Editor’s Note: With the start of bowhunting season only a couple of months away, you need to start practicing now. Frank Pearson of St. David, Arizona, owner and operator of the Frank Pearson School of Archery (www.frankpearson.com) and nationally-known archery coach, has seen the evolution of the bow from the longbow when he first started shooting and competed with up to today’s modern bows and most-technical bowhunting equipment. If anyone knows archery, and how to help an archer shoot better, you can rely on Pearson. This week Frank will give us practical tips on how to shoot better, whether you are a tournament archer or a bowhunter.

Question: Frank, what is another problem that you see that target archers and hunters have that causes them to not shoot as accurately as they can.

Pearson: They don’t take care of their equipment properly. Your strings and cables have to stay constantly waxed. You’ve got to keep your bow out of the heat. If you put your bow in a bow case and place that bow case in the trunk, and the sun is beating-down on the trunk for several hours or maybe all day, the strings and the cables on your bow will stretch. Then when you arrive at the tournament or the hunt, your cam is out of time, and the bow doesn’t fit you the way it has before you’ve put it in the trunk. If your string stretches, your draw length gets longer, and your arrow goes faster than it did before you put the bow in the trunk. If the cable stretches, just the opposite happens. Your draw becomes shorter, the bow doesn’t weigh as much when you pull it back, and the arrow goes slower than it did when you put the bow in the trunk.

Many times the reason archers don’t shoot accurately at tournaments or when hunting is because they haven’t cared properly for their bows on the way to the hunt or the tournament. You solve this problem by placing the bow in its case inside your car – not in the trunk. If the weather is really hot, leave your windows down. Many times when people call bow manufacturers and complain about the performance of their bows, the problem is not the bow, but rather the way the shooter hasn’t taken care of the bow. Today’s modern bows are very-finely-tuned instruments. If you are a surveyor, you know that your transit is a very-finely tuned instrument that has to be cared for and kept-out of the elements as much as possible. If you don’t give your bow that same type of special attention that a surveyor gives to his transit, you shouldn’t expect peak performance from that bow, when you’re shooting the last round of a archery tournament or a buck of a lifetime steps out in front of you within range.

To learn much more about bowhunting, get John E. Phillips’ eBooks, print books and audiobooks by going to https://johninthewild.com/books.

Tomorrow: Understand the Importance of Your Shot Routine with Frank Pearson