Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Thank you Eofor! Looks like in addition to learning how to brain tan, I shall also learn to oak tan!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have that thing where you're ducking through the woods with your bow and strung arrow, and a little bit of brush gets lodged between your bowstring and the bottom tip of your bow? I'm curious what if anything you guys are doing to deal with that.

For what it's worth -
I tend to to keep an arrow on the string, my left index finger on or over the arrow to keep it steady, my right fingers on the string with just a *bit* of tension (sometimes steadying the nock with my right thumb), and have the bottom end of the bow under my left arm, sheltered a bit. Most of the time I can move smoothly enough, but every so often I miss something and... yoink!

What about you guys?

I don't hunt but I used to experience that when stump shooting. Not much you can do about it except heightening your situational awareness.

How long is your bow Elleth?

I'm no fan of walking through the woods with a longbow but my new Waterford bow is much shorter and the difference is noticeable.

Eofor wrote:How long is your bow Elleth?

I'm no fan of walking through the woods with a longbow but my new Waterford bow is much shorter and the difference is noticeable.

Hunh - good point! Now that you mention it, I'm not certain it happened as much with my old horsebow. It still happened, but I think it might have happened a bit less? I've never paid attention or done any kind of side-to-side test.

The one I'm using now is about six feet long unstrung - the narrow yew stick second from the left in this picture -



Waterford... I'm not familiar with that, and search keeps wanting to show me bowls.
Does it refer to a historical find I assume?

Elleth wrote: Hunh - good point! Now that you mention it, I'm not certain it happened as much with my old horsebow. It still happened, but I think it might have happened a bit less? I've never paid attention or done any kind of side-to-side test.

The fact that you're noticing it now when you hadn't before means it could be something new. Do you range alone? Why not get a fellow ranger to carry the horsebow while you carry the longbow and switch halfway through the walk, I imagine the change would be immediately noticeable.

Elleth wrote: Waterford... I'm not familiar with that, and search keeps wanting to show me bowls.
Does it refer to a historical find I assume?

Ahhh yes! A few months back Heimir and I comissioned two small bows (126cm) based on 11th century finds from Waterford Co. in Ireland.
The bows feel like skinny little twigs compared to a Longbow but they are deceptively powerful. The draw is only 22” but you get 45 pounds out of that. They are also much easier to move and shoot in the forest with.
Here's a picture to show the size vs a longbow and illustrating the cramped draw.

Neat! Reminds me of Ursus' little swordsman's bow.

I do range alone, but I can try swapping back to back a few times and see what changes. Thanks!

I’ve always wondered what sort of technique is best to gauge one’s draw with a small bow like that so one anchors properly and doesn’t overdraw it. I confess I once broke a red oak “Welsh short bow” from (I presume) overdrawing it, and I’ve been rather hesitant to try another that size ever since.

Two options - Ideally having the right sized arrows for the bow would make overdraw impossible.

In lieu of that we have marked our arrowshafts at the correct draw length.

Once you adjust your technique to the shorter arrow it becomes difficult to overdraw as you're not actually drawing to your cheek.

Eofor wrote:Two options - Ideally having the right sized arrows for the bow would make overdraw impossible.

In lieu of that we have marked our arrowshafts at the correct draw length.

Once you adjust your technique to the shorter arrow it becomes difficult to overdraw as you're not actually drawing to your cheek.

Aaaaaah yes, of course! That does indeed make a ton of sense. How about anchoring though? If you’re not drawing to an anchor point on your cheek, how are you ensuring every draw ends up in the same spot, and will therefore produce consistent releases?

i am guessing you would use another part to use as the anchor point.

so perhaps like having your wrist or a part of your forearm as the point that anchors to the cheek

RangerofAngmar wrote:i am guessing you would use another part to use as the anchor point.

so perhaps like having your wrist or a part of your forearm as the point that anchors to the cheek

On short-drawing bows, I find that the rearmost knuckle of my drawing hand thumb rests nicely beneath my nose and above my lip on-center.

RangerofAngmar and Greg have the right of it.

You still draw to an anchor point - It's just different from a bigger bow.

unless of course you are able to shoot without and anchor point, which is hard to get used to but possible to learn and get accurate at

RangerofAngmar wrote:unless of course you are able to shoot without and anchor point, which is hard to get used to but possible to learn and get accurate at

Once I really grokked how I was instinct-shooting, this made more sense.
I think Brian Ferguson's Become the Arrow might talk about the practice: I've not had a chance to do more than flip through the pages, but by the title it certainly sounds like the same technique.

I rarely shoot off anchor - not least because with any significant poundage I've not not the arm strength to do it well - but it's a nice trick in the toolbox for weird angles bending around brush.