Hesitation ruins everything. That applies a lot of things in life — from relationships to job opportunities and everything else in between. It also applies to deer hunting. How many times have you been deer hunting and a shot opportunity presented itself, yet for one reason or another you botched the opportunity by not acting more decisively?
In short, you didn’t seize the moment.
Seize the moment! That buck won’t hang around forever. (DDH photo)
You know, a lot of times a deer shows up — sight unseen. You surely know what I’m talking about. That buck (or doe) is right there. You’ve got to make the shot, and you’ve got to make it fast. More often than not, you will not capitalize on that opportunity unless you were prepared for the moment by going over the “what ifs” long before the deer was standing there in front of you.
Seizing that moment means practicing for that moment when you don’t have much time — perhaps only seconds — to act.
How many times does this happen to you? You’re in your tree stand; you’re looking down; you’re looking away, then all of a sudden, BAM! you look in front of you and there’s a deer standing there. He just showed up out of nowhere. Two more steps and that deer is in the brush. It’s now or never.
You’ve got to get ready, you’ve got to get to full draw and make the shot. These summer months are perfect for practicing for these moments. Hang a stand in the back yard and start flinging arrows!
But before you climb that stand don’t say, “I’m not hunting, I’m only practicing, so I don’t need to wear a safety harness.”
Wrong answer! You always need to wear safety harness and always use a lifeline climbing to and from your stand. You never know, accidents can happen at any time.
If you practice, you can become a deadly quick-shot bowhunter, but you always want to shoot these shots at deer that are within slam-dunk range at quartering away or broadside positions Never, ever, take a quick-draw shot at anything quartering to you. Just don’t do it.
You can’t hit dimes when you’re shooting like this, but you can hit the kill zone 10 times out of 10 if you practice. Keep it to three key steps:
- Bow comes up, release goes on the string, one.
- Acquire your target, come to full draw.
- Acquire the pin and shoot.
The more you practice that, the easier it’s going to become.
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