In February I broke my bow. I carelessly shot it without an arrow in it. When you dry shoot a compound bow, the force that usually goes to push the arrow forward ends up reverberating up the strings and the cams get the full brunt of the force. It sounds like a gunshot as the string gets stretched to great tension and breaks. I know this sound well because yesterday I heard it (and felt it) again.

Two days ago I planned to shoot after work. I had a dental cleaning then went back to shoot in my empty gym. But when I got back to work I kept working until almost 7pm and got too hungry to stay and shoot. At my dental cleaning I found out I had lost a small filling and was able to book another appointment yesterday.

So yesterday before my late appointment, I got my ‘to do’ list done at work and raced to squeeze in some archery before the appointment. I was going to have to rush to get a scoring round in. Rushing was a bad idea. I didn’t do my ritual setup when I took the bow out of the case. So I got to the shooting line and realized that I had not adjusted my sight scope, something usual done well before this point.

Instead of stepping away from the shooting line, to do my setup, I stood there and made the adjustment. At this point my usual shooting procedure was completely broken. I made the adjustment, then fired my bow, in the rush I was in, to get a scoring round in.

Bang, ow. I instantly knew my mistake.

I’ll go to the archery store this weekend to see if my bow cams are salvageable or not. If they aren’t, I know the lower cam is not available to be replaced… it’s the same brand and model as my old bow, not made anymore. If I have to buy a new bow, I’ll be sure to buy one that has been dry shot tested, some of the newer bows don’t explode when you make this mistake.

Both times I did this, I was in a rush and careless. Both times I have reminded myself that I’m still a rookie. But most archers don’t make this mistake, and even less make it twice. It’s an expensive lesson that I hope I have finally learned.