You all know it is time to pick up your bow and start practicing, so I picked up my bow started to fling a few arrows. The first flight of 6 arrows were pretty good although I was only shooting at 20yds. But starting with the second flight my shots were increasingly going to the right, I noticed this trend at the end of last season. With the following flights I would get farther and farther to the right as much as 12” at 20 yds. I would adjust the sights but it did not work and pretty soon my sights were maxed out to the right. I figured my bow must be out of adjustment.

Then I had an AHHHHAAA moment, maybe it was me and not the equipment. I shoot left handed and maybe I was grabbing the bow handle as I was releasing the arrow. I have tried and tried to just let the bow fall forward after the release but I keep grabbing the handle.

So to test my theory I took an old glove and cut out the thumb and fore finger, I hold the bow in a loose grip with these two fingers. The rest of the fingers I duct taped half of a clothes pin to each finger so I could not close my grip when the glove was on. From the first flight my groups of arrows tightened up considerably. Now I am shooting 2” diameter groups at 20 yds, I know I can do better but I need more practice. The point is, it was my grip that was throwing off the shots. I would anticipate the release and grab the handle just a fraction of a second before the release and pull the shot right.

Hopefully with more practice with the glove on I will be able to train my muscle memory to NOT grab the handle until after the release of the arrow. This was a cheap (I actually pulled the old glove out of the trash) experiment and it paid off. So if you can not seem to get your groups as tight as you want maybe it’s your grip and not the equipment.

Mike “Nimrod” Tusow