My Best Shot...What Is Yours?

[BWallace10327]

I've been trying this one for a while.  Taking a nock off the top of an arrow at 15 yards.... without damaging the arrow shaft.   
edit:  I cannot mislead Tradgang.  In my attempts, the nock was hit a few times but the broken arrow shaft stuck in the ground was not sturdy enough.  The shaft moved when it was hit and the nock stayed put. I pulled the nock and placed it upside down in the arrow shaft and then took a shot at it. 

[Possum Head]

At that range mine would be more like trying for fletching. Nice shot

[Alexander Traditional]

That's good shooting!

I like to try and pop the heads off the thistle flowers at 15 and 20 yards.

[BWallace10327]

Thistle heads are great targets! 

[Bowwild]

I don't have pictures because this happened in the "flash cube days".  I know, I should have made a cave wall etching.

I was a freshman at Purdue on the outdoor archery range (1973... gone now).  I was shooting a Bear B Mag.  I don't know why I was on a hill above the range but some co-eds were walking about 100 yards away (safe shooting direction). There was an aluminum "pop" can at the bottom of the hill about 70 yards away.

What the heck, I drew and let er fly(no sights, finger tab). Put an arrow right through that can!  The co-eds didn't seem impressed, they might have thought it was an ordinary shot?  Damaged my fletching pretty bad.

[McDave]

This is the kind of thing that keeps us coming back.  If we shoot enough arrows, one of them is bound to eventually hit what we're shooting at; after all, it has to hit something.  And yet....I don't believe they are all just lucky shots.  When I remember the feeling I had after making a shot like that, I was totally relaxed, and my mind had somehow expanded to include myself, the bow, the arrow, and the target as part of a whole picture, as if the arrow belonged in the spot I was shooting at, and no other possibility existed.  My words are inadequate to express how I felt at the time, but it was a different feeling from my normal shot.  I feel like if I could get to that place more often, I could shoot more shots like that.

I remember one of those shots.  I was the only person around that part of the range that day.  I had just pulled my arrows out of one target and was about to walk to the next target, when I decided to take a long shot at the next target from where I was standing.  The distance is unknown, maybe 60-65 yards?  I put the arrow in the center of the bullseye.  A runner was passing by on a jogging trail and watched me shoot.  I saw him look from me to arrow in the target, and then back again.  He stood there for a second, and then continued his run.  I don't know what he was thinking; maybe like Bowwild's observer, he just thought it was normal.

[stevem]

I was hiking down the mountain after a morning hunt looking for something to shoot at.  There was a nice soft dirt area with a rock about the size of a tennis ball in the middle.  Distance was about 40-45 yards.  Decided to see how close I could come to it.  Agh, the fresh smell of cedar in the cool morning!

[Roy from Pa]

LOL, Steve.

When shooting a 3D and someone breaks a cedar arrow, it gets passed around cause everyone loves the fresh cedar smell.

I was stumping once and stuck a cedar arrow into a 2 inch knot hole from about 45 yards.

[kenneth butler]

When I make that perfect shot it feels so good and down right easy. Then I think why can't I do that every time and get frustrated because I can't. Knowing how and doing it are two different things. I think that is what keeps me trying. >>>----> Ken

[toddster]

Rather be Lucky than good any day, ha-ha.  I was at an club 3D event, just had a awesome day of shooting (why cannt they all be), me and some guys I met finished the course and came around toward the clubhouse, and like many they had novelty shoots.  There was a lot of "wheelie" guys, trying to shoot a tennis ball on a string at 80 yards (no one knew the distance until after you hit it).  We all stood around watching the guys getting frustrated.  It cost a buck, to try, after I talked with the other guys (new to traditional) I walked up and dropped my dollar in the bucket.  The "wheelie" guys was all laughing and making fun.  I just smiled, walked up to the stake, and drew an arrow, nocked it, look at the target and wind.  I used the swing draw and swish the feathered shaft flew (beautiful), and nailed the tennis ball in the middle.  I wish I had a camera, for the look on all their face's.  I walked up and got my arrow, with a few in tow.  They asked questions and congratulated me.  I walked away, smiling.  Don't know if luck or Mr. Hill guiding my arrow, but few of those guys got a stick bow.

[ron w]

At the Rockwood Stumpfest a few years ago........a spray paint can on a stump, maybe 25-27 yards. Hill bow and a cedar with a judo........center punched it in front of a crowd.......that was my best ever!!!

[bigbadjon]

I've been thinking hard on this and have come to the disappointing conclusion. I have never made an amazing shot.

[YosemiteSam]

I went out to a spot along the river for an afternoon activity with my boys (ages 5 & 7 at the time, I think).  I had gotten them a couple of cheap recurves and thought I'd try to inspire them about archery by teaching them to play archery golf.  Archery golf, in case you've never done it, is where you pick out a distant object & take shots at it, moving closer until you finally hit it.  To demonstrate the idea, we walked up a large berm where we could see a ways out and I pointed out a 2" pipe sticking out of the ground, maybe a couple feet high and about 75 yards away (something out of their terminal range).  Borrowing one of their kid bows for the shot, I drew back with the arrow pointed way up in the sky and released to see how close I'd get.  We watched the arrow sail up into the blue and down again toward the earth to hear a faint *ting* as the arrow nicked the side of the pipe and stuck in the ground with the fletching still touching the pipe.  I was hoping to inspire them but I think they just ended up feeling discouraged that they'd never be able to measure up to that kind of shooting...  Dad failure.

[wood carver 2]

Shooting 3d at my friend's place. We were about half way along the course and looked back towards the barn. There are a few targets there to shoot at when we don't want to do the course. One buddy says who can hit the mule deer? It was about 70 yards. He shot and hit the hillside behind the target. My other buddy put his arrow under it. I drew my bow, tilted back until it felt right and put the arrow right where the heart would be in a real deer.
These guys are both way better shots than I am. I was just lucky, but that shot sure felt good. 
Dave.

[JonCagle]

A few years back my grandpa had some chickens. Something took to eating the little ones and it turned out to be an old cat. I was out shooting my bow one day and spotted the cat stalking the whitties, it was about 50 yards out so I took a hurried shot trying to get close enough to scare the murderous feline. I let fly and the arrow arced towards the cat, it heard the arrow, turned, and took it right between the eyes lol

[M60gunner]

How about an "almost"? We have a 103 yard shot that a few of us try to see how close we can come. Wednesday before last I (we) thought I pinwheeled it. I had my camera phone ready, witness statements ready, happy as can be. When we got close we could see it was the fletch that was dead center, the point was 6in. low. The trajectory at that range from a 40# bow. Sure took the wind out of my sail.

[BWallace10327]

This is great.  Keep the stories coming.   

[Trenton G.]

I guess I don't have anything fantastic. I was shooting with my brother at the range one time when a dragonfly landed on the side of a boar target about 25 yards away. My brother shoots compound and said I could have first shot since I'd probably miss the whole target, then he could take his time and nail it. I pinned the dragonfly right to the target. Got both lungs, heart, liver, head, and just about everything else lol.

[Stumpkiller]

Late October, overcast turns to light rain, hunched under a hemlock sitting on my boot-heels hoping it will stop, watching for deer, being scolded by a red squirrel running back and forth across a downed trunk.

15 minutes later he is STILL scolding and chattering, running back and forth.

Pulled a blunt from my quiver.

20 yards, 60# Dick Palmer Hunter longbow, moving red squirrel, squatted with a mostly horizontal bow.  Took him off the log with a barkless chest shot.  POP!

His tail was on my back quiver for years until a family cat noticed it at cat level one day.

[Hoosierarcher88]

Last year at our corporate shoot we had just finished up the 3d course. While walking back up to the shelter house we passed the "money shot" which was a moose target across the pond at 93 yards with a clay pigeon target stuck in the middle of the 10 ring. Everyone who shot in the corporate shoot got 1 shot on the target, anyone who hit the pigeon got a $50 card to red lobster. As me and my dad stood waiting our turn we watched compound shooters continually sending their arrows over the back or down into the water so I had absolutely no confidence in even getting close but figured what the heck. When my turn came I stepped up and flung one of my 720 grain logs using the top of the tree behind the target as my aiming point. I had already turned and started to walk away to let the next guy have his turned when I heard everyone clap and shout. I turned back around to see me bright pink feathers where the clay pigeon was previously at. Only thing I could do at that time was say and that's how that's done as I grabbed my gift card and took my dad to lunch. To this day I still can't believe I even hit the animal lol.