I learned how to shoot a rifle using open sights. It wasn't till I got old and had trouble seeing that I started using a scope. What's that got to do with archery, I shoot my bow the same as I shot my rifle. I used to use a peep sight on one of my old rifles. You put the front bead on target centered your bead and shot. When I'm shooting my bows I extend my bow arm pointing at the spot I want to hit, pull to anchor and release. It's sounds simple but you have to lock your bow arm, point, pull to anchor and shoot.

I'm not a long range shooter and am not very accurate past 25 yards but this works for me for hunting. I try to hit squirrel size targets out to 20 yards. Deer sized targets out to 25 yards. Good enough for this old timer.lol

"center your bead" is same as centering your arrow point, when on your target, between string and riser. That space between string and riser is equivalent to a large rear peep sight..

If you've got good eyes or a good glasses correction you can see the string fairly clearly at same time as spot on the target.

Not all shoot that way, even with old eyes behind trifocals. Shoot what works for you, take suggestions as you will

I used to look down my nose at scoped rifles, preferring a peep site for target work. Now I'm 51, and guess what? Most of my rifles are scoped, because I can't see the front site!!! I do use a lot of low-power scopes, like 2.5-8x36mm and fixed 4x, if you can consider that low...

Always shot a bow 'instinctive' (focusing on the spot I want to hit, with the arrow tip in the periphery of my vision giving me guidance). Failing eyes do not seem to impact my aiming method, which is fortunate. If I had been a pin shooter all these years, I'd have to learn something new, as that pin would be a blur now, although I can see quite well at distance. Or I'd have to use bi-focals. Nothing against using a pin sight to aim, if I was a serious target archer I'd be using one right now with no regrets.

Your anchor is your rear sight. If it is solid and consistent, then you only have to be concerned with the front sight...which can be the arrow tip, a sight pin, or whatever you use..but it must also be solid and consistent.

I guess I shoot a Traditional bow like a mix between Will tell and goldentrout_one. I read where some people look almost straight down the arrow. I think that would be so much better, but I just cannot figure out how to do that. It may be that my body shape/shooting form will not allow it.

George, I have watched some of the videos you have posted.....shooting LOOOONG shots with your recurves, how do YOU shoot? Looked really impressive and it seemed to come naturally for you. I do shoot three under and anchor with my middle finger in the corner of my mount. I tried split a couple of years ago....for an entire 14 months and I was horrible....so I switched back. Everyone have a great day!

Your anchor is NOT your rear sight. Your anchor is an anchor, like your grip on your rifle.

Will Shaver's right.

Seems like most archers wearing glasses get their prescriptions infrequently, cheaply, and from discounters. If they want good shooting vision most can get it if they spend the money with a real OPTHAMOLOGIST (not optometrist or optician). My shooting glasses are optically coated single vision, great for archery, no good for reading.

jk, well, I think if you have a consistent anchor, your dominant eye becomes your rear site.... so to speak. If you don't have a consistent anchor, then you need to be like my wife and use a peep on the string (she shoots wheels). Or just accept big groups!

goldentrout (another Will),the dominant eye thang is irrelevant if you shoot how Will Tell described (riser and string together are a peep sight).

Also, where I come from we don't just "accept" shortcomings.

JK, lots of folks would differ with you on the matter of the anchor being your rear sight. As to eye sight, optometrists have more training in refraction (the eye test that determines your prescription) and do more of it in their daily practice than do ophtalmologists who spend much of their training in surgery. When I had cataract surgery, the ophthalmologist never once refracted me--some lady who worked in the office did and she was not nearly as good at it as my optometrist. When I see my optometrist I always get a thorough professional refraction. Optometrists have a college degree plus four years of professional training and many also do residencies after that and are able to diagnose and treat diseases of the eye that do not require invasive procedures, i.e., surgery. Optometrists are great primary care eye docs.

Your anchor is your "rear sight" when you shoot a bow without sights, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Move your arrow point = move your front sight. Move your anchor = move your rear sight. I'm not sure why this is even debated anymore.

I stumbled across this thread this morning while I was looking for something else, but I ran into a couple of things that interested me, so I’m bringing it back up…

“That space between string and riser is equivalent to a large rear peep sight..”

OK… Totally lost here. I can’t even imagine such a “space” unless you were to anchor with the string/nock locates between your dominant eye and your nose; otherwise, that “space” would be off to the right (RH shooter) of everything that is of any interest in forming a sight picture.

Anyone care to explain???

I had an easier time with this one....

“I read where some people look almost straight down the arrow. I think that would be so much better, but I just cannot figure out how to do that. It may be that my body shape/shooting form will not allow it.”

If the nock of your arrow is outboard of the center of your eye, just cant your head until the nock is plumb below your eye. So if you imagine a clock face with your eye at 12, your nock at 4, and your nose smack dab in the middle, you’d just rotate your face ‘til your eye is at 1 and your nock is at 5.

But you do have to cant your bow and draw hand to match.

The other way guys look straight down the arrow is to shorten their draw length, allowing their anchor to move closer to the center of their face, as you would/could using a peep.

I’ve also shot well at point-on distances by adjusting my anchor so that the length of my arrow is hidden by the string, but by looking “through” it, you get that same peep-sight effect, with the point serving as your pin/bead.

That requires a vertical hold on the bow, such as you normally see with target archers, and it works quite well....

Your eye is kinda your rear sight, not your anchor, that is just consistent placement of the rear of the arrow. Something you press against a non visual part of your body.

There is no rear sight in archery, not as compared to a rifle. There is your eye, but that is there in riflery also, there is your anchor which is sorta like your cheek weld or your butt to pocket. Even when using a string with a peep, it isn't a rear sight as on a rifle because it may not lie in line with the barrel/arrow. To really line up a bow as close as you can to a rifle sighting system, you need a peep, a front sight, and a NoPeep. The device that insures your string is in line with the riser, or the riser is in line with the target, depending on how you are using it.

I'm having trouble putting a sight picture together with my ml guns and thinking of removing the rear sights.

You can be shooting perfectly for a while, then start missing low or high. Your eye is still seeing the same sight picture but your anchor has slipped, or moved up or down. Your anchor is your rear sight. Argue all you want, but if it isn't the same every time, all the looking with your eyes and alignment otherwise is useless. Five minutes in the side yard will show what's up.

I agree with George,,,,,

I never once got that indoor 300, got close a few times and I am terrible at competing. But, without the kisser button and the small size peep sight, which makes two rear sights that line up with each other, those blue and white targets would get holes punched all over them. For hunting form, just adding extra contact, like the thumb knuckle below the ear and behind the jaw bone, to the rear sight, or as some like to call it, anchor, accuracy improves. If you are a pure instinctive shot, you don't need no stinking rear sight, you won't hit jack, but you don't need no rear sight, or as some like to call it 'anchor'. Personally, I shoot so much that I get a welt on my cheek and behind my jaw bone caused by my thumb knuckle and all three release fingers pulling through my rear sight.

We all use tools to give us an advantage over using our bare hands. Limits on those are self imposed and really don't or shouldn't apply to anyone else IMO.

Have fun with your tools and how you use them.

GF, the answer to your question is in this picture.

The tools analogy is instructive. If I don't have a car, then I walk to the corner store. That doesn't mean my legs are a car, but until a car shows up, it's what I do.

Anchoring is part of what we do to get the arrow on it's way consistently. To configure a bow so that it works like a rifle, you have to go to something like a crossbow. It can't be torqued significantly by hand placement; pretty much discharges an arrow consistently; and allows the mounting of rifle sighting systems.

Now if it helps you to pretend that scratching you chin or mouth is an optical alignment process, knock yourself out. But at some point the comparison gets ridiculous. All the more sketchy because there actually are archery peep sights, and they don't reference the bow to your face.

The process that jk describes. is what is known as shooting "through the bow window". Robert Elmer described it as the space between the string, and the sight window/side of the bow. It's been around for years. And, as Elmer mentioned, and jk did as well, it is a VERY valuable method to help some folks with left/right problems. Your eye naturally wants to center things, And centering the target in that space, along with the point of the arrow, gets you centered.

And, you don't have to anchor as the picture Draven posted indicates (although that will work) I use the corner of my mouth as a reference, my actual anchor is the middle knuckle of my index finger on my cheekbone, and look right through the "bow window". I learned that MANY years ago from a pretty good shooter.

One can consider the anchor as the back sight for sure, however i was taught that the string is the rear sight. And if the string is centered on the target (provided you have a properly tuned bow) and the arrow is centered, elevation is the only mystery left.

There's lots and lots of ways to effectively shoot a bow, (have been for years) not just the couple are that are popular here and passed of as THE way.

My...we can over-complicate matters sometimes, eh?

But I'm in full agreement with George on this one. Without a solid, repeatable anchor, yer bow will be set on "improved cylinder".

With sights and a string peep, different story. That picture is just how I shoot: 3 under, cheekbone anchor, "sight" down the arrow, gap. Works for me.

I do not notice the string...if I do, it's on a subconscious level. For whatever reason, while using the same mechanics, I shoot recurves vertical and longbows with a slight cant. But I can shoot each well.

George is right you must have a consistent anchor if you don't you will never be a good shot. Think of it like a rifle, a rifle shoots the same every time, and you move the sights to where the bullet hits. You are the rifle the arrow is the bullet, you must be consistent with your anchor your grip, and your release. I use 2 anchors on my face. I know some guys that have 3 anchors.

Some people anchor with a light touch and others like be have harder to the bone contact. For me that would make a quarter of inch out side of the line if I do the light touch. If everything else is the same, that light touch would make the nock end of the arrow a quarter of an inch off line. If you are on that uses the light touch and depending how fluffy your cheeks are could make a quarter of inch in if you suddenly pulling tight to the bone. When I shoot consistently a couple of arrows out of every group to right, when shooting left handed, I always find that I have been not setting my anchor the same on the wide shots. Try bending that rear sight off a quarter inch on that rifle, I am lucky those wide hits are only 6" off.

We’re all different. We all have to figure out what work’s for us. I’m near-sighted, and I have “mono-vision” contact lenses. My right (dominant) eye is corrected so I can clearly see the rear sight on a rifle, shoot a pistol, and read. My left eye is corrected for distance. Well, how does that work? After a few days, your brain ( including mine) makes the minor/major adjustments seamless, you don’t even notice the changes. It’s work’s with shooting a bow as well. I came back to trad/Inst archery using 3-under, sighting down the arrow like a rifle. Not all of my bows liked 3-under, so I switched over just to split finger. It’s all good now.

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