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Lessons To Teach Your Children With An Archery Target For Deer Hunting

20 March 2019

Konsta Laitinen

If you're getting your child interested in deer hunting and will soon take him or her on a bow hunting excursion with you, one of the best investments that you can make is to get an archery target shaped like a deer for your property. Your child can practice shooting arrows at this target to get into the mindset of aiming at a deer, and you can accompany him or her during these practice sessions by offering a number of tips and ensuring that your son or daughter uses proper techniques. Here are some lessons that you need to make sure that your child understands.

Where To Aim

When your child takes aim at a deer, he or she isn't simply trying to hit the animal. Rather, the child needs to know where to aim at the prey for a quick and merciful kill. Some deer-shaped targets are marked, but others are not. If yours isn't, teach your child to aim approximately at the top of the deer's front leg. This area, which is essentially the deer's chest, is a good spot to hit a deer because the deer's heart and lungs are immediately in this vicinity. A well-placed shot in this area will drop the deer quickly.

How Not To Shoot

Any adolescent who has played video games, including those that focus on hunting, will often be tempted to take daring shots. For example, a headshot is always appealing in video games, but your young hunter needs to know that deer hunting is not a game. Don't allow him or her to practice taking headshots at the archery target. This type of shot is inadvisable because the deer's head is small, which means that there's a high chance of missing the animal altogether.

When To Refrain From Shooting

You can teach your child a lot about when to wait for the right shot by moving the archery target around the property and using different obstacles to set up challenging scenarios for your child. He or she may want to shoot as soon as it's possible to see the deer, but you can set up the target in different ways and then offer some teaching points. For example, if you partially obscure the animal-shaped target behind a tree or a bush, you can teach your child how it's best to refrain from shooting until he or she can see the entire animal. Failing to see the whole animal could lead to a misplaced shot, resulting in unnecessary and prolonged suffering for the prey.

Once they've learned these skills, you can take them to an Axis deer trophy hunting ranch for some real practice. 

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