How to Aim a Traditional Bow
If you’re anything like us, you spend a lot of time tinkering during the bowhunting “offseason”. During this time of year, we evaluate our entire hunting system - everything from our arrows to the layers we wear. One thing I’ve spent quite a bit of time on over the past few years is my aiming method for traditional bows (or primitive bow hunting). I’ve switched between several different styles, working to see which fits me best.
There are really four main types of aiming methods available to the traditional archer: instinctive, split vision, gap and string walking. Each has their benefits as well as their drawbacks. Now is a great time to try each out for yourself to see what works best for you, so check out these traditional recurve bow shooting tips.
Instinctive Shooting
This is arguably the most basic form of aiming with a bow. Think of it as very similar to the way you’d throw a football: Pick a target, stare a hole at the spot you want to hit and loose the arrow. With this type of aiming technique, you’re letting your subconscious mind do the work.
The beauty of this aiming method is its simplicity. Very little thought goes into actually aiming. Instead, your thinking mind’s job is to simply focus on the spot you’re trying to hit. Additionally, I have found that I don’t really need a range finder when shooting this way. My subconscious seems to be a decent judge of distance and adjusts accordingly.
The difficulty with shooting this way is that it takes a lot of shooting to get your brain “calibrated” (i.e. to understand the flight of the arrow). I’ve used this style for the past few years and it took some time to get to a point where I was comfortable past 15 yards. Further, I’ve found that I’ll often need a warm up shot to get my mind right.
Split Vision
Split vision is very similar to instinctive shooting. You do focus on the spot you want to hit but you don’t give so much control to your subconscious mind. Instead you let your eyes switch back and forth between the target and your riser/arrow tip. Think of it as letting your conscious mind give your subconscious a little support. You aren’t thinking about aiming much beyond simply making sure everything looks right in your sight window.
Like instinctive shooting, the benefit here is the simplicity. Less thinking, more shooting. Similarly, the major drawback is the time it takes to become proficient.
Gap Shooting
Gap shooting is a break from the previous two styles, as it relies on your conscious ability to judge the arrow’s trajectory and the distance to the target. Essentially, you use the tip of your arrow as your aiming point and put it above or below your intended target, depending on how far away it is. This style of aim relies heavily on your understanding of the arch of your arrow when you shoot. Start with establishing your “point on” (the distance at which you hit the place you point the tip of your arrow") and then determine how much your arrow rises or drops at different distances.
Gap shooting’s major benefit is the accuracy it offers at longer ranges. Many traditional archers find that, after a certain distance, it is difficult to be consistently accurate with more instinctive aiming techniques. Gap shooting allows you to use an aiming system to be more precise further away. Additionally, it gives many the ability to get accurate quickly. Gap shooting takes much less time than instinctive aiming methods to nail down and many archer’s find that they’re good to go within a hundred or so shots.
While Gap shooting does offer many benefits, it isn’t perfect. The tip of your arrow isn’t always the same - sometimes you’ve got a field tip and at other times you may be shooting a broadhead. This difference will affect your shot. Additionally, unlike with instinctive shooting, many gap shooters have to rely on rangefinders in order to know where to aim. Finally, often gap shooting requires you to aim off-target in order to hit the intended spot. If you’re closer than point on, you’ll sometimes end up aiming below the point you want to hit and vice versa. This is a mental hurdle that can be difficult for many traditional archers.
String Walking
String walking is like gap shooting, in that it requires you to use the point of the arrow as a reference point. As the name implies, rather than moving your aiming point up or down based on the distance to the target, you move your fingers up or down the bowstring. The closer you are to the target, the further down the string you slide your fingers. To me, this feels very similar to shooting a single pin sight on a compound bow.
The benefit with string walking is that you are always pointing the tip of your arrow where you want to hit (rather than having to aim above or below the target). It’s very precise and it doesn’t take too long to determine different finger positions for different distances.
String walking does present a few challenges. First, it can be difficult to properly tune a bow for this type of aiming technique - you put a lot more pressure on the bottom limb the farther down you slide. This change in pressure is difficult to account for in the tuning process. It also means you will need to know exact distances to the target before sliding your fingers to the right spot. This takes time before the shot and a rangefinder, which isn’t always ideal in hunting scenarios.
Pick What Fits You
These are a few of the major types of aiming techniques. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks and it’s up to you to figure out what works best for the way you shoot. Now is the perfect time to mess around with each so that you can pick what works best.
We hope you enjoyed these recurve bowhunting tips! We also put together some traditional bowhunting videos 2021 below.
Before ever stepping into the field every bowhunter must be sure that their bow is as accurate as possible for a couple of reasons. First, having the trust and confidence in your equipment is paramount as the mind can have a huge effect on your overall accuracy. Secondly, it’s our responsibility to swiftly, effectively, and humanly kill the animals we hunt.