Busy Week

I apologize for my late post, this is due to the fact that the semester comes close to an end my work load is increasing and I have less time to post blogs. 

With that said I will give a pointer to all those who are interested in taking up archery.  One main practice that archers should practice, and that I practice, is to be consistent in everything they do in archery.  Your stance and release is what gives the archer their accuracy, so the more consistent you are in these aspect, the better chance you are in hitting your mark.  However, being consistent is a difficult thing to do since there is so many factors involve and it differs between people.  Also, the make of the arrow helps, but you can't control that unless you make your own arrow and/or assemble it yourself.  The distance in which your arrow flies depends on how you tilt your bow before the release.  Also, the strength of the tension the bow and string can generate on the draw back will determine the distance of the arrow but that can be corrected by tilting the bow higher for more distance and lower for closer distance.   

Start Of The Hunting Season

With the fall season upon us the hunting season begins. Bow hunting is mainly about being able to track down the target animal before and after you hit it with an arrow. Majority of the time in bow hunting you won't make a clean kill and the animal will get away with a wound and if the wound is sever enough and on the right spot the animal will hemorrhage and die of blood loss. This is probably one of the most cruelest way to hunt in my opinion.

I only started bow hunting last year and went with my grandpa and uncle. Out of all the times I went I had only gotten two chances to shot an animal, first chance was a white-tail deer and the second time was an elk. I didn't hit the animal either times though. The first time I didn't judge the distance properly and fell short. The second time I clipped a tree branch enough to knock the arrow off course missing my target. I don't really plan on going bow hunting this year since I picked up archery mainly for recreational purposes and hunting wasn't one of them. However, I will go if I have the time, but I will go with the intent of testing my tracking skills and not really plan on shooting anything. I let my uncle or grandfather or whoever I'm with do the actual shooting.

Bad Week

The picture on the left is that of the arrows I use, they're both carbon fiber, same length, weight, and tips. The only difference is their fletching sizes, the one on top is shorter than the one on the bottom.

Well I haven't been having much time to do anything for the past few weeks, my weekday schedule is preoccupied by school and work, which is from 9 am to 5:30 pm.  Since, it is the fall season the amount of daylight is becoming shorter and shorter.  The only days I have to make it out to the archery range is the weekends, but this weekend it was raining pretty bad. The range I go to is an outdoor one, usually the rain isn't too much of a problem, the only down side is that when I go to retrieve my arrows their shafts gets wet making it hard to pull them out of the targets. I tried going to the indoor ranges they have around the Salt Lake area but I don't really like using them since a lot of people do.

Back On Topic

So I finally managed to get my pictures up. The picture on top is that of my first bow and the bottom picture is of my second bow. Both bows have extra attachments on them. The stabilizer is the attachment on the front a little to the bottom. Normally the bow is top heavy due to the positioning of the grip which is located a little below the center and the added target sight attachment gives it more weight on top. This causes the bow to lean back on the top after it is released from a full draw and this disrupts the travel path of the arrow. The stabilizer allows the bow to lean forward after it is release from a full draw making the arrow fly more accurately. The arrows I use are 26 inch carbon fiber shafts with a 100 gram iron tip. There is two kinds of fletching or tails I use on the arrows, long fletching for long shots and short fletching for straight shots. I use carbon fiber because it is stronger than aluminum and it is just as light in weight in my opinion since it doesn't break as often. I used aluminum arrows before and it broke a lot more often than I liked.

What Happen Last Week

I apologize for not making a post last week. My grandma past away Wednesday 09-15-2010 and I was helping with all the ceremonies and funeral, so I didn't have much time for anything else. The funeral was held Saturday 09-25-2010 and in my culture's tradition all the men in the family shaved their heads and eye-brows and became a monk for a day to send off the person who passed away. I too did that, but I did it for two days since there were a lot of men in my family, so a few of us had to do it earlier since the Laos temple here in West Valley is not that big to accommodate all of us. However, I will get back to my original posts on the next weeks post.

A Little Mishap

I was planning on uploading pictures of my bows, but the camera I took the pictures on was taken by my sister and I haven't been able to get it back yet.  I did manage to go practice at the archery range behind an Easton Technical Product building on 5040 Harold Gatty Drive, where my father works, last week on Wednesday.  While I was practicing the string on my bow snapped as I was drawing it back and I got whipped on the right shoulder and my left forearm.  It wasn't too bad since it didn't hit my shoulder too hard and I was wearing a forearm protector.  Compared to the time it happen last year wear I got grazed on my right cheek.  To prevent I usually keep the strings waxed and have them replaced every year.  When I first started archery I didn't know about waxing the strings periodically to prevent the string from snapping and that lead to my first accident that grazed my cheek.  This time on the other hand I'm not too sure why it snapped.

Why I Started Achery

I actually tried archery when I was a sophomore in high school when I took a wildlife studies class and my teacher showed me how to string a 4 foot, 50 pound re-curve bow and took a couple of tries shooting it.  I didn't really pick up this hobby until two years ago when my dad ordered a bow for my uncle and he never used it so he gave it to me.  The bow was a one and a half foot compound bow, with a string tension strength of 40 to 50 pounds.  I practiced with that bow for one year then I bought my own bow.  I got a 3 foot compound bow that has a string tension strength 50 to 60 pounds.