G5/Prime Blog

Monday, March 7, 2016

Competitive Shooting | How to Get Started

Competitive Archery | Getting Started with the Right Archery Equipment

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We get you!

You’re the everyday bow hunter who loves to sling arrows at deer, turkey, squirrels, and anything else edible. When winter and summer months hit you are caught in a lull. Backyard practice with the friends and family turn dull and boring. Taking random, unrealistic shots becomes the norm instead of actually repeating shooting form and realistic shots. If this pinpoints your winter and summer off time, it may be time to get into completive archery shooting.

There are many types of completive shooting forms in the world of archery. The events the everyday hunter may be interested in range from local leagues and shoots in your area, target archery competitions and tournaments, to the Olympics for the hungry and ambitious archers.

How to Use 3D Targets to Improve Your Bow Hunting and Shooting Performance

Off Season Bow Hunting Practice | Effectively Using 3D Targets

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As bow hunters or competitive shooters we are always looking to up our shooting. We pay attention to the details from the accessories on our bows and our shooting form, to the way we shoot and how we practice. This winter and spring, don’t be caught inside on a day off. Hit your local archery or bow shop, see the professionals, and practice on 3D targets.

The first time shooting at a 3D target can really play tricks with your mind and cause you to fumble what should be a chip shot for you normally. If you’re used to only shooting your hunting bow at a 2D bullseye, your first time with a 3D target will cause some frustration. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid this humiliating situation.

When you take out your hunting bow at the beginning of the season, you’ll want to practice semi-regularly to get into the rhythm after a winter off. Start by going to your local bow shop and G5/Prime Dealer to tune it up. The local archery and compound bow pros will make sure your G5 Prime bow is at the top of its game before you even begin to practice.

The Perfect Pre-Shot Routine for Better Bow Hunting

Practice These Tips to Increase Your Accuracy

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Isn’t it amazing that after months of archery practice, a nice deer finally comes into range of your bow hunting stand, and you manage to get so nervous that things simply fall apart? If you’re like most hunters, nerves can rapidly get the best of you, turning what was a chip shot during summer practice sessions into a monstrous feat of concentration and willpower. The key to surviving these situations and connecting on a big animal is having a solid pre-shot routine. This routine will allow you to act on instincts alone instead of making coherent decisions when your body feels like it’s just had seven espresso shots injected straight into your heart.

It’s important to note that your pre-shot routine should be practiced throughout the summer and winter, basically the entire off season, to develop some muscle memory. When the time does come for you to make the shot, you can just react to the situation, with the knowledge that you’re routine is solid and will see you through to a mature animal at the end of the blood trail.

Of course, as important as a routine and practice are, quality archery equipment is just as important. Prime bows come in several different styles for both target and hunting focuses. The Prime Alloy hunting bow shoots at 335 feet per second, yet only weighs in at 4.2 pounds. It features premium 7000 series aluminum risers for unmatched durability and strength. These risers can be used to lift over 4,000 pounds, the equivalent of a very large vehicle, without compromising the performance of the bow. Of course, having high quality gear also means it’s all on you to make the shot count. Check out the suggested pre–shot routine steps below.

Off Season Scouting | How Important is Deer Sign?

Scrapes, Rub Lines, and Beds…Oh My!

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There are very few feelings like scouting on a crisp fall day and finding a fresh scrape dug into the earth, immediately before the season opens. Further down the trail, maybe you find a fresh rub gouged into a tree or a group of saplings all thrashed about. The late season is spent focusing on finding funnels and beds in and around food sources. Even after the season ends, our off time is a time to look for this sign and pull it all together. Once found, deer sign has you automatically thinking you hit the jackpot, and that a big mature buck will come sauntering right through your set on opening morning. But is that true?

Bringing up the word “fall” is still a sore subject with bow hunters, the off season can be tough to swallow. Off season scouting is one way to stay in the woods and at the same time improve your chances at success next season. Scouting in February and March while looking for sheds mostly, also reveals deer sign from December and November. This deer sign should be taken note of as it can be vital to next year. While heavy deer sign does indicate that deer semi-regularly use that area, that doesn’t always mean it will be useful to you as a hunter. It may make us feel better to find scrapes, rubs, beds, scat, tracks, or trails. But let’s look at three common types of deer sign and see what they really mean.

Steps You Can Take to Become a Better Bow Hunter

How to Keep Busy After Bow Hunting Season Ends

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Once our bow hunting seasons close and the winter weather sets in, it’s all too easy for us to just fall into our couches and take the winter off, so to speak. We definitely still watch our favorite hunting programs on television, but that’s about the extent of hunting activity most of us get. Many bow hunters don’t continue practicing their archery form throughout the winter, and most just toss their hunting gear into their basement, garage, or shed to sit until the weather improves next spring. This is a critical mistake.

If you want to stay at the top of your game and keep your gear in tip-top shape, you’ll need to postpone your winter hibernation a little while longer. Make a weekly goal of doing something that revolves around hunting. It could be shooting your bow at 2 to 3 yards in the garage to practice your release; it could also be washing and organizing your hunting gear. As long as it’s related to bow hunting, you’ll get a lot more accomplished over the winter than you might think. Here are some quick suggestions.

Bows

Don’t just hang up your bow and walk away at the end of the season. Keep it available and practice throughout the winter. Just take a couple shots each week – that’s all. You do want to give your body some recovery time in the offseason, but don’t want to wait so long that your form gets sloppy. If you can safely practice short shots in your garage, do it! Otherwise, head to an indoor archery range, which will help break up winter’s monotony anyway. Use fun archery drills to keep it exciting and challenge your skills.

Also take time to do any necessary bow maintenance at this time. Make sure your parallel cams are working correctly, all your peeps are aligned, your bow string looks good, and so on. The new Rize bow from Prime has features that will make the maintenance easier, including 82X aluminum risers and a Flexis FlexShock damper for smoother shooting.

Taking Post-Season Inventory of Your Archery Equipment

How to Organize Your Bow Hunting Gear and Tools

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Whether or not you had a successful bow hunting season that ended with a filled tag and you sitting behind a trophy buck, one thing is certain: your archery equipment and gear probably took a beating. Often at the end of the season, you might find your gear dirty and scattered in places it ought not to be. When you hunt whenever you can squeeze it in and travel to different properties, it’s inevitable that something will be misplaced. If you’re in that boat, don’t worry…it doesn’t take long to clean and organize your hunting mess. If you follow these tips, you’ll be that much more organized for next season too.

Clean

First things first. As you collect your various bow hunting items, the first step is to clean them. The woods and fields have a way of quickly adding dirt and debris to our equipment even if you’re seemingly perched in a stand all day long. Cleaning could mean washing your clothing, gloves, and facemask. It could also mean scrubbing your bow and arrows down with a mild soapy solution. Heck, it could even mean cleaning up and oiling your bow maintenance tools if they need it. The point is that time and grime will destroy your precious archery equipment, so you need to make sure they don’t get a foothold at the end of each season. When washing your hunting clothing, make sure to still use scent-free detergents so that they remain as neutral-smelling as possible while packed in their winter bags.

Inspection Time

Now that everything is clean, you should look through your archery equipment to see what needs to be fixed or if anything needs any special preparation before storage. Start with your most important piece of hunting gear: your Prime Rize bow. With its rugged new 82x aluminum risers and Flexis FlexShock dampers, your bow can withstand a lot. But you should inspect it from axle to axle to make sure all parts seem to be in order. If you’ll be storing it for more than a few months, it might be a good idea to back off the poundage a little with an Allen wrench to reduce tension on the bow string and prolong its life. You may even want to oil the metal parts and apply a wax to the string. Store it in a hard case and place it somewhere where it will stay cool and dry.

From there, look through your other gear. Arrows continually need re-fletching and new nocks, knives need to be sharpened, clothing and boots can be waterproofed, and the list goes on. Remove the batteries from your electronics so that if a battery explodes it won’t ruin your device. Clean the lenses on your binoculars and range finder and store them in their protective cases.

Organization

Now that everything is cleaned up for the season, it’s time to invest a little time in organizing your gear. You don’t have to go berserk on this effort, but the more time you put in now will help you out next fall when you’re wondering, “Where did I place that new box of broadheads?”

The Off Season | Improving Next Year’s Bow Hunting

Off Season Activities that Improve Next Year’s Bow Hunting

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Did you harvest a deer with your bow this year? A better question might be did your season go as planned? Regardless of your answer next year’s bow hunting can be improved by taking advantage of the off season.

Bow hunting throughout the year and not grabbing a firearm in November, is choosing to enlist into a very difficult challenge. This challenge requires stacking the odds against yourself. Because of this some years result in failure, but putting time into these activities in the off season can result in a different outcome for next year.

Find out who survived

The first priority of the off season for any bow hunter should be taking inventory of which bucks survived. A post season trail camera survey is the best way to census your deer hunting property. This will not only result in finding out which bucks survived, but will give you valuable data for the start of the year such as a sex ratio, fawn recruitment rate, and a population estimate. These results are important to have before the bitter cold of winter and before spring food plots go in. Prime pro staff and supplies great information on how to set up and run a trail camera census on your deer hunting property.

A camera survey, beyond the demographic results, will give you an indication of where bucks have spent the late season on your property. Any clues on a buck’s fall/winter home range could make all the difference for next year’s bow hunting.