Banana Bend TBOT 3D Tournament

Made the run down to Baytown to get in another TBOT shoot for the year.  Finished 2nd in the last one that I shot in and figured I could work on my shot just a little bit more before hunting season.  I shot a lot of practice rounds today just to try to find my shot since my practice has been lacking.  Once I got warmed up, I had the pleasure of sharing the course with a couple of gentlemen that made the shoot extremely fun.  We had a great time despite shooting the last 4 targets in the pouring rain.  I had a pretty good round and shot a 237.  It was good enough for second place and another silver belt buckle.  Lots of hardware won from this season of shooting.  Hopefully I can get one more good tournament in on the 24th and then it will be all about the start of bow season

Hunters Extravaganza Pop-up

Made the trip down to the Reliant Center for the Hunters Extravaganza.  I shot in the pop up archery tournament last year with my compound bow, but decided to sty committed to the longbow this year.  The format of this tournament is to shoot from a slightly elevated platform while wearing a safety vest and clipped into the makeshift safety rope.  You shoot five arrows at 5 targets that pop up randomly through pneumatic controls.  A qualifier round is your best two scores (10 targets).  I shot a qualifier round of 40 and 42 which was good for an overall 82.    Wasn't able to make it to the finals because I had other plans, but had a great time and gained a lot of experience.  The compound class required a 94 to get into the top 16.  Next year that will be my goal.  Check out the cool action shots thanks dad and excellent photograpy

Montgomery County Archery - 7/27/13

Shot in the 3D tournament for the month.  Trying to get home back in before deer season.  Dad came and shot with me this round and did a great job with the photography.  We had a great time even though I shot my worst round of the year and got beat by dad.  I shot a 194 and he shot a 198.  Maybe I will have a post about the upcoming pop up tournament at the hunters extravaganza 

TBOT 3D Archery tournament - BFAC

Saturday was a good day. This was a different kind if tournament. TraditionaI Bowhunters of Texas (TBOT) was part of this tournament. I have not shot in one of their tournaments yet and have had this marked on the calendar for a while. I shot in the Mens Longbow Open division which just means that you're allowed to use carbon arrows. I haven't practiced that much before this tournament. The round started at well, but I did have to post a couple of 0's on the score card. I still managed to shoot a 221. There were only two shooters in my class which means...I got second place. Very nice silver belt buckle for my efforts! Thanks for reading

Montgomery County Archery 3D Tournament - 5/25/13

Well, not my best showing at a tournament this year. It was a day full of 5's on the scorecard that were very close to being eights. My practice regiment has been a little off, but my focus was scattered at best for this tournament. I still have not standardized my equipment and it has been playing tricks with my muscle memory. It has caught up with me and I paid the price on the scorecard. Today was 222, which my worst score so far for the season. It was still good enough for 3rd place, the top score was a 241. I will be working on a few things to get my equipment in order and try to fling a few more practice arrows to get back to my usual score.

Buffalo Field Archery 3D Shoot 5-20-13

Did some shooting yesterday at a bonus tournament. I call it a bonus because I usually only shoot in one per month and that will be next weekend. All of my Traditional friends were in Chester, TX at the big 2 day shoot. My buddy Zeke did come with me for the shoot and we both put up personal bests. I fell apart at the end of the round and marked a lot of 5's and one 0. I should have put up a much better score but hopefully this will give me the practice I need going into next week. Final score was a 250 which is about a 6 point improvement from my last tournament. It was good enough for 3rd place out of four shooters in the class. I

Broken Point Ranch Review

Broken Point Ranch is located in Merkel, TX. Owned and operated by Dave Mayfield. Their website is www.bowhuntingwesttexas.com.

This ranch is excellent for any Bowhunter. The ranch is laid out well and has several stands set in key areas to provide shot opportunities. The terrain also allows for natural blinds to made and still keep you concealed from all animals. I have hunted on plenty of ranches and have guided on the King and Kennedy Ranch and I can tell you that Mr. Mayfield has everything you need for and enjoyable hunt.
This hunt/shooting school that Mr. Mayfield and Rick Welch put on is top notch. What I enjoyed most about the two days is the hospitality. There is plenty of game to hunt. We were after pigs this trip and I had two shots with my longbow. I connected on the second was able to harvest my first trad animal ever on the ranch.
If you are a serious Bowhunter that is looking for a quality hunt on place that isn't over browsed then this is the place to go. There are several different species to hunt. We saw some very impressive rams and pigs. On our trips to and from the stand we saw blackbuck, axis, whitetail, and turkeys.
The ranch house has six bunks an separate cooking facilities. There is a good practice range right outside the door which is perfect for all shooters, especial us traditional guys.
My hunts very eventful and required my skills as a hunter to be successful. The video shows my first pig which we did not recover. Arrow lands below the spine and above the lungs. I forgot to pick a spot a few inches lower than my desired point of impact. At 15 yds and only shooting 150fps, the pig ducked my string. The picture is my second pig that was recovered thanks to some tracking by Mr. Mayfield.
This was and awesome experience and is the premier spot for a Bowhunter that just wants to have a shot opportunity after a long season. Go see Mr. Mayfield at the Broken Point Ranch and enjoy a quality hunt with great accommodations and even better hospitality

2nd Tournament at MCAC

This is the first tournament back from Rick Welch's school.  Shot pretty well, but still have some old habits to break and new ones to form.  I really hit my stride on the back 15 and only had one 5.  My overall score was a 241 and was good enough for second place.  Really enjoy these tournament because of the company that I get to shoot with.  Thanks to Jimmy and Shelby Smith who are relatively new to archery and both are doing great.  Also want to thank Derek Herring of Bounty Hunter Traditional arrows for another enjoyable tournament.  I hope he does well in the Texas Self bow championship this weekend.  Thanks to Stan the bow man for helping me out as well.

My nephew, JW Chesser, shot with this for this tournament. He is 6 years old and this is his first archery tournament. He did great and had a lot of fun

Rick Welch School at the Broken Point Ranch

I have never taken an archery lesson. I have been shooting bows since I was thirteen and have harvested several different animals with a bow. April 23rd -24th was my chance to learn from Rick Welch's techniques and hone my routine to be a better traditional archer. Since I have only been shooting a trad bow for a year and half, I felt I owed it to myself to learn as much as I can to be as accurate as I can.
This post will be about Ricks school. Please read my upcoming post about the Broken Point Ranch so that it will be properly reviewed. Ricks school is just what I needed. I did research about his method before coming to his school and watched his video, The Accuracy Factory. I was able to get some of the things correct which allowed for more refinement and practice. After going through Ricks course, I improved my score from 109 to a 180 on a 20 target course. That's an average of 9 points a target which makes me a 270's shooter on a good day. Going into this my best score was a 244. Hoping I can apply everything I learned and get a solid practice routine down. I have been trying or weeks to get the video to load on this post with no success. Check my YouTube channel to watch the videos! Just type Paul Batchelder Jr. and it should come up

First set of Wood Arrows

I was able to try some wood arrows at a local 3D tournament about a month ago and was really impressed with how they felt out of the bow and how accurate they were. So I ordered some shafts from the guy that let me try them out and fletched the arrows myself. So far they have been flying well. I have taken off shooting for about 5 days now just to give my shoulder a break. I felt some in the muscles I am NOT using to draw my bow and just though it my be best to relax my shoulder for a week or so. Probably will resume shooting this weekend

New Custom set for the Longbow

It has taken several weeks of working on and off to complete this set of arrows. I have happy with how they turned out, but definitely have a long way to go before I will call them up to my standard quite yet. They shoot really well on they test run this afternoon and I will need to practice with them to get ready for the tournaments in April. Thanks for checking them out

3D Shoot at Montgomery County Archery

Had a great day on the 3D tournament range today. Shot with friends and made some new ones in the process. Really enjoyed shooting with Mr. Herring from Bounty Hunter Traditional Arrows and sharing stories from the woods. I had a new personal best score of 244 which was good enough for 2nd place out of 8 shooters in the traditional class. Kind of alternates between 10s and 5s on the front half. Made some really good shots that I am very happy with. No pictures from the shoot, but did mange to snap a picture with my 2nd place hat pin!

Thoughts about my form

This is a bit more of a boring post so that I can collect my thoughts about the accurate arrows that I have shot over the last couple of days. I am going to start with my bow arm and then go to my string hand and finally my anchor point.

My bow arm is most accurate with a relaxed hand and with my thumb knuckle rotated around as much as I can. The real key is making sure that my bow arm is fully straight.

My string hand needs to have a deep and rigid hook with a thumb that falls below my jawbone.

The anchor point has three distinctive points right now, possibly a fourth with some fine tuning. Right now, there is the feather on the end of my nose, thumb under my jawbone and my pointer fingertip on my the bottom of my eye socket. The release is subconscious and goes off once the sight picture looks right.

The sight picture looks right when the point of the arrow is right of the desired point of impact. Recently I have noticed something about my feather that touches my nose. The top edge of the shield feather (feather is laying horizontally) is lined up with the desired point of impact. This automatically puts the the point oof my current full length GT Trad 55/75 with 125 up front to the right and allows for an accurate shot. I will need to seek advice about this arrow alignment.

Into the Grey...the last great fight I will ever know

Built a set of arrows to get ready for an upcoming tournament. Went with a simpler design in the cresting pattern because of time constraints, but really like how it turned out. If you haven't ever seen the movie "The Grey" with Liam Neeson then rent it! It was my inspiration for this pattern. I think you will see a more intricate version of this in the future

Orange Arrows

Friend of mine decided to buy a recurve after watching me shoot mine a little bit. I told him I would paint up some arrows for him just to give me some more practice. He told me that he like orange so this is what I fixed up for him. I like the way they turned out and learned a few things to apply to the next batch.

Feather Splicing - Journey of Patience

Working on some feather splicing today. It is very intricate work and is best done a little at a time. These will go on arrows for my new MOAB longbow. I still have some tuning to do before I fletch with these feathers. I will have a blog post about my tuning next time. These feathers have 6 different pieces and will have matching cresting pattern once everything gets figured out

Montgomery County Archery Membership 3D Shoot

Today was the membership shoot for Montgomery County Archery Club. It was a good turn out and lots of different classes of shooters were there. Unfortunately I was the only traditional shooter for this tournament. The first official tournament will be on the 23rd. Today I shot well for the first tournament of the year. I posted a couple of zeros on the score card, but still shot a 201 on 29 targets. Should do better the next time around. Had a good time with a few friends that just got into archery. The picture is probably one the best shots for me of the day.

New Long Bow!

I picked up an new long bow from a gentleman around the corner. The bow is a Thunderstick MOAB (Mother Of All Bows) made my Jim Reynolds at Thunderstick Archery. The bow is an extreme reflex deflex bow with bamboo core limbs. The bow measures at 62 inches and is 53lbs@28 inches. The bow is a sweet shooter and has no hand shock. I am working building some arrows that will shoot well out it. I have. shot it for 2 days now and all I can say is two words.....fast and quiet. This bow is great to look at and shoot. Check out the pics

Arrow Practice

I am trying to improve my skills for building custom arrows. These arrows are a little short and over spined for my bows, but they are perfect for my buddy Zeke. His improvement in accuracy and form is a testament to his practice and I was happy to supply him with some arrows to take to the upcoming tournaments. Hopefully they fly true and we can get some of the other guys outfitted with some custom arrows

Almost only count in hand grenades, horse shoes and archery

My first couple of rounds from 25 yds was very encouraging today. I almost made an infamous shot known as the "Robin hood". I have not done this in a long time and never with a recurve. As you can see by the picture, the arrow made a pretty good gouge in the nock. Very pleased with this result. This was at the maximum distance that I will shoot at in the tournaments. Awesome.

Gains in Accuracy.....One arrow at a time

It has been a while since I posted and I am trying to get in the habit of posting when I learn something very significant about my shooting.  I have shot a lot over the last couple of weeks and have noticed a few things that really make me a more accurate shot.

I think that a pre shot sequence makes each shot more accurate.  I always raise and extend my bow arm and then have a deep and tight grip on the string with enough pressure to keep it in place.  Once my bow arm is up I am ready for the draw.

The draw is transforming to a J-shaped motion with my elbow. I got this from some videos that I watched and really helps me feel the back tension, especially once I get to full draw.  As I am drawing my string, I am pushing my bow arm to proper extension and trying to make sure my fingers are lightly curled on the front of the bow.  My elbow basically traces a "J" and feels inline once I hit my anchor point.

My anchor point has been evolving a little and trying to find what is most comfortable.  What "feels" right is my index finger hitting the bottom of my orbital socket and my middle finger touched the corner of my mouth.  I tuck my thumb into my palm, but I experiementing to see if I can make my anchor point a 3 point reference.

During this whole process my mind is trying to focus my eyes on the center of and arrow hole in the target.  Aim small miss small still works for my form of shooting.  I find that my most accurate arrows are after being a full anchor for 3 seconds.  I try to think about continuing my elbow motion and relaxing my hand, but honestly it is like the release happens almost automatically.

I have inconsistent with my long shots.  I have started using the Gap aiming system as a tool to practice the muscle memory for my bow arm.  I made some very accurate shots from 25 and 30 yards.  For my current set-up and when I am releasing properly, my point on distance is about 30 yds.  If I aim about 7 inches low at 25 yds "point on" then it hits the bullseye.  I will be exploring this a little bit more over the weekend.  I am very excited about this information and will be able to make some very accurate shots from a longer distance.  Thanks for reading.  I will be doing some shooting with some friends on Saturday.  I will try to remember to take pictures to post! Happy Valentines day!

Form Shooting

This is just a video of different angles to help me review my  shot sequence.  This is slowed down to half speed in order to view different aspects of the shot.

Slow motion Video

 

This is a video that I have already posted, but I am trying my had at a little video editing.  I really think being able to use slow motion is going to help with my shooting form as well as make for some really cool documentation of different shots.  Still working on some kinks and I am hoping as I progress that the videos will be increasing better.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think or if you have any tips and tricks for working with Windows Movie Maker.  Thanks

Quick few arrows

Didn't have a whole lot of time today to shoot, but did manage to get in a few arrows.  I am trying new ways to document my archery experience.  Pictures are always nice, but thanks to my GoPro camera I am able to bring you something special today.  I had a great practice session today and was able to put arrows in the exact spot I was looking at from about 12yds away.  I need to be able to do that from 18 yds, but that will be from another day.  Hopefully this video will upload.  Enjoy!

Video Time

It is not easy trying to figure out something new for the first time.  I was able to finally figure out how to post video to the blog and hopefully it works.  I am using a GoPro Camera to record the videos because of its durability and versatility.  It is a great point of view camera.  This is the point of view from the target.  Enjoy!

New Arrow Test Drive

Today I started shooting the new arrows out of my 45 lb Samick Sage Take-down Recurve.  This was the first tuning session and I will be trying more combinations as I get some time.  It is also worth noting that I am not paper tuning or bare shaft tuning at this point because I am still working on my release.  I am just kind of eye-balling the angle of the shaft in the target.  This is just my way of doing it for right now.  Once I get a set up for paper tuning then I will give that a shot.  Ok now for the results:

I am currently shooting a 32 inch long 5575 Gold tip traditional shaft with the standard insert and 125 grain saunders combo point.  The fletching is 5.5 inch pope and young cut feathers.  The feathers are fletched at 90 degree interval, so 4 fletchings per arrow. 

Bow is a 45 lb Samick Sage with a 7 1/4 inch Brace Height.  Just to clarify that measurement was taken using the a typical brace height measuring tool.  Clipped on the string and measuring to the back of the riser.  I think I am drawing about 29 inches when I am doing things correctly.

At about 9 yards the arrows fly better than expected.  Honesty I could probably change nothing an be just fine.  If I short draw the bow then the arrow just shows to be just a little stiff.  When draw back completely the arrow is pretty straight into the target.  Today I am not checking nocking point, just trying to get left and right ready.

Tomorrow  I will try to add 100 grain brass inserts and different point weights to see what kind of flight I get.  Trying to get optimal flight is best obtained one step at a time.  Thanks, maybe pictures on the next time

New arrows for The Sage

Today was a long day of working on arrows for the 45 lb Samick Sage. It is a tedious process, mainly because of my need to pay attention to detail. The feather splicing took the longest amount of time. The new Spinrite Crester did a good job for laying down the fine lines. Theses are 5.5 inch feathers cut in a Pope Young style. Next I will be working on getting good flight out of the Sage. Hoping to have better arrow for the upcoming 3D tournaments and maybe hunting in the fall