Those on the Hill Longbowmen list know that in mid-October, I went to Whispering Pines Shooting School. I am now engaged in daily sessions, tryiing to put what I learned into practice. Keeping a record and trying to work on specific things in each session is one of the things Bob Wesley emphasized. Being web oriented, I am doing that here. If others wish to follow my progress, they're welcome to do so.

I am beginning this web record on October 21. I've gone back and picked up a few reports I sent to the email list. Somehow, the report for 10-20 seems to have disappeared. I have been practicing for about a week, working mostly at 10 yards and trying to develop form consistency. I think I have the idea of split vision or indirect aiming, though it's far from automatic at this point. I'm having a lot more trouble with my form, and I'll record my efforts on this, as well.

The practice "course of fire" is 20 shots at a 9" circle... once you start getting consistent 90's or better, you move back.

11-17

Haven't posted in a bit, and this will be the last for quite awhile... I have reached a point where I'm saying to myself, "OK, you know what you're doing... just practice and do it better". I'm now able to put maybe virtually all of my arrows into a 4" circle at 5 and 10 yards, most of them into a 6" circle at 15 yards, and maybe half (may be fudging here) inot a 6" circle at 20. I'm beginning to work on 25 yards. A couple of days ago I recieved my new Longbowman's Classic ( see "Longbowman's Classic" ) . It's a different kind of ¾Hill bow so I had to start over in establishing arrow tune and new aiming points for it. Thanks to what I've learned, I was readily able to do so and produced the targets below. So, I'll say, at least for awhile, goodbye to those who have been following these ramblings. If/when i get to the point of producing great groups at 30 yards... I'll check back in. It's been fun...

Dick:

11-13

This is Howarad Hill's Birthday and I celebrated it appropriately. For today's shooting see: "My Birathday Card for Howard Hill"

11-11; 11-12

Took a fall in the basement on 11-11 and was pretty stiff. Between that and rain on 11-12 there wa no shooting for two days.

11-10-07

There are good days and there are good days... and today was a GOOD day! I hung the burlap ball up again, and while I had a few misses, it was mostly like the thing was a magnet! Here are some picture results to help you understand why this is one happy camper today...

Anyway... I really do think I'm getting there.

11-9

Last two days were a washout... rain and errands and business interuptions. No shooting. This morning I woke up to some sunlight so out to the yard I went. I had been having some thoughts about trying something just a little different... I hung my burlap ball on the target. Shooting at a target is a bit different, visually, than shooting at "something". This was a lot of fun, but was definitely tougher, even thought the ball is larger than my usual "circle". There's no "close... it touches the ring...". You either have an arrow stuck in the ball or you don't. I had an awful lot of arrows that brushed it, but weren't in and they registered in my mind as simply missses... try harder. I did hit it a lot and finally finished by just wandering around the yard and shooting from anywhere... all distances, through the rose bushes, through the tree branches, etc. Lots of fun, and, I think, an important element of practice. You get used to the constant visual image of a regular practice target and need to change up a lot or you won't be able to transfer your practice to the 3D course.

11-6

didn't do a serious practise today... went out to the club range. Did a lot better than last time out (11-29) when I was very inconsistent. This time, I was pretty solidly into body shots at my ranges, with a good percentage of kill shots. Had some misses at the longer shots, but also made some of those. Overall I left feeling pretty good.

11-5

Shot yesterday, but didn't make an entry... it was not bad, not spectacular. Did only 20 yds and finally got down to where I had my aiming point and was concentrating on form and could hit the gold (6") about half the time, the 9" circle maybe 2/3 of the time. Let's not talk about the ones where I let my draw creep, didn't get my elbow into it, etc. Point was, I sensed progress

Today was a bit different, and a lot of fun. Saturday night, Brent was over and we watched some video stuff, including the Black Widow material on tuning and on designing there then still in development longbow (1991 video). That stuck in my mind so today, for the first time in a long time, I strung up my Widow LAG take down... 55# @ 25". Went out and started with the multiple distances shoot... one shot at each distance to verify and/or modify the aiming point, then a flight of 5. I was hot! 5 X's at 5, 5 X' at 10, all gold at 15. Yippee! I'm all ready to move back to 20 and Ann hollers that my uncle is on the phone. I love him dearly, but he's a talker and a nagger. He gave me the camera, which I picked up Saturday, but it hadn't been used since 1993 and the nicad batteries were long gone. Don, a Extra Class ham (I'm only advanced) swore that if I charged them, hooked them up to an auto light and drained them over and over again, they'd come back. Well, I know the theory, but I move slow on stuff and Don wanted to know what kind of pictures I already had taken with it. I explained that i was going slow, couldn't find new batteries at a reasonable cost, etc. Finally got to go back out to the yard. Of course, I had totally lost my concentration. I tried to repeat 15 yds before going out to 20, but I was all over. Took me several flight to settle down and shoot another all gold flight. Then I went back to 20. It took me a full flight to get my aim and settle down, but then I did reasonably well, an 80 and an 85 scoring the 9" circle, and there were a lot of golds in there, so I kept shooting, doing my "reshoot till they're all gold" thing. Took only a couple of reshoots and I had 9 arrows (what I had in the quiver today) in the gold.

That success at 20, while certainly not spectacular, prompted me to pace off 25 yds and make my first effort from there. Again, it took a flight to figure out the aiming point, which seems to be right on, and it took great, great care with form to control the horizontal impact points. However, I got a 75 for a full 20 shots. I kept shooting, not scoring, and settled down still more and found I could, with great care, get about 1/3 of my shots into the gold, with several 3 shot strings of golds. Finally got tired and had to quit. I would say that I did as well today at 25 yds as I did last week when I started shooting 20... maybe better. From this point, 25 will have to become a regular part of the practice.

11-3

Practiced at strictly 20 yds this morning. Started out very rough and took awhile to settle down. Best I could do for a 20 arrow round was 70, but I kept shooting for a long time after that, just working on form and aiming point, until by the time I quit, with my arms quivering, I had a target with all golds. I used to work this hard to get all golds at 10 yds, now it's 20, so that's progress, I guess. Will keep working on 20 yds.

11-2

Fair to middling, and interesting, day. I decided to shoot with yet another bow (I know this is not wise... I just like shooting lots of bows.) I took down my Black Bear... 52#, 64", carbon. This is actually the first carbon bow I got (It's Black Bear #2). It's a beauty, but it's a very stiff draw even for it's weight... very stout power curve. Anyway, I decided to give it a try. With all of the shooting I've been doing, I guess I'm building up a bit. i definitely felt the seven pounds difference from my LBC, but could handle it mostly. I let down on a few shots, but I knew when it happened. I was also mixing two batches of arrows, which proved unworkable... one with high fletch and one with low. Made no difference at the shorter distances but was impossible at 20 yds. So, I started at 5 yds... all gold, 25 with 5 X's... 10 yds... all gold, 3 x's... 15 yards... all gold, 5x's. Ah, then came 20.. fell apart completely. This bow is definitely faster than the LBC and i had lost my secondary aiming point. It took me several rounds fo find it again, then I shot a couple of good rounds... a 20 and a 25. However, the encouraging thing is that there were a lot of golds mixed into all that shooting, and several x's. I can shoot golds at 20... but I can't string five of them together. I pluck, or let down, or mentally shift to my old way of shooting... I think that for the next few days I will strictly shoot at 20 yds until I get that down.

11-1

Didn't shoot yesterday. Today, I decided to try a different bow, a 64" Wesley Special, 45# @ 26" and a set of footed arrows I made last winter (I didn't do the footing). I also had reviewed my nots from Bob's and remembered that he had actually started us out at 5 yds. So, what the hey, I started at 5 yds. 5 shots in the X of the gold. I moved back to 10 yds and got five more golds. I moved back to 15 yds and got 4 shots in the 9" circle (first red ring) and one out. Moved back to 20 yds and got four in the gold and one outside of the 9" circle. This represents a 90 shooting at four distances. Definite progress. Now, here's the thing... those four at 20 were really great, so I pulled the out one and reshot it... into the same group. I was impressed. For me, at 20 yds, this represents having figured something out. Anyway, here's what that looked like:

The re-shoot is one of the two touching each other at 11 o'clock.

10-30

another fun day. I decided to follow up on my idea of 10-28 and make a burlap target ball. I did it as a build-along and you can see it:

Captain Dick's Burlap Target Ball

10-29

went to the range and shot bags in the woods. I made some good shots but overall I was inconsistent and was pretty frustrated

10-28-07

Hey, archery is supposed to be fun... I think I've been working so hard on the details this past couple of weeks, I kind of forgot that. Yesterday my wife handed me a sack of plastic grocery sacks. She saves them, crams them all into one and ties the ends off, then we recycle them at the grocery store. Well, I decided to keep this one and this morning, instead of regular practice, I just took it out into the back yard and gave it a heave, then started shooting at it. It bounced quite a bit when hit, and I hit it every single time! I walked around the yard shooting at it. It finally just kind of blew up and wadded up plastic bags went everywhere and started blowing around. I stood there laughing like an idiot... not because it was funny, but because it was so much fun! I've never been stump shooting, but I can sure see the appeal. I'm going to have to sew up a burlap "soccer ball" and stuff it just for this purpose.

After that, I decided to go ahead and practice just a bit. Did quite well... 90 and 95 at 10, 90 at 15 and even an 85 at 20. I felt yesterday that I had somehow made a bit of a breakthrough, in that I knew which shots I'd done right by feel as much as by where they hit and pretty much knew what I'd done wrong on each bad one. Concentration, concentration.

Fun day! Tomorrow, no practice, going out to the range with Boyd and we'll shoot some bag animals on the course.

10-27-07

Pretty good day today, overall. At 10 yds I got a 90 and a 100, and that was shooting at the gold, 6" circle. At 10, I've pretty well got things under control, as long as I concentrate on the form and the anchor. At 15 I was shooting at the 9" circle and got an 85 and a 95, but two of those flights were all gold! I went out to 20 yds, but it was fairly grim. I think i shot maybe 8 flights, but no four of them would have been worth scoring. I was starting to get some good shots, though. My last flight was 3 golds and two outside of the 9" circle. A lot more work to be done there. I'm still concerned that at 20 yds, my established secondary aiming point is just too low. Almost point on seems to work, but that doesn't seem right. Like I said, more work needed. If I can get to where 90's are common at 20, I'm gonna be pretty deadly at 10 and 15... and just think of the challenge at 25 and 30. 30 is my ultimate goal. If I could get to where I could consistently hit the red (12" circle) at 30, I'd be one happy archer.

10-26-07

Not a good day. I did OK at 10 yds... a 90 and a 95, but that was on the 6" yellow spot, so not bad. At 15 I was trying for the yellow, but really was barely able to manage an 85 and a 90 when I included the first red ring, which made 9". Just for kicks, I decided to make my first try at 20 yds. Kind of grim... nothing that was even worth scoring, though I did manage to hit some yellows wehn I was very careful and concentrated. I'll have to experiment more, but it seemed as if the aiming point I established at Bob's was way low. When I made good shots, it was as if I was actually point on at 20, which is much too close. Something needs to be sorted out. Spent the rest of the morning raking leaves... I'm beat!

10-25-07

OK... another nice fall day and I went into the back yard determined to do better. As always, i warmed up on my ground hog at 10 yarads... I kind of have to pass him to get into the yard. Did really well, with quite a few shots in his small kill area, right where i somehow knew they were going to go. No bad outs. Then went to my regular 10 yard spot, but I had decided to try something a bit different. The back of my bear target, pictured above, is a big burlap standard gold/red/blue archery target. I felt i needed a better rererence to confirm and keep track of my secondary aiming points... at least at this stage of my development. so I turned that bag around. At 10 yards, I really felt that I improved... although my scores weren't as good (85 and 85), you have to bear in mind that the kill zone circle on the bear is really a bit over 9" and this gold on the new target is a bit over 6".... so that's good. and, I really "felt" a lot more of the shots going solidly center. I moved back to 15 yards feeling good. At 15 I started to get discouraged. I had a couple of bad flights, but then buckled down and also told myself to remember the target difference. The gold plus one red ring was more like the old kill zone on the bear, and, as I rationalized to myself, "You play whatver mind games with yourself you need to. You have to shoot the best you can right now before you can shoot better than that." So, OK, using the smaller gold a a scoring reference, I shot a 60 and then an 80, but the outs weren't so far out and a lot of the ins were really solid. I felt I was truly getting some feel for the aiming part of things, and being much more consistent in my anchor and hold, so, let's try to put it all together for one more flight... four bullesyes and one slightly out, which I indulged myself by re-shooting (don't golfers call that a 'mulligan'?). Anyway that one re-shoot went right in and, since I needed a photo of the new target to show here anyway, well, I just happened to include that group. Remember, this was at 15 yds. I really do think i am improving and I think I'm ready to spend a week at 15 yards until this settles down to something I can do almost consistently.

10-24-07 rained out... yuck what a day, but I figured a day off might be good

10-23

I took a day just for fun... went to the club range and just shot. I had a really nice day. It was a beautiful fall day here, and I just cut lose and had fun... shuffling through the leaves in the woods and shooting animal bags. Made a lot of good shots, and quite a few bad ones, but I felt I knew what was going on. Made one shot i'd have photo'ed if I'd had the camera. about 25 yds, steep downhill... first shot right in the kill zone. Can't remember that I've ever hit that one that well before. missed the other three that were on the same downhill but at longer ranges, but they were really too far for me in any event.

10-22-07

Pride goeth before a fall, and all that. After yesterday, i really went out confidant today... and did poorly. At 10 yds I got an 85 and a 90. At 15, I couldn't even put together a score. i think I had two ends where three arrows were in, but I had at least one where all five were out. On the basis of the old saying that "Only perfect practice makes perfect" (one of Bob Wesley's favorites), I decided I'd better quit. All I was doing was imprinting sloppiness. This bad result could have had something to do with the fact that I spent the morning raking heavy wet leaves and then manhandling a big industrial sewing machine for a couple of hours while inletting it into a table top, but I suspect that's just an excuse. Fact was, I didn't shoot well. Tomorrow's another day.

10-21-07

Yesterday I overdid... about 250 arrows. Today I was picking up some pain in my back... not spine pain, but the muscles under the rib. Not sure what that's about, but I decided on an easier session. I started out at 10 yards and got a 100. One flight of 5 was awesome... the rest were there, but sloppy, quite a few edgers. Then I moved back to 15 yards and got an 85 and a 90, with one really good flight again. Then I decided to just have some fun and shoot some of my animals... the raccoon, rabbit and gopher, at 10 yds. Here are the good results of the day... for some reason, I didn't preserve the bad shots for posterity... :^)

I don't plan to add photos as a regular thing, only when I think a good day represents a bread through.

Today I definitely concentrated on "elbow back" and on getting my third anchor point... string against my glasses. Man, these two things are critical for me. If the elbow is not back, I get a left shot... every time. Elbow back and shot becomes centered again. About halfway through my session, I started concentrating on getting the string against my glasses and that made a big difference again... helps really be able to see or kind of sight down the arrow, and with point placement on the secondary aiming point.

This was a good and fun session. All of the shooting was certainly not as good as the above pix would indicate... there were plenty of bad shots, these were what happened when I really buckled down and applied the concentration.

10-19-07

started out on my gopher, which has about a 5 x 6 inch oval kill zone. Got a 70, which I guess is to be expected but which I found disappointing. I thought I'd do better. So, I switched to my turkey, which has a pretty much honest 6" circular kill zone.... That was bad... I gave up on even scoring it. It was like I couldn't get zeroed in or something. So, back to the bear with the 9" circle to build confidence... 100... one sloppy end but mostly very good. Now, someone explain why I can shoot at the bear and get nice 5" groups a good part of the time, in the center of the circle, but when there is a circle that size, I can't? OK, back to the gopher... first end beautiful... four in one out but just barely. Then came the ugly... just fell apart to the point of saying I was better off not shooting at all for fear of losing progress made in muscle memory. Tomorrow is another day.... I think my mind has memorized the bear and is comfortable there, doesn't want to start changing targets, but that has to happen...

10-18-07

I promised earlier that I'd report on my shooting results. today was good... maybe too good:
started slow 75
tightened up 85
stopped and gave myself a really severe mental talking to: 100
decided to keep shooting and see when I missed: 100
kept going but was getting tired: 95 the arrow that went out was #17 of that last set of 20. Bear in mind that this was a 100 arrow session.
Also, you should be aware that this is at 10 yards... no great shakes, but it's a training exercise.
Session was shot with my 45# LBC
Why might this be too good? Now I'm supposed to move back. However, I think that rather than doing that just yet, I will instead reduce the size of the circle. That'll knock the scores down and force me to tighten up.
Best thing is, I can really feel the good shots, and more and more, several of them come in a row, resulting in well centered groups of about 4". I'd like to continue to get the "feel" of this and be shooting pretty consistent 90's on the 4" circle before I move back. I want the confidence.

Bear in mind that this is not necessarily shooting that most experienced shooters would be proud of. We're talking a big circle and close range, the purpose being to develop form consistency as well as burn in the sighting system. I'm very happy with how the progress feels so far, and as long as I don't get too many saying it's getting boring I'll continue to update reports and let you see, as honestly as I can, how well it all is or isn't working for me.

10-17-07

I did my practice shooting session this morning and just for kicks, strung up a bow I got awhile ago and really liked, but the LBC came right afterwards so it kind of got set aside. it's a very nice Ruffed Grouse. ( 66" and 51 @ 27... right about 45 for me at 25). What a sweet bow it is. I got to examining it as I put it away and came to the conclusion that there are some very under rated bows in Craig's catalog. I have a Tembo... 3 bamboo plus glass. Nice bow and I like it. My first reaction to the Ruffed Grouse was, "OK, three bamboos... it's just like a Tembo. Oops... no wait, that's three bamboos plus two lams of elm plus the glass." This is actually a five lam bow. Very, very nice. You don't here or see much of some of the Hill models... we have a couple of Owls on the list, and I think two Ruffed Grouses (Ruffed Grice?), but some bows you just don't see. I'd be interested in trying a Crocodile. I briefly had a Rhino and a Cougar... never seen a Bighorn Sheep or a Wasp. Do like that Ruffed Grouse... pretty, too.