I bought a Bear Grizzly that had a simple bow site attached. I started shooting that bow with a single pin. I became very accurate out to 40 yards. I removed the site and was surprised to find I could shoot just as accurately without it. That got me to thinking, how was this possible? My form was, look at my target, point my bow at it, draw the string to anchor, put that single pin where it needed to be and release. Now I was holding over or under depending on the distance to my target. My head was comfortably up rite and I was looking at the site pin and the target, "the sight picture". When that pin was no longer there, My mind remembered the site picture minus the pin, and whala! I still hit what I wanted. I do not look at my arrow, I only see it with my perifal vission. I do not look at the arrow tip, I cant even tell you where it is in relation to the target. I never hit My nose with the sting, because I don't look down the arrow. I can shoot this way out to 70 yards and still group my arrows. Now the groups get bigger past 40 yards, but I sill stay on the bale, and often suprize myself with the group size. I hope this helps anyone that would like to try something different.

That is the way I have done it and still do if I start shooting weird.

I use tape marked with lines every half inch and after I get that sighted in I remove the tape because the brain will have the picture re-established.

Yep! Your eye, brain and bow hand do the aiming.

I have done the same with a number of area newbies, to save my garage siding. I used double stick tape on the bows. Sometimes I used a punk red ball about at the spot where their arrow crossed the bow. Once the form looked good and it was time to back up a little, they would have a break down and declare war on my garage. However, in both cases once they got a handle on the rest of the sight picture and had the confidence to aim better, I removed the sight or kicked the red ball out of the picture. One of my mentors when I was a kid in the 60s used the Bear three hoop pin sight. He said many times, "shoot through the bow sight, never at it."

Makes a lot more sense than trying to learn instinctive subconsciously.

Bowmania

Hey Dean Bob Gordon did it similarly. shalom

This might have been mentioned before but the definition of instinctive is: "something ingrained, something you just know how to do rather than something you have to learn"

Instinctive has many definitions, depending who’s asked about. But doing things using your innate capacities is not enough to do them well, a learning period is required.

Much how I do it. I choose to call it intuitive rather than instinctive. Matters not. There are no style points in bow hunting.

I clung onto every word written by Mr. Asbell, and just practiced, practiced , practiced every day. Just kept wearing out those straw bales. I found out that stump shooting, or shooting every old can and inanimate object I found in the woods, was even more effective, and lots more fun. That was back in my 20's and 30's.

G Fred and Paul Brunner are the real deal " instinctive " hunting archers. Very few seem to have the mental concentration to shoot and hunt with this method, better they use a reference or sight of some type. Nothing wrong with that.

I find that if i have been shooting left handed steady for a few days and then switch to right hand, my first few shots need to be secondary referenced or least a few draw/aim with no releases needs to be done, to retrain the eye. After a a 100 shots or so, I am closer what folks call instinctive. Then when the right hand release fingers start to stiffen up after a few days of being a right hander, I need to repeat the secondary referencing for the left hand shooting, but that too will get more fluid and instinctive after a number of shots.

Deerhunt51....after "learning" with a single pin, do you still hold your bow vertical shooting instinctively???

I’m a little leery to respond w the yardages stated. Not many guys in the world can shoot great to 40, never mind “group” consistently at 70 but I’ll forget that. Take gap shooting, pin shooting, etc and relate this to a shotgun. No one get upset it’s only an explanation. When you start out you use a bead and place that on a target. You actually physically line something up. In time you don’t even see the bead and shoot instinctively if you ask me but the barrel is still in your view somewhat. Same for bows. There’s really no magic to this. Shoot a sight, gap, what have you and you learn a reference for certain distances. You learn a sight picture. Without sights and and reference type shooting is really similar but when you shoot instinctive the arrow though ignored is still visible for the most part. We say we really don’t care and the wingshooter doesn’t either but I’ll bet ya some of this is relative to the learning curve

It takes me many more practice shot at 40 yards to see improvements than it does at 30 yards. Arrows fly in a parabolic flight, the further they fly, the steamer the final descent. My point on ranges run from 52 to 56 yards with my current bows and arrows. Even at point on and using the point as a bow sight, the slightest weakness in the shot will make a far greater difference than the same soft release will make at 30 yards. When I am at the top of my game I can hit a deer target fairly consistent at 40 yards, but that is a more mechanically aimed shot than a fast and fluid shot, I may hold and tighten for as long a full second at that distance. I need a longbow that will poop that arrow out over 200 fps, just kidding.

Instinctive shooting, although maybe not accurately named, is a learned trait. That said, as you learn to ingrain quality form that will become instinctive. It's good to understand context as it applies to so-called instinctive shooting. I can shoot instinctive as well as a more controlled aiming system, and there are many good instinctive shooters other than G. Fred and Paul Brunner. None of it is inherent at birth, but is worked on to become proficient.

Agree with George D..

....inherent "aptitude"....key word and explanation right there.

An “inherent aptitude” covers up to a certain level - usually basic survival level - the lack of knowledge. When the knowledge is added to this, that “inherent aptitude” becomes “skill”. The (very few compared with the total number ) best “instinctive” shooters are the ones with access and open to the knowledge.

Stacy Groscup called it Reflex shooting. He felt like we had some Degree of it, some naturally and some had to work at it.

Amazing guy. He is the master of this style of shooting. I have always felt it was a short range style of shooting. I’m not comfortable at long range shots at game. I’ve taken game past 35 yards but don’t really broadcast that. I prefer 18-20 yards.

I feel the best hunters probably blend some instinctive and some point of aim shooting. Hill in my opinion did this. Doug walker told me they would go to a Construction lot in LA that had a lot of rabbits. Hill would see a sitting rabbit. He would fire an arrow behind it to make it run and take the rabbit with a second arrow. The way a rabbit darts and speeds along I can’t hardly see that being a point of aim situation.

My two cents.

Frank

Like most guys I know who don't use sights, I shoot gapstinctively.

And then... that big, angry griz just charged right at me...

Draven, explain yourself if you would please. The way you put it in your post, do you mean as to say an Archer can't gain knowledge by just doing.. learning and correcting as he goes, without a book or teacher to guide him?

Without access to what exactly..books, videos, mentors, youtube, forums such as this?!

It is quite easy for the eyes to take a snap shot the release, one needs perfect focus control. The instinctive part comes in when one is nearing full draw and things look a bit off, then in the last part of the draw the proper quick correction can be made with the sight picture coming into the proper coordination. If you have a straight bow arm that gets slower and more difficult, if you have a bow with a lot of mass weight that again makes those instinctive maneuvers more difficult. When shooting at a busted pheasant it is totally possible to swing with it and see the elevation and lead in the last few inches of draw. For a static shooter conditioned to doing all of the aiming after full draw is reached, it may sound impossible. Every fall with my first shots at a passing dove , I am always amazed how far behind the dove I can be. Doves do not fly in a straight line. They are much easier to hit closer to the ground either about to land or just taking off, or better yet, sitting. Even then they rarely give one a lot of time to analyze the aim. Someone that shoots static and mostly at targets at 20 yards and under all of this fast aiming/instinctive stuff will be completely foreign.

Ottertail, gaining knowledge from external sources. Any type of them - it can be your father, it can be a competition archer. With what is in you, you don't go far. GDS is repeating time and time again: doing the same time all the time. Others are making topics with "aim small miss small". These IS knowledge you don't have it in you, no matter how superior some think they are.

Ottertail, gaining knowledge from external sources. Any type of them - it can be your father, it can be a competition archer. With what is in you, you don't go far. GSD is repeating time and time again: doing the same time all the time. Others are making topics with "aim small miss small". All these external info IS knowledge you don't have it in you, no matter how superior some think they are.

When I played basketball in college I shot 93 percent at the foul line. I had good form and practiced a lot.

When I played basketball in college I shot 93 percent at the foul line. I had good form and practiced a lot.

Not so sure how I learned other than reading when I first started at 8 yo. Christmas came and got my bow set and strung bow up wrong at first and father said that don't look right to me and he wasn't ever an archer. He said did you read booklet. Nope so we did got strung up right so the first thing I did was took outside and was shooting at things. Few days later chickens were in yard and you guessed it shot a bird and it flew away with my arrow.

I knew then I was in trouble.LOL

Not so. Baby cheetahs have to learn to run just like every newborn mammal. Yes, they are uniquely equipped for speed, but they have to learn how to do it. That’s why athletes have coaches.

The OP just confirms what I’ve been saying for a few years now, since I started reading up on current brain science. You can’t shoot accurately with a solid front sight and a wobbly rear one. A sight pin solves the front half of the problem. A solid anchor solves the rear.

If you align your body exactly the same way for every shot, you grow out a neuromotor circuit that only knows One Way to shoot - and it’s the RIGHT way.

Once that is fully ingrained, it takes a conscious effort to do it wrong. You build out your ability to shoot fluidly FROM THERE.

Even Fred Asbell said as much in his first book, with the “learn to shoot free- throws first” observation. Only trouble is, IMO, his advice on how to learn to shoot the archery equivalent of a free-throw is well off the mark.

The fastest way to learn to shoot well without a specific aiming system... is with a well-defined aiming system!

Just a technical note on cheetahs ... the locomotor pattens of movement of quadrupdal mammals are present at birth, contained within the anterior horn cells of the spine. .... just sayin'

There is a young gal that comes by here, she must anterior horn cells in her spine. She actually stopped one day and yelled , 'You are going to have to let me try that one of these days." Then, hi ho silver, off she went. I was a pretty good athlete before my back went bad, I think doing athletic things in ones youth can have a big advantage with shooting bow and arrows instinctively. I see lots of kids that have that cell phone hunch back posture around here. They rarely look up.

Paul Brunners Tape, "Instinctive Shooting", killed the best Buck and a Cow Elk the same year. shalom

The point I was trying to make was ... oh never mind

Bought a laminated recurve and arrows at age eleven and started shooting, the rest is history.

"When something has aptitude the knowledge becomes much less important. "

I think you have no idea what knowledge means. You have women giving birth in water and the newborn babies don't drown. You might be able to float without knowing how to swim, but you will not win a swimming competition. To achieve the latest you need exterior information, something you accumulate from "monkey see, monkey do" and "trial and error" learning or a teacher/mentor.

In the context that the word "aptitude" is most normally being used here the proper definition would be a capacity for learning. ne has to learn to shoot well "instinctively". That's why Hill, Schulz, and all other good "instinctive" shooters stress the importance of developing a consistent shot sequence. The way that aptitude is being used here it is being used to replace certain synonyms of the work aptitude such as knack, gift, etc..

Sunset Hill (Nate Steen) has absolutely the BEST description of "instinctive" shooting that I have ever heard. It makes a lot more sense than the inclination that someone is born instinctively knowing how to shoot a bow in a particular way. Maybe he'll come along and share it.

If it were the case that some people are born with the ability to shoot a bow "instinctively" better than others then it would also be true that other people were born with the ability to be superior shots using sights, a gap system, stringwalking, gun barreling, etc..

OCR, the whole point of this topic is "instinctive shooting" is a learnt behaviour, something very hard to understand by you or others. We think that all humans should be able to stand up and run, no matter what. Surprise, the kids raised by animals and who never been in contact with humans walk in four.

Where I said "extreme coaching"? A father figure showing you how to shoot a bow is "extreme coaching"? A tv show with Howard Hill shooting is "extreme coaching"? There are more shades of grey than you like to believe in what I said.

PS When survival of the race is on the line, wanting to live is the best Coach ever. First human to walk did what he was forced to do. How many are forced today to shoot a bow?

Goofers in the wild end as main dish for a predator. I doubt we were “apex predators” back then and there was no “predators management” either.

When I was a kid, I got so good at tying my canvas tennis shoes that sometime I would tie them and not remember that i already tied them with the double loops knot. I had three books when I was very young, before i could read, but one had really cool pictures. I still have them.

Then when I was older I got this one.

I " learnt " it, practice hard my friends.

Obviously, I taught myself everything i know.

I "taught" my wife to shoot a stick bow instinctivly when she was in her early 40's. She isn't particuarly athletic and hadn't shot a bow but for an archery class in college. She took to it like a duck to water! In very short order (weeks) she was beating me like a cheap drum. She couldn't have made a freethrow to save herself but clay birds hanging on a bale at 25 yards were in trouble! It was almost funny sometimes watching her handle her bow at first. We all know what it looks like watching an inexperienced archer handle their equipment. That was my wife...."no dear, put the arrow under that little gold thing on the string".....it was funny at times....right up to the point when she drew her bow and let fly. I really believe there is nothing magic about shooting a stick bow instinctivly, but I'm sure there are some who can catch on to and apply the concepts much faster than others.....just like any other motor skill. I believe many over think it. I know I have and my shooting usually suffers when I do.

“Surprise, the kids raised by animals and who never been in contact with humans walk in four.”

Tell us another one! LOL

I’d ask if those kids had been raised by Bigfoot, but everybody knows Bigfoot is bi-pedal...

“Instinctive” is just a flowery term for hand-eye coordination; everybody with functioning eyeballs (and hands) has some, but some have more than others and IT CAN BE REFINED THROUGH PRACTICE.

Why some folks appear to be threatened by the suggestion that whatever they’ve been doing might be improved upon is a mystery to me.

GF you didn't get the idea behind - but why am I wondering? Kids absorb information from their environment, are like sponges. If you don't see a two legged around, you will not go on two legs by yourself. The same with this "instinctive" archery. If you don't see someone shooting, you don't know how to do it.

About shooting faster. Last evening it was not as hot as predicted, so I went out to shoot a few. I ended up on the street for two reasons, one, I didn't want my pet cottontail to run out on the street, she was eating clover blossoms right at 18 yards. Two, there were so many mosquitoes, that they would try to pick me up and move me to a better location while i was shooting. I started up close, ten yards, because i did not want to alarm Mrs. Brown Ears. shoot, wave off mosquitoes, shoot, wave off mosquitoes, the faster I shot the better i could wave off mosquitoes. I went out on the street hoping for less mosquitoes, they followed me. I shot fast 6 arrow ends, I had to wait until no cars were coming, sort of not legal to shoot from the street, (I think it was a made up rule not real law), 30 to 35 yards, moving to keep ahead of the bugs, some would call it snap shooting, I was shooting really good groups into my deer target. So the secret for shooting good groups from 30 to 35 yards and getting it done fast is a good hard surface and mosquitoes, lots of mosquitoes. Funny thing Mrs. Brown Ears could care less about arrows flying over her head, but she seemed a bit nervous about my mosquito waving.

I have never, not even once, seen someone paddle a canoe worth a crap that did not think that there was anything to learn about paddling a canoe. It makes no sense to NOT shorten the leaning curve of anything by not using handed down knowledge from others that learned from handed down knowledge.

Of course, everyone that knows anything about canoes, knows when the first canoe race happened. The day when one my Ojibwe ancestors created the second canoe.

I say, I say looky here boy! Some of you get it and some of you never will!

I look intensely at what and where I want my arrow to strike and with one fluid motion...

I've done quite a bit of paddling a canoe, both locally and in the U.P. , Minnesota/Canadian boundary Waters. I've witnessed several "canoers" paddling their azzes off and getting no where... didn't know how to use the paddle to steer them onto shore broadside...they just never had the...and here's that word again..."aptitude". And while we're on it, let me correct you fdp in that nobody, from my understanding used the word "aptitude" in the sense of the word you posted, not a knack, gift...nobody infered that. Myself, George and elderly used it correctly...as in a "willingness" or better yet a wanting, desire to learn.

So typical of these "instinctive" threads...this being only the 2nd thread I've posted on "instinctive" in about 8-9 years or so ...Hey Sarge, remember that one? You were a big part of it, you had a different handle back then. That thread went to over 500, maybe 600 posts..can't remember. It actually was a fun thread, you were a fun adversary to the concept of instinctive. You got ya some religion somewhere along the line eh?!! You're alright in my book....hey have you learned to hunch down on certain shots yet? :))

deerhunt51 .... if I can reply directly to your very interesting original post .....

...your post is perfectly describing the process of neural motor learning, it's the process by which the central nervous system learns to control and regulate new muscular and cognitive activities. The pin sight on the bow is giving feedback to the brain as to the 3 dimensional spatial orientation of the bow needed to send the arrow to the desired target.

"Motor learning has been defined as a “set of internal processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent changes in the capability for skilled behavior.” In other words, motor learning is when complex processes in the brain occur in response to practice or experience of a certain skill resulting in changes in the central nervous system that allow for production of a new motor skill."

If you give little kids a bow and arrows, the first thing they'll do is grab the arrow nock with the thumb and index finger to draw. That's universal, in all cultures around the world. So you might say it's the instinctive way to draw.

The next thing they'll do is look at what they want to hit with the arrow, and shoot. No aiming method, just look and shoot. That's also universal. It's what we call the instinctive method now. But you might also say it's a human instinct to shoot that way.

I've studied human evolution quite a bit. I would say we are hard wired to throw at what we are looking at. Whether it's sticks and stones at lions, or spears at game animals.

I learned, or rather didn't learn, to shoot as a toddler, with bows and arrows my older brother made from saplings. Later with a fiberglass bow, and then a 1967 Bear Grizzly... new when I got it at age 13. I had no teachers but copied how Fred Bear shot: quickly. I also didn't shoot at targets, just trees, stumps, clumps of grass, sand dunes, fish, flying birds, etc., often as far as the bow would shoot.

After not shooting for over 40 years, I started again 5.5 years ago. Shooting closer than 30 yards seems unnatural to me. Recently I have set up 50 yard bales and I prefer shooting at that distance most of the time, even though I have bales at 45, 40, 35, 30 and 25 yards. And soon to be, 60 yards.

I've never used a sight, nor an aiming method other than what is called instinctive. This is the best group I've had so far, which happened recently, from 50 yards. I get a group almost as good almost every day, but only about 10% of the time.

My point is, what we call instinctive shooting, for lack of a better word, truly is an instinct. And it is perfected by doing it a lot, just as it always has been, and especially from an early age when all the neural circuits are forming.

Anything is possible.

Shandor Weiss

You and I have obviously read different texts on evolutionary biology. In all my years of study, research and teaching,I don't think I ever came across any written or anecdotal evidence to suggest that the paediatric brain or the paediatric peripheral nervous system is predisposed to holding and shooting an arrow from a bow. I may be wrong of course ... I often am according to the experts that frequent this forum.

Phil, that bit was not based on evolutionary biology. Rather, on a study of the history of how people around the world and in different cultures draw arrows.

The part about throwing is based on evolution. Humans have different shoulder structures than other close primate relatives, allowing us to hurl projectiles with more force and accuracy. Arrows are not hurled by arms but the hand-eye-brain circuitry to throw and to shoot is no doubt the same, or at least very similar.

Spears that closely resemble javelins were used by Neanderthals 300,000 years ago, as you may know. Probably before then but that's how old the spears are that were found. They were for throwing, not thrusting.

old buck...great stuff and you are correct sir...there is nothing "Instinctive" as it pertains to the physical act of shooting a bow and I would know because 1/2 a lifetime ago?...I spent many a weekend instructing Boy Scouts how to shoot a bow (to earn their "Archery Merit Badges") and unless someone else had shown them and they did it before?...none of the fresh slate types (that had never shot and some never seen or paid attention to how a bow is shot) "Instinctively Knew" what to do with bow and arrow let alone nock one up and actually hit the bunny target bale from 10yds away.

Now there were students who were a bit on the disorganized clumsy side (who needed excessive physical instruction) and then there were students who had superior organizational skills (who didn't require much assistance other than verbal instruction) and then there were those I thought of as "naturals" who not only exhibited great organizational skills but also demonstrated an uncanny ability to almost immediately group their arrows surprisingly tight and close to the mark if not spot-on but guess what?...there were also those who once they got a grip on the physical aspects of shooting their bows?...rapidly began to keep pace with the naturals...not all...but some...my point for typing all of the above?...

At this point in their instructional training?...we had only gone over the fundamentals of how to biomechanical operate their bow and arrows and other than emphasizing safety and telling them to make sure their bows are always pointed downrange and just look at the spot you want to hit?...

"WE HADN'T YET ADDRESSED ANY TYPE OR SORT OF AIMING SYSTEM"

yet we had...."Naturals"...therefore?...

I personally don't relate the term "Instinctive" to the physical actions required to shoot a bow...I relate it to the natural aiming system that resides within the minds of archers who have the ability to tap into it.

old buck ... read the work of Nikolaas Timbergen and you'll maybe realize just how wrong and ill informed your entire post is .. But hey .. Timbergen was a Nobel prize winner, so what did he know compared to your vast knowledge.

Such a simple concept, yet so complicated by all the opinions.

Most are not mentally calm at the center, others fail to practice enough...but a select few can put "instinctive" shooting for hunting together. Best to leave it to them, others should consider some form of sighting aid.

Missouribreaks...^^TRUTH^^

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