Bow hunting shot distance

[Riverbc]

I practice out to 60 yards, but both deer I've taken were at 30 yards. The fun part of spot and stalk mule deer hunting, is seeing how close I can get. I did miss a big Alberta deer last year from 20 yards. I had a vane come off in flight, and ended up taking off a small patch of belly hair. (the buck's, not mine)

[Big Lew]

I practice out to 60 yards, but both deer I've taken were at 30 yards. The fun part of spot and stalk mule deer hunting, is seeing how close I can get. I did miss a big Alberta deer last year from 20 yards. I had a vane come off in flight, and ended up taking off a small patch of belly hair. (the buck's, not mine)

Sooo! Just how much belly hair do you have

[Riverbc]

[todbartell]

80 yards piece of cake

[Hillbros_96]

65 yards is my furthest at it was a 300lb muley buck with a pass through. I practice out to 90 and I find that is the greatest thing that I did when it came to practising.

I also found shooting a smaller animal and or with a rifle if it is a new species really helped me in the long run. Once I got the first one I found I relaxed a whole bunch and then was able to pass on the less favourable shots more. The one thing I did figure out is you cannot shoot a whitetail when they are looking at you no matter how close they are. They can drop to their knees much quicker then a guy can imagine.

[BiG Boar]

I practice out to 100 every couple of weeks, but I have never killed anything over 35 yards with my bow. It's amazing how close you can get if you try and conditions are good.

[timbermilton]

I've taken coyotes out to roughly 60yds, practice out to 100 on an occasion, but all my "meat" kills have been within 10yds. i like to get close enough to touch them. all i use is my own homemade longbows, either selfbows or laminated. i shoot 700-900gr arrows tipped with 2 or 3 blade broadheads or trade points, screaming along at about 170fps. 60-80@30". the only real practice i do is in the woods stumpshooting at various distances and natural blind scenarios, other than form work and bow/arrow tuning when i make new bow, arrows, or string. all about confidence. though, I've seen a few guys shooting at game far beyond their limits. and they knew it too.

[allan]

42 yds my longest shot. 8 yds my closest. I've blown more then I would care to admit that we're under 30 cause I just wanted to get one step closer....

[greybark]

This post could be a thread -- distance percentage in Missing or Wounded .
20 -25 yards = ? wound or miss,
25 -30 yards = ? wound or miss,
30 -35 yards = ? wound or miss,
60 -65 yards = ? wound or miss,
80 -85 yards = ? wound or miss ,

The point is the (I assume ) the accelerated rate of misses and wounding for distance increases is with some accepted . One hears of these long distance hero launches and the so called perfect pass thru`s , but no mention of their misses or wounding .
The long distant advocates should be aware of several factors , one of which is flight time of their arrows . Wild game by nature is always a step away in their feeding program . That step can result in a critical ( not recovered) wound that no one can forsee .
Like some have posted , practice long ( lots of good reasons for this ) but responsibility in recoqnizing your true limitations with equipment and animal behaviour .
Cheers and no draws again.....

PS: This post is not preceded with high kill claims . LOL .....

[Canuck2]

I agree with what many others have said on here - practice far, hunt close. I've competed beyond 60 yards many times (900 rounds, etc) but the farthest I've shot at a deer is 35 yards, with my average hunting shot being about 25 yards. Found out on the 3D course today why 40+ yards on an animal is probably a bad idea for me.