Competition Bows | Take Target Shooting to a New Level
If you like to bow hunt, it’s likely you’ve only practiced with your compound bow with a hunting perspective in mind. What does that mean? Well, you probably take some time off after the hunting season ends to rest up. Eventually you’ll start practicing over the summer by shooting at archery targets that resemble deer in somewhat realistic scenarios. While that’s very important to develop your hunting confidence, there’s a lot you can learn from target shooting with competition bows in the meantime.
Competitive shooting teaches you a lot about bow mechanics, simply because fine-tuning target archery bows can make such a huge and critical difference. Many bow hunters might choose to avoid this because their bow shoots “good enough” to hit a dinner plate at 30 yards. But proper shooting form is everything to get a high score with competition bows. Well, it’s almost everything. Putting in enough time to practice consistently and develop your shooting skills is going to do way more for you than anything.
But having a high-quality target bow will also help you shoot better in the long run. The new-for-2017 Prime target bows are equipped with several features to help improve your shooting form. Some of these features include 82x aluminum risers that are stiff enough to add stability and reduce cam movement, and an additional rear-mounted stabilizer to keep things rock-solid steady throughout the shot.
Benefits of Training with Competition Bows
Shooting competition bows in the off-season helps you perfect the tiniest little details of your shooting form. From finding a consistent anchor point to having just the right amount of pin float, you’ll quickly learn that the more consistent you are, the more accurate you can become. The whole “aim small, miss small” adage definitely applies to competitive shooting because you need to be able to hit the bullseye each time for the best score. All that practice and attention to detail really helps any bow hunter in the long run because you’ll develop a lot of muscle memory that will translate over into hunting as well.
With all this physical archery training, you also need to practice the mental side of archery shooting. Over 90% of getting accurate and consistent groups is likely due to your mental game. If you shoot often and improve, you will start to feel more confident in your abilities, which makes you a better archer; it’s a self-feeding loop. At the Cabin Fever Shootout in 2016, Prime Pro team member Paul Tedford really focused on improving his mental approach and scored 659 out of a possible 660!
Paul Tedford Cabin Fever Shootout
That’s all great news, but shooting a competition compound bow against other people also helps push you to do even better. There’s nothing like a little friendly wager to somewhat simulate the pressure of hunting. Let’s face it, when there’s money or bragging rights on the line, we all want to win. With that desire, we feel the pressure of shooting well, which is similar to the desire to shoot well at an animal. But when you shoot poorly against friends or in a competition, there’s a lot of accountability to own up to.
If you haven’t shot many competition bows in the offseason months, you should consider picking one up. It will help you become a better archer and hunter by developing a better sense of your archery equipment and your own capabilities.