Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting a little help from you traditional shooters.

Hey gentlemen. Its my first post on the archery forum. Im not a bow hunter I'm a duckhunter and fisherman, BUT I have dabbled in traditional archer for quite a while. I am left eye dominant and right handed. I have 5 recurves and only shoot one of them pretty good. I love traditional archery and have no interest in compound bows what so ever. I bowfish for gar and carp in the spring and do ok but all my shots are real close so it doesn't take a expert.

My problem is I would like to buy a takedown bow but I'm affraid it will just be another bow that I am mediocre with. Why do I shoot one bow good and all the rest really inconsistently? The bow I am looking at is a cheap samick sage so its not like I would be out a small fortune like if it were a black widow or something the like. Why do I shoot only the one good?

Because it fits you. Is there something about that one that is different then the others? Lighter? Longer? Different grip?

Yep, it fits you.

I'm also left eye dominant and shoot right handed. I can assure you it works just fine...in fact I consider it an advantage for instinctive shooters. Less garbage in the sight picture to contend with.

Some bows just 'fit' certain people better than others. Most likely the grip. I'm a high wrist shooter with smallish hands and certain bows just fit me better than others.

Ok I went downstairs and looked at all my recurves. the browning is 54" the black hawk is 57 1/2", One bear is 58" the cheap Shakespeare wonderbow I fish with is 60" and ding ding ding ding the bow I shoot the best is 60". The samick sage is 62" so I may go ahead and try one. If it sux I can always put it on ebay. Only thing is I wonder about the handle now, something I never thought of till you guys mentioned it. One thing I know will help is more practice. I can tell I need to get back on my .22 cause I shot the other day and I was a shell of my former self. But ammo is just so scarce that I may just shoot a lot more arrows cause arrows are on the shelves and its so much more economical.

The shorter the bow, the more critical things become. My target recurves are 68" and 70". You will likely enjoy the 62" Samick. Don't fall into the " I may need more poundage on this new bow" trap.

Another thing to consider is arrow tuning. If you are shooting the same arrows out of different bows, they may be better tuned for the 60" bow. An improperly tuned arrow will not allow you to get proper target alignment and make the shot. You will shoot right or left with the wrong spine, and high or low if your knock isn't right and the arrow is banging on the riser.

I don't know if this will help but I agree with the comments it just fits you better My belief is it is in the riser and has everything to do with hand position. I better back up and tell you I too am right handed and left eye dominant. lots of archery shops have ranges and I would really recommend shooting the takedown before you buy it Good luck I fought this fight many years ago.

My favorite length for hunting recurves is 64".

I have a Samic Sage I think you will like it( I have 35# and 40# limbs for it)

Is it possible that the bow you shoot better than the others is of a lighter draw weight and or tuned better than the others? I know it will be awkward but switching to use your dominant eye over the arrow should provide a much easier to deal with sight picture. Getting your arrow tuned to shoot in line with your target helps immensely shooting without a sight. If your semi serious about getting better I would recommend you get the book "Shooting the Stickbow" and do as the author suggests.

I'm a book nut so shooting the stick bow will be at my front door asap if amazon has it. Thank Centershot.

Please let us know how it goes. You got me curious, I want to know this X factor.

Switch if you want but being right handed and left eye dominant didn't seem to hurt Howard Hill's accuracy much.

Or Fred Bear's...

Fred was right handed and right eyed but shot lefty because he'd lost part of a finger on his right hand.

There are plenty of examples of cross eye dominate shooters that have been very successful, but I still think it would be worth changing over. Being able to use the arrow as a sighting reference is very helpful when shooting without a sight. If you are not already too ingrained with rh shooting it would be a worth while pursuit to investigate shooting to match your dominant eye.

...

I never knew that.

Here's an excerpt from "I Remember Papa Bear"...

"�Their father had mounted a shear at the small end of a wedge-shaped trough, and it was Fred�s job to feed bunches of hay into it, compressing it in the wedge and shoving it under the shear wielded by his sister. The resulting short lengths of hay were then mixed with bran, water and molasses for the horse and cow.�

�One morning, more consumed than usual by the boredom of his task, Fred started to tease his sister by jerking the hay back just as she came down with the shear. Aileen, keen on getting the chore finished, was not at all humored by her brother�s behavior. Inevitably, Fred shoved a clump of hay a bit farther than he should have, and the shear came down quickly on one of his fingers along with the hay. The blade was extremely sharp, as were all of Harry�s tools, and it cleanly clipped off a small section of the third finger of his right hand.�

I hate to even go here, but eye dominance won't make a difference if you shoot instinctively, because you should never see the arrow, just as a good shotgunner will never see the barrel/bead.

yea, let's just not go there because we could argue back and forth for pages and neither would change their opinion.LOL

Well yer exactly right. I don't condemn anyone that uses the arrow as some sort of half assed sight. But they will never know the joy of becoming a great instinctive shooter.