrow go, if it hits the middle, it’s a good shot, if it doesn’t hit the middle, it’s a bad shot.

Well, that’s not necessarily true. I’ve shot lots of good shots that didn’t hit the middle. I’ve also shot a lot of bad shots that did hit the middle of the target. Don’t get caught up in where the arrow ends up; in the beginning get caught up in how the arrow got there, the mechanics of archery. And basically the better you get, the more you think about form, believe it or not.

2. Consistency. Once you get good form, then work on consistency. Ironically, if a shot is executed exactly the same every time, even a person with poor form might shoot well. Of course this is rare, so what good form does for you is allow you to make a bigger mistake and get less error out of the shot.

3. Know your equipment. Get comfortable with your equipment, understand how it works and why it works. Don’t be scared to play around a little bit with your equipment, the way it’s tuned. Don’t let someone else tune your bow for you, learn to do this yourself. Learn what happens when you do shoot, so if something goes wrong, you will know how to correct the problem. However, don’t get so carried away with tuning that you have to tune constantly. You can take a new untuned bow out of the box and put it in a shooting machine and shoot better groups with it than any archer can shoot.. The only reason you fine tune a bow is because then you can make a bigger mistake and get the least amount of error down to the target.

4. Practice. …

5. Practice. I put this one in here twice because you can’t shoot too many arrows, I can guarantee it. I have yet to see an archer who

Target panic happenswhen bowhunters try tohard to aim the arrow.Instead, concentrate on thesmall area you want to hit,your mechanics and hand-eyecoordination will do the rest.photo by brad herndon

really and truly has burnout. I’ve seen a lot of them claim they do, but I have yet to see one that has shot enough arrows to have a severe case of burnout.

Most archers, whether hunters or tournament archers, sometime in their career encounter target panic, an inability of the archer to hold the sight on the intended target. In a moment I will mention a method of practice which will correct this aiming error for most archers, but, it should be noted, this problem may be avoided by beginning archers if they learn proper aiming techniques.

For example, most of the time the cause of target panic is the archer is trying too hard to aim. Generally aiming is the last thing you should have to think about. It’s like throwing a baseball. You don’t aim a baseball, you look at what you want to hit and you throw it. Archery is a lot that way. Basically your eye will not let you not aim. It’s just the way you’re put together. If you look at what you want to hit, you’re going to aim, that is just the way your mind works.

Don’t get caught up in believing you must keep your sight pin perfectly still on the target, whether it be a deer or paper. I don’t know of anyone that can keep their sight pin perfectly still. It’s going to move–it may not be much, but the sight pin is going to move. So just accept that fact, and look at what you want to hit and let the sight pin have its natural movement on the target. Then concentrate on the proper execution of the shot, not where the arrow is going.

7. The Release. Whether an archer uses fingers and a tab or a mechanical release to shoot, a smooth release of the arrow is critical to shooting accuracy. Most archers, whether they be hunters, indoor target shooters or 3-D shooters, use a release aid, so I will discuss this in detail. I’ve seen very, very few people who shoot a release right. 90% of the people out there “jump” on a release. Whether they think they do or not, I can prove to them they do. If you have an archer pull their bow back, then let someone else trip the release, I can guarantee you if they are not using a wrist strap, the bow will hit the ground. If you can shoot a release aid without using a wrist strap, you’re grabbing the bow, punching the release. Because if you’re shooting the bow correctly, your reaction time is not fast enough to catch the bow before it hits the ground–unless you have your bow balanced where it doesn’t jump forward, which usually isn’t the case.

I understand in a hunting situation pinpoint accuracy isn’t necessary and that you’re not going to have the luxury of standing there and squeezing your release nice and smooth all the time. Still, you need to practice that way, and then instead of actually jumping on the release when a deer comes along, you will just pull up and lay your finger on the release, then just increase the rate of squeeze so it still is a smooth motion. This practice will result in improved accuracy, preventing you from dropping your finger on the release from about a foot away like most folks do.

It also should be noted many hunters hunt without a wrist strap and shoot very well on big game their entire career, having a lot of fun in the process. However, if you ever decide you want to shoot for score, the use of a wrist strap and working on a smoother release will be two of the first things you will want to focus on.

8. Overcoming target panic. One of the best ways to conquer target panic is to stand very close to a large target, say five yards, with your eyes closed. Then concentrate on slowly squeezing off the shot. When you get to the point where you can squeeze off every shot smoothly, then shoot with your eyes open, again making sure each arrow has a flawless release. After these two steps are mastered, then, and only then, put up a target face and practice shooting at it.

If your arrows still are flying perfectly when you are using the target, then start moving back five yards at a time, first to ten, then fifteen, then twenty. This method does not assure an instant cure of the target panic dilemma. Like most ingrained bad habits, it will take time to overcome target panic. Perseverance is the key word here.

9. The Importance Of Conditioning. Conditioning is very important at my level of competition. Regardless of who you are, or what you do, the better shape you are in, the better you are going to be able to handle what you are doing.

For example, hunting whitetails in Canada, where it might be zero to twenty below, demands that you be in good shape. For a hunter who is out of shape, after about two days of those brutal winter conditions they’re done– because it is tremendously hard on the body. I suppose there are no disadvantages to being in excellent shape. Even if it doesn’t make you live longer, you will die feeling good.

10. Poundage and yardage. If you can’t hold your bow directly in front of you and pull it straight back, you’re shooting too many pounds. Too many hunters have to hold their bow up in the air, draw the bow, then come down on the target. This is true because their biceps muscles are stronger than their back muscles, so they use their arm to draw the bow rather than using their back. Obviously they are shooting too much weight.

What this creates is a lot of unnecessary movement when hunting deer, and as a result, the archer is picked off by the animal on numerous occasions. Deer hunting from a tree stand is full of odd shooting angles. If the bowhunter makes sure he can draw his or her bow straight back at any angle, including in both the sit down and standing position, then they certainly are increasing their chances of success.

CAN 10 TIPS HELP?
Although ten tips described by a few hundred words can not carry the impact of speaking to a person face to face, there is sufficient advice here to make each of us a better archer if we apply ourselves to the task at hand. After all, these words are from an Olympic champion.

They knew it would be something interesting. After all, I had once broken my leg while squirrel hunting. Then there was the time I almost lost my finger to a tree step. That cost me 13 stitches. Afterwards I was extremely careful around tree steps. Still, just a few years later a sharp edge on one resulted in another stitch job, 12 in all. Their all-time favorite, though, was the time I somehow got a long wire bristle in a hamburger I was chowing down on. As I chewed, the pressure embedded this slender projectile entirely inside my tongue, a fact I was painfully aware of in a couple more chews.

 
 ”Shortly he was heading our way like we were reeling him in on a fishing pole.”

The wire being completely enclosed by my now very tender tongue necessitated a surgical entry from the side, a technique they hoped would help find the wire on the first incision. As they mentioned, they “didn’t want to cut holes all over my tongue trying to find the long, small diameter piece of metal”. I was in complete agreement with them. Everyone thought it was neat when they plucked it out of there on the first attempt.

I know everything I’ve mentioned so far was racing through the nurse and doctor’s minds as they waited for my answer to their question. Finally it came out. “I was attacked by a dead turkey!”

I had their attention, and told them my story. I repeat it here for your information and entertainment.

The Senile Tom
My problems started when my wife Carol and I went turkey hunting one morning. Right at daylight we had a jake and a big gobbler pitch out in a field in front of us. I wasn’t sitting near Carol, and I was amazed when she shot at the bird, which, to me, was a football field away. It was her first miss ever, and she admitted quite quickly that the turkey might have been a smidgen too far away.

Going on, we worked another tom up on a ridge, then circled back down to the far end of the field and once more stationed ourselves along the edge, this time snuggled in among some small saplings and multiflora rose bushes. Shortly, a gobble echoed from the hillside across from us. Sexy yelps soon had the longbeard in the field checking things out. He looked around awhile, then started to go back up the hill. A few more yelps made him think things over. Shortly he was heading our way like we were reeling him in on a fishing pole.

“After positioning the gobbler between the trees, I made a small incision in the chest with my knife and started tugging away.”

At 10 yards Carol pulled the trigger. Nothing. Then there was fumbling, and more pulling. Nothing. By now the gobbler had stopped, completely enthralled with the commotion going on before him.

By now we were whispering back and forth. Assuming she didn’t have the pump action locked in place from her first miss, Carol pushed the action firmly up and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. By then she realized she hadn’t jacked another shell in after the early morning shot, so she rattled one into the chamber. Still the gun wouldn’t fire.

“Give me the gun!” I whispered, in a tone loud enough for someone across the field to hear. Immediately I saw that Carol had in her excitement pushed the safety back on. Flipping it off, I handed the gun to her and said “Shoot!”

By now the longbeard had his track shoes on and was headed for greener pastures. Carol killed him stone cold dead at 20 yards. High jumping the barb wire fence in front of us, I was soon at the gobbler’s side. He was a monster tom, with tremendously long spurs which curved out to needle sharp points. He ended up being the heaviest turkey, with the longest spurs, that either of us had ever killed. “You’re the luckiest turkey hunter alive,” I shouted back to Carol.

We had a lot of fun on this hunt, of course, but my dealings with the turkey, one we appropriately named The Senile Tom, was far from over.

The Attack
Once home, Carol had to shower, change clothes and head to work. Once she was gone, I looked for some rope so I could clean the tom. I use rope, incidentally, because I tie a turkey between two little saplings in the woods behind our house. I tie one leg to each tree, placing the bird about chest high to me, then simply skin the turkey out. It’s quick, easy and makes for fine eating. My problem this time, however, was that all my hunting buddies had borrowed my ropes the previous fall to tie their deer on to various things–trucks, deer carts, etc., and had failed to bring them back.

This didn’t seem to be a problem since I soon found some small diameter rope that looked plenty strong enough to hold a turkey while I skinned it. After positioning the gobbler between the trees, I made a small incision in the chest with my knife and started tugging away. “What a tough old senile bird,” I thought. “His hide won’t even come off.”. Giving an extra hard tug, I was surprised to see both ropes snap in two and the bird come flying right at me. Using my best evasive maneuver from my dodge ball games in high school gym class, I was able to deftly move out of the attacking tom’s way, suffering only a slight brushing from some part of him as he rocketed past my face.

Tying the longbeard back between the trees, I was surprised to feel moisture above my left eyebrow. Reaching up, I felt blood on my finger. “The rascal scratched me,” I said to myself. After cleaning the tom and washing him up outside, I walked in the house to clean up. Leaning close to the bathroom mirror, I could see a thin, long wound above my eyebrow. It didn’t look like much damage had been done to me this time, so I took my finger and kind of pushed along the edge of the wound.

I was shocked to have the wound open up and reveal a cut made all the way to my forehead bone. Evidently one of The Senile Tom’s razor sharp spurs had made the long, clean cut. So off to the doctor I went.

As I finished my story in the doctor’s office, I thought they were going to actually break out in cheers. They all agreed (more nurses had gathered around by now) that I had set a new standard of excellence, one which would be hard for even me to top. They even discussed getting an award plaque made, with following words engraved on it: This special award goes to Brad Herndon, the only man alive who has ever been attacked by a dead turkey–and survived!

I don’t know what they were so excited about. It only took 6 stitches to patch me up.

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For a cool video showing the aggressive nature of wild turkey, see below:

Instantly, the wide-racked buck was running toward me along the edge of the woods. A deer’s ability to home in on a call is phenomenal. The buck slowed to a walk and dipped into the woods directly under my stand. When he hit my scent trail he froze. Though he was only 5 yards away, the cover was too thick to permit a clear shot. All I could do was wait – my heavy bow at full draw – for him to make the next move. Finally, after what seemed like an hour (but was probably less than two minutes) the chess match ended when the buck backed from the cover and offered a perfect 10-yard shot.

The arrow found its mark, and even as the buck spun to run across the open field I knew he wasn’t going far. Instead of going home empty-handed, I was blessed with a beautiful trophy, the direct result of calling. That was the first buck I ever called in and the first trophy buck I ever shot with a bow. Needless to say, calling has become an important part of my deer hunting strategy ever since.

At its best, deer calling can make all the difference between success and an empty tag. On the other hand, used in the wrong places at the wrong times, calling can actually hurt your chances. There are basically two different strategies with respect to deer calling, each has its strengths and weaknesses. The method you choose on a given day should be based entirely upon the conditions in which you hunt.
Great Expectations

In my experience at least 50% of the bucks I call to that are alone and moseying through the woods aimlessly end up starting my way – most come all the way in. And the testimonials (and trophies) of other hunters agrees with my findings.

The success rate on bucks that are seemingly headed someplace is much lower, however, probably something like one in ten, or worse. And the odds of pulling a buck away from a hot doe are about zero.

Blind Calling
Blind calling simply means calling periodically to deer that you don’t see, but hope are within earshot. The majority of deer hunters practice blind calling because it would seem to attract the maximum number of deer.

In some cases, however, calling blind is not the best approach. For example, let’s assume you’re hunting a good-sized area and have seen a particularly nice buck. You would love to wrap your tag around this one. Every 15 minutes on stand you blow your grunt call and rattle your antlers together. Certainly, he must hear the calling, you reason, and no doubt he does. But, how is he likely to respond?

For every smart old buck that charges right in, stiff-legged with the wind at his back and fire in his eyes, several others will slink into position downwind to first check things out from a safe vantage – unseen. Or they may tiptoe in using cover to conceal them until they see you move on stand. Your odds of calling the big boy straight to your stand are fairly low. Unfortunately, your odds of having him detect your presence before ever revealing himself are a lot better. Once he senses that you are hunting him, he will become virtually impossible to tag in that area.

Blind calling can also work against you when hunting on small tracts of land. If you have permission on only a small area, you must hunt it as carefully as you possibly can. Don’t draw undue attention to yourself, because every deer you educate in that little area will be very difficult to tag, even days or weeks later. Deer know when they’re being hunted. A lot of calling under these conditions can become almost an all-or-nothing tactic, best reserved for late in the season.

There are times and places where blind calling makes a lot of sense, however. If you set up in a location where the wind is blowing your scent out into an open area where deer are not likely to circle, you can make it work. Video and game call maker, Mark Drury, tells of calling in and missing a huge buck – of Boone and Crockett proportions – a few seasons back from just such a setup in an area that hadn’t been hunted all season. Even though his tree stand was located only 25 to 30 yards upwind from the edge of a wide open field, the buck still tried to circle, staying just inside the woods on the downwind side. The encounter serves to illustrate just how cautious these big bucks can be.

Last Resort Calling
The second method of calling is to try to entice only deer that you have already seen and know will otherwise pass out of range. Such was the case with the big 10 pointer described at the opening of this piece. When you see a deer you want, try to do everything in your power to tag it right now. You may never see it again. Your best chance for calling any animal is when you can watch its progress. Visually you can tell when it has heard your call and whether or not it is interested – and you will be able to follow its progress as it tries to slip in on you. If the deer is not interested, you can try another type of call, or change the cadence and rhythm.

Last resort calling is my personal “first resort” deer calling strategy. I don’t like to carry rattling antlers so I rely on grunt calls to get the job done. If a good buck that I would like to shoot appears to be passing out of range I call, otherwise I remain silent and wait and watch. Some bowhunters prefer rattling in this situation because it is louder and carries farther on windy days. Turkey hunters know that sometimes one call will trigger a response when others won’t. If grunting doesn’t work, try rattling. You’ve got nothing to lose.

When employing last resort calling try to determine as quickly as possible whether a deer is going to come your way or not. Once a deer is well past your post it is tough to call him back. However, if all you are asking him to do is to make a slight detour your way, the odds become much better. On the other hand, if the deer is headed your way anyway, remain silent. A deer responding to a call comes in on red alert, intently searching for the source of the sound. Remember, you are the source. You really don’t want a deer to come in looking for you unless absolutely necessary.

How To Make The Calls
Actual calling techniques that will produce action are very broad. For example, you can rattle in just about any sequence you desire and still produce good results. The same goes for grunting. I’m conservative and always start with the classic three grunt series. In fact, that’s about all I ever use. It is my opinion that if a buck isn’t responding to the basic contact grunt he’s not going to come to anything else you throw at him.

You will get more from your deer calling by first taking into account your hunting conditions. When the conditions give the green light, calling can produce excellent results. However, there are also times when silence is golden. Learn to recognize the difference and become a better deer hunter.

Find Deer Calls at eders.com by going to: http://www.eders.com/categories/deer-calls/

Find Deer Calls at BowhuntingOutlet.com by going to: http://www.bowhuntingoutlet.com/calls-deer/

see a video of a buck grunting below:

Find Deer Calls at eders.com by going to: http://www.eders.com/categories/deer-calls/

Find Deer Calls at BowhuntingOutlet.com by going to: http://www.bowhuntingoutlet.com/calls-deer/

These safe areas are called staging areas, and they can often be identified by the concentration of buck sign located in the immediate vicinity, such as rubs, rub lines, large tracks or freshly browsed second growth. A stand of conifers, a wooded ridge, an uncut corn lot or even a small over grown field can all function as a staging area to a time-conscious whitetail buck.

Still-hunters would be wise to mimic a buck under these circumstances, and remain poised but out of sight in their own staging area until it is time to “sneak and peek” along a route a buck might take. Here are a few examples to keep in mind the next time you are afield.

Make sure your staging area is down wind and out of sight of any nearby deer.

The trick is to position yourself in your own staging area near the buck’s bedding grounds well before sunrise. Choose your staging area carefully however. You must be able to reach your “safe area” without crossing any active deer trails or spooking any nearby deer—and you must do so in the dark.

A cluster of rubs near a feeding area is a dead giveaway. Bucks use this section of the woods as a staging area.

My favorite early season staging area however is the down wind edge of a deep woods feeding area, like an abandoned apple orchard or stand of acorn bearing oak trees. Bucks, especially mature bucks, will sometimes sneak in to feed here before sunset if there is plenty of nearby cover.

Plan on waiting patiently just outside the feeding area until 45 minutes or so before dark, and then sneak in yourself to see what’s there. If the orchard or acorn grove is indeed attracting whitetails, even a racked buck can be difficult to spot however. So stop often and scan under the trees, dropping down to your knees if necessary, for a long look-see. Examine the cover carefully for a piece of a deer, like a rear leg or a bobbing set of antlers. Keep your ears open, too. Bucks munching on apples and acorns make a soft but very distinctive noise!

Pre-Rut
It is best to change tactics when scrapes and scrape lines begin appearing in your deer woods. Bucks are more active now during daylight hours making them more vulnerable to a ground attack.

The trick here however is to first determine when the scrape lines are being checked by the buck—early morning or late afternoon—and then be there the very next time you expect the buck to appear.

Generally, scrape lines found near feeding areas are best still-hunted in the morning, and those located near known bedding areas are better left until later in the evening. Nearby rubs, tracks and the direction the forest duff was tossed out of the scrape can confirm your suspicions.

I like to position myself in my own staging area down wind or even cross wind of the scrape line, but in sight of the scrapes. You must see the buck first before he sees you, and the only way you can do that is to always keep the line of scrapes in sight. I will still-hunt the line ever so slowly, taking an hour if need be to check out the line, beginning at first light if it is a “morning” scrape line or just before dark if it is an “evening” scrape line. The plan is to again time your arrival with that of the buck.

Rut
The real fun begins when the rut peaks. This is when bucks are moving about all day long in a never-ending search for a doe in heat. Your best chances of intercepting a buck now are to zero in on the does.

In the morning, position yourself in a safe area adjacent to a feeding area preferred by does before first light, but choose a knoll or high vantage point. This will let you glass the area carefully for bucks as they crisscross the field searching for does.

One morning I watched from a hilltop as a buck worked a green field for does, then disappeared just behind a group of does and fawns along the far side of the field. I could see tails flashing every now and then indicating that buck was probably having a field day with those does, then nothing. Reasoning the buck was cavorting about in a nearby overgrown orchard; ideal for still-hunting I tucked my binoculars inside my jacket, and slipped quietly into the orchard for a quiet look-see. It was very thick, but a half- hour later I caught that same buck bedded down on the far side of the trees, unaware of my presence. That nine-pointer’s rack now hangs proudly in my den.

Conclusions:
As you can see, staging areas allow a bowhunter to keep tabs on his still-hunting route until “prime time”—the time a buck is likely to be positioned somewhere along that route. Only then should you be “sneaking and peeking” along that particular piece of turf. Good Hunting!

Check out this great short clip of some bowhunters stalking (still-hunting) for whitetail deer.: