T-Bone's Tips: How To Beat Target Panic 

This is 1 of the best videos I’ve seen for target panic. I know there are lots of different techniques, but this all seemed to work the best for me! Thank you

Your suggestion of dark room without actually closing eyes just clicked for me. Target panic has haunted me from a compound through a selfbow. Thank you!

Interesting confession...when i first started bowhunting about forty years ago, we had no multi-pin fiber optic sights and drop away rests. It was big fat brass pins and no peep. But i was a "crack expert shot" with a bow before i ever held one! lol a self-proclaimed "natural instinctive shooter"! lol so of course, the first few compound bows i owned had zero sights of any kind! i would stand ten yards from my target and "feel" where the bow would send the arrow. Most of the time i actually did pretty reasonably well...with the expected occasional flyer (never did manage to stick one in the side of the neighbor's house, amazingly!) But the first whitetail Deer i ever killed was shooting that way. From crouched in a ditch until they got close enough...and from an unknown distance...i managed to liver shoot a big old Doe. I soon learned about sights and peeps, and became a much improved archer, but that experience shooting "barebow" established a confidence in me that i think prevented me from ever suffering target panic. Shooting a bow for me has always been a calming and medatative experience. As natural as paddling a canoe or swinging a fly rod.

Always helpful and informative videos. Thank you T-Bone.

Thank you for all of the great tips over the years!

I totally agree with what he is saying. Unfortunately, hunting is generally an "on demand" process, which requires you to shoot when the shot is presented. You don't have time to do all this stuff. If you are shooting 3D, or targets, then yes, I get it. I have target panic and I have to learn to live with it. Setting your release to not be a hair trigger helps me, but it's not a cure all.

Really good tip my friend. I tested it and I can confirm that separate training of aiming and releasing really helps. I suffered from TP very hard two years. After several weeks of separate training I feel really better and shoot better as well. Now I have two back tension releases. One set normally and the other set for not releasing. I train aiming with not releasing one. I concentrate only on aiming while I'm increasing back tension. I do it at home. On the range I shoot with releasing release. I shoot lots of arrows to the blind butt. I concentrate only on back tension and surprise shot. After approx 50 or 60 arrows I put the target to the butt and try to combine aiming, back tension and surprise shot together.

Very helpful, thank you.

Thank you T-Bone ,,, Great Advise Thanks....

I'm a alcoholic (sober 2001 days today!) & a bow hunter.....I can indeed relate to his analogy!

Great advise T-Bone

Good points!

This worked perfectly.

great video, the only way I got over this was to not shoot in front of people. I was fine by myself but when shooting with others, I would always jump the trigger in nervousness. its completely cured now that I shoot a crossbow here in Michigan. lol

this is probably one of the best advise i've heard

Anime brought me here. LOL. Didn't know it was real--thought it was just a term used to make it all the more dramatic in the show. Learning something new everyday.

1999 I got target panic as a finger shooter.....I mostly shot indoors 300 round and field rounds when hunting was not in season... I was a 294 average shooter and occasionally shot a perfect round but what I believe really caused mine was when I went to a 5 spot because I had started busting a lot of nocks and arrows! it was only a matter of a few weeks that I noticed I was anticipating getting to the correct target on the 5 spot and as soon as I was even in the 4 ring BAM release....I went from 290's to not even being able to hit the 5 ring other than by pure luck..... back then nobody I shot with had experienced it and I couldn't find any help on the topic so I quit 100% --- no way I was going to risk hunting and risk gut shooting a dear or worse! That was 17+ years ago and last week I decided to try again.... Bad news is it doesn't go away with time if you don't actually re-train your brain on the sequence and not the anticipation of the shot ... Good news is I have youtube and lots of great advice to give this thing I did for 15 years another go......I'm currently in the phase of just shooting in to the back stop but in a controlled fashion with no pin or target ....just a 4'x4' back stop and I'm only standing about 10' away.....I will report back I'n a few weeks....I'm telling myself no shooting with a pin and target for at least a month but of course I am practicing each of them separately.

Hey Tbone, can you twll e how you built that indoor target backstop. It looks like cardboard. please do tell

what happens when I have to shoot outside

thank you! +1 sub and like

I really need help. I have tp so bad to the point where as soon as i get to full draw i feel like im forced to pull the trigger. I try calming myself down but after one shot i start trembling. Im only 15 and archery is my passion i love it but i need help

hmm. this is intreasting. never heard of this. even after learning about this, I can't say I have ever had issues here. but it's good to be aware this is something to keep a guard up against. I think I can see how this could affect folks that kinda get a rush on the hunt, and those that are typically new to shooting anything or simply getting out of their comfort zone to try something new. adrenilen can be a bitch to keep under control in the heat of the moment.

I rea

I rea