Due to the sheer number of bows available on the market, you should try as many bows as possible. You want to find a bow that feels good in your hands. You also want something that is the proper size for your body type. Finally, you want to purchase a bow that will match your shooting style. These factors will affect your level of accuracy and comfort while shooting the bow. Consider your bow an investment that will either benefit you or cause you a great deal of frustration while in the field.

There are many things to consider when buying a bow. One of the most important is eye dominance. Eye dominance should play an important role as you search for the right bow. You should know your eye dominance so that you can pick a left-hand or right-hand bow. Most often, a right-handed person will have a dominant right eye. The same applies to someone left-handed.

The most effective way to figure out which eye is your dominant eye is to point to a distant object with both eyes open. Close your left eye. If your finger is still pointing directly at the target, your right eye is dominant. If you notice that your finger is no longer pointing at the target, you are likely left-eye dominant. If your right eye is your dominant eye, buy a right-handed bow. Do the opposite if you are left-eye dominant. Taking the time to do this will benefit your accuracy with the bow.

Other things to consider while shopping for a bow are draw length, draw weight, axle-to-axle length (ATA), and brace height. The most important thing, however, is to make sure that you choose a bow that has been made by a highly reputable company. Find a company that will always stand behind its product. They should also offer a high level of customer service. You will benefit by purchasing a bow that comes with a guarantee.

CPR

If you don’t know CPR, learn it. Call your local hospital, EMS, or fire department to see when and where you can attend a community CPR class. You never know when you may need to perform CPR on a friend, family member, or even a stranger. A few hours of your time could save a life someday. Many CPR classes offer basic first aid classes as well. Check with your local provider to see if this option is available before registering for a class.

Safety Rules during A Crisis

The first rule of safety during a crisis may sound selfish, but it is important. Take care of yourself first. Check the scene of an accident for unsafe conditions. Make the area safe for yourself and bystanders before beginning first aid. The reasoning behind this rule is that if you become injured or incapacitated, you can’t help anyone else. If you become injured, rescue workers arriving on the scene will then have you as an added victim to care. Seconds make a difference in a crisis but take a few beforehand to ensure that you can provide the help needed.

Basic First Aid

Healthcare personnel is taught the ABCs of first aid: Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. Your first concern is whether the accident victim has a clear airway. If the mouth or throat is blocked by blood, water, or objects, tend to this matter first. Next, see if the victim is breathing or is in danger of ceasing to breathe. The brain and vital organs cannot last long without oxygen. Provide rescue breathing if necessary.

Then, check for a heartbeat and any injuries that may be seeping blood. Apply pressure to any areas that are bleeding with a clean cloth if possible. Don’t be afraid to press hard! If others can assist you, ask for their help in applying pressure to a wound. If the bleeding is profuse and the wound is on an arm or leg, you can use your belt or a section of rope to wrap around the limb and secure tightly to restrict blood flow to the injured area and slow the bleeding. This is called a tourniquet.

Call for help! After you have controlled breathing and provided an initial round of CPR, call for help and then continue CPR until rescue workers arrive. Performing CPR can be exhausting. If others are available to help, perform two-person CPR or trade-off tasks frequently to prevent rescuer exhaustion.

If you or another hunter falls from a tree stand or other elevated area, do NOT move until you are sure there have been no spinal injuries. Moving a person with spinal injuries can cause the shattered bone to cut through the spinal cord and result in paralysis. Ask the fall victim to move their fingers and toes only. If they are unable to, they have injured their spinal column and need special care in moving. If they are breathing and not bleeding profusely, leave them in the position they are in and get help.

If they can move fingers and toes, gently turn them over onto their back if they are not already positioned so. Try to turn them as if they were a log; keep the head, legs, and torso aligned and stiff as you roll them. This will prevent any compression on the spinal cord should the vertebra protecting the cord be compromised.

Some falls and spinal injuries that affect the neck area can result in a person not being able to breathe on their own. If this happens, you must provide rescue breathing for them until help arrives.

Using firearm safety and common sense like avoiding aggressive animals can go a long way to prevent hunting accidents. Educate yourself, hunt with others, and always tell someone where you will be hunting and when you will return. Keeping safe in the woods is everyone’s responsibility. Be sure to do your part.

With bow hunting quickly becoming a new favorite in those seeking old-fashioned adventure, there are many new additions to the sport that people interested in it should get to know. One important aspect of bowhunting is the breaking of the “safety zone.” This must be done to get a clean shot at the prey. While traditional firearms hunters can stay at a relatively safe distance from their prey, a bow hunter must creep up on the prey and get inside a danger zone with the animal. So, the animal could attack at any moment within the danger zone. The hunter should be aware at all times because of this.

With some of the new additions in bow hunting, however, some of the guesswork from the hunt is being removed. While many bows hunting traditionalists may be against such new additions as GPS sensors and night-vision, others welcome any ally who can muster in this fight for survival and adventure. There tend to be two different schools of hunters, but all hunters have the same goal in mind, whether they are traditionalists or “new school” hunters. The ultimate goal of bow hunting is, of course, to bring down the ultimate prey.

There are several types of hunts that people go on. Big game hunts are popular and include elk, wolves, mountain goats, caribou, and mountain lions. Other more dangerous hunters tend to go bow hunting after bears. There is a lot of demand for bear hunting these days, especially archery-related hunts. This is because the danger involved with bear hunting delivers more of a rush than elk or caribou hunting. Like running with the bulls, bear hunting brings a sort of insane glee to the hunter and delivers thrills that they are not likely to get anywhere else.

Many people book bow hunting trips or excursions with various trip-leading companies. These companies typically take a group of hunters into a particular area noted for having a great deal of the animals they are seeking. The hunting company trips come equipped with a guide that monitors the action from a position of expertise and offers tips to the hunters at the party. Hunting trips are often very reliant on the seasonal aspect of hunting. So those seeking a bow hunting excursion should make sure they are paying attention to the top seasons of hunting.

Much of bow hunting is reliant on the baiting or trapping aspect. The aforementioned hunting trips typically supply bait to the hunting party. This includes knowledge from the hunting guide of placing the bait and finding a spot to wait for the prey. As hunting guides are professionals, their advice should always be heeded.

Typically, a hunting guide will take his or her party to a location in which the density of the hunted animal is known to be highest. They will then set up a camp or “base” and look for baiting locations. Once the bait has been placed in different locations, a hunting area will be designated for the bow hunters. As the hunters set up shop, the guide will typically go through a few of the ground rules and safety techniques. After a short period, the animals tend to appear, and the hunt is on.

Know your weapon

If your weapon came with an owner’s manual, read it from cover to cover. Practice taking apart your weapon and inspecting it thoroughly. If you know what your weapon looks like normally, you will be quick to recognize any abnormalities of the weapon in the field. If you drop your weapon or fall while carrying it, take it apart and inspect it for damage. Make sure that the slide operates smoothly. If you are in doubt about the integrity of your rifle, don’t fire it.

Educate yourself about the ammunition that you choose to use. A .22 caliber bullet fired from a rifle can travel over two and a half miles. This knowledge is necessary to line up a safe shot.

Transporting the weapon

Always keep your weapon unloaded until you are ready to fire. If you are going to hike to a new location, unload before starting. Store the rifle and ammunition separately and, if possible, keep the storage container locked. Never carry a loaded rifle in your vehicle or on an ATV.

Sighting your prey

When sighting up your intended shot, there are many things to consider before pulling the trigger. Never shoot at a partially obscured target. Identify your prey fully before even raising your weapon to take a shot. If you are in doubt about what is moving, control your excitement and wait until the target can be fully visualized. Never hunt after dusk or before daybreak.

Know what is in front of and behind your target before shooting. Do not shoot animals that appear on hilltops and near the tops of ridges, as you cannot identify what may be behind your target. If your game is near water, rocks, or buildings, keep in mind that bullets can ricochet off hard surfaces. Do not use the gun’s scope to sight your game. Use your binoculars first, and then if the shot is clear, switch to the scope.

Treat your weapon as if it is loaded at all times

Never look down the barrel of a weapon for any reason. Keep your muzzle pointed away from yourself and others at all times. Learn and use various safe carrying positions for transporting your rifle in the field.

Keep a clear head

Never go hunting or handle a weapon if you have had any alcohol or medication that may impair your judgment. Even a sleeping pill the night before can affect your reflexes during the day. Get plenty of rest the night before your trip and go home early if you find yourself becoming drowsy.

Sighting a big buck or a fat bird can be exciting. It’s important to keep a level head at all times and not let your emotions cloud your judgment. Don’t allow yourself to act without thinking through the action to determine if it’s safe first.

Wear your safety gear

Bring along hearing and eye protection and wear them before shooting. Include safety orange in your choice of headgear and upper body clothing. This helps other hunters in the area distinguish you from the prey.

The earliest form of hunting involved, as far as the experts can tell, involved weapons like spears or bow and arrows shot from a distance. Believe it or not, our ancestors caught their food using the same method we use to catch the bus to work when we’re late. We ran after it. Before he learned to use long-range weapons, early man had no other way of catching his dinner than being persistent and wearing it down over a long trek, sometimes even in the oppressive midday heat. Some early hunters would chase antelope over 20 miles in heat over 100 degrees. Persistence hunting would be the order of the day. African hunters would chase a Kudu, an early version of the antelope, by startling the animal, so it ran away. They would chase the beast at a fast pace. And while the faster Kudu would always be further ahead, the hunters would catch up to it when it took time to rest in the shade. The hunter would eventually finish the animal off with a spear, but not until he was at close range. This type of hunting is still practiced in Southern Africa.

With changes in human society, hunting evolved. As we began to grow our food and keep animals, hunting became a specialized task. Not just the traditional masculine endeavor anymore, hunting became a specific duty with tradesmen acquiring precise training. The other trend was hunting as the sport and leisure domain of the upper classes. It was here that the English word ‘game’ became common.

Hunting has had other effects on our modern society as well. Various animals have been used to aid the hunter, but none has become as important to us as the dog. The use of the ancestors of the wolf to retrieve prey and be our loyal companions has set the dog apart. Its domestication, which took thousands of years is considered a remarkable accomplishment. The tie between hunting man and dog goes so far back that the very word for hunting in ancient Greek is derived from the word dog.

Perhaps the most famous type of hunting is the safari, popularized by the American author Ernest Hemingway. The word itself is from Swahili, meaning long journey, and the most common type of safari occurs in Africa. It was frequently several days or weeks of camping while stalking or hunting big game, but in a more modern sense, it also encompassed trips through African national parks to hunt or watch the big game. Unlike their predecessors who ran their prey down years before, the modern African hunter often acquires a special license and enlists the aid of local professionals. There is even a type of modern safari where no animals are killed. The photo-safari is exactly what its name implies, and a Polish photographer first used the term “bloodless hunt.”