Dusting Off Your Bow

On this episode of The Nomadic Outdoorsman Dan and his wife Samantha recap Sam’s first time shooting her bow and what they are doing to get ready for Archery season.

Dan and Sam have been married for nearly 10 years and love doing life together. They share multiple social media pages as well as a podcast all under the name We Are Dan And Sam. Although Sam attended a women’s archery night when they lived in Colorado, this was her first experience shooting a compound bow. Sam got a Mathews Prima for her birthday last year which she hopes to become proficient with and start hunting on their local whitetail property. With less than 2 months before bow season they decided to dust off the equipment and get ready.

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Dan Mathews: [00:00:00] All right guys. Welcome to today's show. Now on the show today, my wife and I are gonna be recapping her first day shooting her new bow. And by new bow, the bow that she got nine months ago that she had yet to shoot. But we went to the range, we got her started, and it was a lot of fun. We're preparing for Bo Fest, which is coming up here in a week and a half in superior, Wisconsin.

And we've got archery season less than two months away now. So I'm really excited that she's starting to get into it. I think it's something she's gonna fall in love with, but this is a great episode. Let's jump in.

Like he was doing things that were just badass. That was one of the coolest moments of my life.

Samantha Mathews: I was really scared, but knowing that Dan had the gun, I did have the rifle, like we would be okay.

Dan Mathews: All right guys. Welcome to today's show. [00:01:00] And for today's show, me and my wife are hanging out and we are gonna talk all about her first day shooting your Be.

Samantha Mathews: Yep. I wish it went better, but it was fun.

Dan Mathews: I feel like if people are listening to this, they're gonna be like, wait a minute, didn't you buy her that bow?

Like last year. Yeah, that's accurate.

Samantha Mathews: Yeah, we, I did share like a YouTube episode I think, of us going to pick one out, cuz it was, I don't know, we did a TikTok on it and it was fun and we just wanted to share which one I got.

Dan Mathews: Yeah. That happened 10 months ago and now all of a sudden we're just getting around to shooting it.

Samantha Mathews: We were pretty busy hitting the road in the rv, buying property, moving. That we didn't really have time. We could

Dan Mathews: have made time. Yeah, we definitely could have made time. Yeah. But We had fun shooting. It just didn't go the way that I think either of us would've thought it would go. I think

Samantha Mathews: I hoped that I was gonna be [00:02:00] amazing, like right off the bat, so I just was humbled very

Dan Mathews: quickly.

But you also went into it really nervous for some reason, I could tell your demeanor changed when we got there. Yeah, and it didn't help that we were thrown off a little bit because I forgot my release

Samantha Mathews: back. How do you forget your release too? That's like the number one thing besides the bow that you need.

Because I

Dan Mathews: had all of my stuff together in the apartment for shooting, and then I had to go out to the property because my release and some other things for shooting were out there. Oh yeah. And so that just was in my truck and we ended up taking your vehicle yeah, we went out and I think the big reason we decided to go there and shoot was because we've got Bow Fest coming up.

Yeah. We leave in like a week and a half. Yeah. And no

Samantha Mathews: kids, just me and

Dan Mathews: Dan. Yeah. I was like explaining to you about it and you're like, wait, I need to shoot. And I'm like yeah, if you're gonna shoot a 3D Mountain course, You definitely have to get out there and at least cite your boat

Samantha Mathews: in.

Yeah. And I didn't realize I thought it was [00:03:00] just a like vendor booth type thing, cuz we went to the archery trade show. Is that it? And a couple others. And it was, yeah, just like a booth that we set up when we went around, made con, made connections, had conversations. So I didn't realize it was this full on You shoot your bow, as you're having those conversations.

And so I was like dang, I don't wanna show up and not. Look like I have, look what I know what I'm talking about.

Dan Mathews: It's not like you're shooting and having conversation and we're gonna have our booth. Yeah. But then some of the things that you can do there are go and walk these courses.

Oh, okay. Shoot. And so it's not like

Samantha Mathews: we, so it could be just me and you. Someone may not see me. Shoot.

Dan Mathews: Every, there's gonna be people on the course all the time. Yeah. So other people will see you. But it's not like we're shooting next to 50 people. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Not to mention other people are gonna be missing things too but even just to get you to the point where we can actually go and shoot the course.

Yeah. It's gonna take a few more days of going and shooting. Oh, for sure. We have to get your site [00:04:00] dialed in. We've gotta get your form down, we've gotta get you comfortable pulling that weight back. And so there's a lot that needs to happen, but, At the end of the day, if you don't go and shoot, I've never shot one of these courses.

Yeah, I might show up and absolutely suck. No, you're gonna

Samantha Mathews: kill it. But Dan is good. Dan is good at everything he touches. Let me just tell you, he picked up pickleball within the last six months and he's better than almost everyone. He is played there's, you can count on one hand the people that are better than you.

And he's just so good so talented. So we went there yesterday, we were at James River Archie in Springfield, Missouri. Just an indoor range I guess, but that's where I bought my bow and I got like a free month of like rain shooting. And so we're like, oh, let's just go shoot it. We could have went out to the property, but the weather was iffy with rain and.

He was like, oh man, haven't picked up my bow in a while. Shoots it. Bullseye. One after another. And I'm like, what in the world? But

Dan Mathews: it's not like I just picked up my bow. I know I've shot thousands had and thousands of arrows you cited in and everything. [00:05:00] So like I'm comfortable shooting.

That's like riding a bike. That'd be like, how are you so good at riding a bike? You haven't rid a bike in six months. Yeah. It's it's just, I. I used to ride a bike all the time. Yeah. So it, it's much, much different when it's your first time versus your second, first 500 times. Yeah. There's been probably 500 occasions where I've shot my bike.

Samantha Mathews: Yeah. I remember if not more, a couple years ago when you just got it, like every day after you got it, you're like, I gotta get at least 10 arrows here. I gotta get 10, 10 arrows through. I was like, oh,

Dan Mathews: okay. Oh yeah. And there were days where I was putting 50 to a hundred arrows through it. Yeah. So I'm very comfortable with the equipment.

The thing that I wasn't comfortable doing. Is teaching how to do it. Yeah. Because for me it's like I've just done it. I've never had since you're little proper training. I think my uncle, my mom and my dad all kind of said, Hey, this is what you should do. And this was when I was 15, 16 maybe. Yeah.

Got a bow. They're like, Hey, this is how you do it. I said, okay. And then [00:06:00] I just started going after that. I've never had anybody tell me. Do it this way. Yeah, do it this way. Do it this way. By now it's

Samantha Mathews: all muscle memory. Yeah. So you have all of that. Like you pick up the bow, you know how to stand, you know where you turn your head, where your nose is, where your arm is, and it just comes natural.

But yeah, for someone who's never done it, and then me thinking, I'm like, oh, I just pick up the bow and shoot it. I shot Recurve when we lived in Colorado. I would go like once a month on a Wednesday night for. Like ladies archery night. And that was fun and I was pretty decent at it. And so in my mind I'm like, oh, I could shoot a recurve.

Shouldn't I be able to shoot this though? The answer is no.

Dan Mathews: There's just so many fundamentals that are different. Yeah. From shooting a recurve to a compound. And a few things that we needed to do was actually like, Have them fit it for you again. Have them help set. Set your release up.

Yeah. Because your release can adjust and be longer or shorter. That paired with the bow,[00:07:00] Some of the guys in there were saying, oh, your draw length needs to be like four inches longer than it is. Yeah. But after measuring, and I was like, I don't think that's right, because your elbow was like locked.

Yeah. And your string was in the same spot. And so really I think the bow was set up right. Lengthwise for you it was just getting that form down. Yeah. Having you squeeze your shoulder blades, pulling your elbow back. And then you're, my grip was wrong. Gripping elbow. Or, yeah. First your Crip, was a little off, and then your elbow on your left hand. Yeah. Or on your left arm needed to come outta the way because first shot Sam just smacked her forearm. Yeah. How's it looking today? It's

Samantha Mathews: looking okay. It's not bad. It's not as dark as I thought. Oh, it's definitely it not, it definitely darker than it was.

It though, it's darker. Yeah. Maybe we'll show a picture on online. It looks

Dan Mathews: like you took a baseball, like a baseball.

Samantha Mathews: Baseball, yeah. To my forearm. Straight to the forearm. So it did, at first it, it hurt really bad. It did sting in, like Dan said, I was I don't know [00:08:00] if I was nervous, but.

A lot of you guys follow us on our other platform and where we talk about surrogacy. I'm in the middle of a medicated mock cycle and I'm on estrogen, which gets me, don't even start to laugh. It is funny, which I have just days where I am just very emotional. And this day it was Saturday, it was Dan's birthday, so I wanted it to be like really fun and adventurous.

My mom had the kids, so I was like, let's go. Like to the archery range and spend some time together and how fun would that be? But I was just not in a good place mentally and emotionally. And so I was emotional going into it where I literally just wanted to stay in bed and cry. But I had to force myself to go cuz it was Dan's birthday and I was looking forward to it.

But getting there, I just could tell I was ready to cry without anything happening. So then when I like smacked my arm with this string, I was like, Yeah, I wanna just walk out and be done right now, but I know I can't, like I have to practice this. I want to, and then now there's all these people in the range, like looking at me to [00:09:00] get it right.

So I had to get it together and hold it together. But it did ding pretty bad.

Dan Mathews: And I think that one, that archery shop is in the middle of town. Yeah. And it was a Saturday. Yeah. And it's not a big range. Is that, so there was gonna be, yeah. I mean there's like maybe five, five lanes. Yeah.

And. It goes to 20 yards. It's not a long range. Yeah. Whereas there's other places in town that you can go not have to worry about all those people. And yes, it was a Saturday. Yes, it was my birthday, but to have planned out where it was like, Hey, let's go on a Tuesday. Yeah. Or something like that where we could actually have.

The range full attention. Yeah. Of someone from the shop. Yeah. Because Needed

Samantha Mathews: waited in life for, needed to help you. Waited about 30 minutes. Cuz we, right when we got in, we wanted to check in and say, Hey, can you help us out? Get started, show us, show me the ropes before we actually shoot. But they were so busy that we were like, let's just go in there and get started.

Yeah. And

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Samantha Mathews: Hindsight's 2020. But

Dan Mathews: He's right. One thing that you can do is just shoot the bow. Yeah. Don't worry about accuracy, worry about form. Yeah. And that's something we could

Samantha Mathews: do anywhere. Yeah. Cuz even after I put. What, five through or four through, I could feel it and I got comfortable with, okay, let's draw back.

Make sure my grip is right. Make sure my elbow's right, stand up straight, or my feet shoulder width apart. Is my elbow right? Is my knuckle behind my ear? Is my nose on the string? Am I looking okay? Go [00:11:00] like it. Going through all those steps for me was easier the more I did it. Yeah. And for him to say yes just shoot it.

Just put arrows through and you'll get better

Dan Mathews: each time. I need to grab the Accu Bow. Oh yeah. And bring it here. And you can just mess with that's, you've got your release. My release? Yeah. You could put your release on it cuz it's got a dlo on the string. Yeah. And then you can just throw your phone in and you can practice with that.

It's not the same. Yeah. Anybody who says it is. No, it's just more than fine. Stretching the truth, but honestly, It does help with the fundamentals. It can help you with your grip. Yeah. It can help you with your st stabilizing arm, your elbow placement, drawing, getting your anchor points. So there's a lot of things that I think would be beneficial to it.

Yeah.

Samantha Mathews: I think what was different for me was we've been working out like two hours a day. We do from nine to 11 in the morning, five days a week, and. I feel not to toot my own horn, but I feel like I'm putting up some decent weight for me in the gym that then going and shooting, drawing back first, like that poundage was, hard, but it's just a movement you have to get used to.

But [00:12:00] also holding my bow with one, the left arm and just stabilizing it and not shaking. I'm like, that thing was so heavy. It's you're using different muscles, especially when you grip it with just those first few fingers and your elbow pointed out like it's a different grip and hold than just holding a normal dumbbell like straight out.

And so that's something I have to get used to that I just didn't expect.

Dan Mathews: I've got a good workout for that. Thinking about it. Yeah. Check this

Samantha Mathews: out. Why did my mind automatically go to something dirty? Something dirty. I feel like that's a stop.

Dan Mathews: We need to shut this podcast off real quick. No, we do not.

Samantha Mathews: I that's being married to day and Matthews, it's always that's what she said.

That's what she said. Oh,

Dan Mathews: I was doing it, talking about it. A legitimate workout. And you're the one who took it. Don't say that's being married to Dan Matthews. This is what it's like being married to Samantha Matthews. All right. Actually, it's not, she never says dirty jokes. I'm always the one always.

But honestly, check this out. So you know the cable Yeah. Cable tower. If you put one of the cables over your left shoulder [00:13:00] and extend with the handle. Oh. Straight out. And then with the other hand, you just do single arm rows with

Samantha Mathews: no weight in your right arm. Oh, with the other cable.

With the other cable. Oh, there you go. Okay. The

Dan Mathews: one across from it, you could do legitimate drawing your bow exercises at the gym, but I also

Samantha Mathews: feel like I would end up in one of those like gym memes where like they do these funny

Dan Mathews: workouts with machines, you know how well that would go. I'm just gonna put this up to my listeners.

If she does this, should we do this, should we put this on TikTok? If we workout, we're gonna put it on TikTok and then. You guys can go like it and share it a bunch and just blow it up. Yeah, because that'll be awesome. Like you're looking good, you got your yoga pants on your workout top on. And then it's just I've never been more proud of my wife than I am right now.

Not cuz she's working out, but cuz she's practicing her both for Oh that's good. And be really good. Yeah. You're doing that workout and people are gonna be like, no way. I think it would go over well. [00:14:00] Okay. Let's it next. Some people will gym make fun of you.

Samantha Mathews: That's okay though. I don't care about

Dan Mathews: him.

I've never done like a hunting specific workout, but I have seen a lot of memes. Yeah. Where a guy's got like the barbell. Yeah. And he is just walking with it. It, and then he lifts it up onto his shoulder and then he just, that's as if a gun is 45 pounds. But hey, it'll make it easier for the, there's plenty of things that you could do in the gym that would actually help you in a hunting scenario.

Yeah. But nothing is gonna be better than just

Samantha Mathews: shooting your boat more. Yeah. Nothing's gonna prepare you more than just actually. Doing the

Dan Mathews: deal. Okay. So for shooting your first compound bone. Yeah. This is literally the first time ever shooting a compound. What advice would you give to somebody about like first day?

Samantha Mathews: I. Make sure your grip and your elbow is correct before you

Dan Mathews: shoot. So watch videos or something? Yes.

Samantha Mathews: Watch videos or have someone teach you. Because, but then again, I say that, [00:15:00] but also that caused me to learn and I didn't do it again I know some people do it and it hits their forum and they hit it, over and over cuz they just can't get it right.

But I sadly, I feel like you learn from failing, you learn from failure. And doing that, the first, it sucked, but it caused me to know and to make sure I'm. Accurate from the beginning. Make sure my grip is wrong, make sure my, my grip is right and my elbow is correct and out. But before I just didn't know.

So I would say yeah, form for sure.

Dan Mathews: Do you think that happening to your elbow is like the best teacher? Like you're not gonna do that again? Yeah, probably. I was just watching alone. And the quote at the beginning of the episode was, One thorn of consequence is more valuable than a whole forest of warning.

That's really good.

Samantha Mathews: That's good. Yeah, because you actually

Dan Mathews: experienced, so we can tell you, hey, like this is a mistake I'm not gonna make again. For real.

Samantha Mathews: We can tell you, Hey, you're gonna hit your arm. You're gonna hit your arm. You're, and I did. You did. As, and I've seen it happen to people.

I've [00:16:00] seen I think the last time, did you hit it one time in Ash Grove? No,

Dan Mathews: this was Who did it? In Ash Grove. I feel like I remember. No. So I did. I don't know if we were married or just dating at this point. Yeah. But I remember at one point we went over to somebody's house. Some, they pulled out a bow.

Yeah. We had been moving, helping them move or helping them work on their vehicle or something. And they were like, oh yeah, check out this bow. And I was like, oh, sweet. It was something random. I. I've got a release, I always shoot with a release. I'm always clipped in this time I just grabbed it with my fingers and I was just like, oh, this is sweet.

And I started to pull back and I don't know what happened if it just slipped through my fingers, but as I was pulling it back, just whack. Yeah. And it was, Yours is worse, probably five times worse than what yours looks like. So

Samantha Mathews: I've seen people and I know that can happen and I, remember seeing it.

But yeah, when it happens to you, it's just different.

Dan Mathews: Yeah. It's not fun. But it is something that you're gonna think about, you're gonna be conscious of, and we just have to get you out there Shooting. Got, I [00:17:00] think we both need to just be out shooting more. Yeah. Typically I shoot all year long.

Because of our living situation, moving around, traveling so much. I have not been shooting. No.

Samantha Mathews: Once season comes up, then you like, the two weeks prior you try to get it into

Dan Mathews: gear. Yeah. We're two months out. Yeah. I plan on shooting as many days as I can per week. Yeah. Moving forward like I'll be out at the property basically every day this week I'm gonna bring my bow.

Set up the targets. Hopefully get some rounds in. You're traveling this week? Yeah. When do you get back?

Samantha Mathews: Friday. So we can try to go again Saturday. It'll be Saturday again though, so it'll be busy. No, I

Dan Mathews: think we wait till next week. We go. We leave

Samantha Mathews: though. Wednesday morning for Bo Fest.

Dan Mathews: Shoot. So

Samantha Mathews: yeah, maybe we probably need to go Saturday and like Monday or

Dan Mathews: Tuesday. Yeah. We'll just go to an outdoor

Samantha Mathews: range. You the, if you seen at both fest and I'm bad, you know that I did not get enough practice. Surely

Dan Mathews: they're gonna have close not a walkthrough like range, your [00:18:00] own targeted place here, place.

Samantha Mathews: Here's a deal though. Sometimes I wanna be good at stuff like that and be like, Dang. Especially in a male dominated sport, wouldn't you say? Yeah. That there are times where I'm like, as a female, I would love to be good and to be viewed as that, which is probably very self-centered. But then there's other times where I'm like, I could care less and I want Dan to kill it and I wanna stand next to him and be cheering him on,

Dan Mathews: listen, do I wish that I could dance my socks off?

Yeah. Do I wish that? I could sing. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I can't. So do

Samantha Mathews: you want me to just stay next to you looking good?

Dan Mathews: No. I'm just saying. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying those are things that I can't control. Yeah, sure. I could take voice lessons. Sure. I could take dance lessons, but I just don't have rhythm.

Yeah. I might be tone deaf. Who knows? I just don't think that's something that's gonna change. Yeah. On the flip side, archery. Something that anybody can do. Yeah. It they really can. If you dedicate the time, if you put in the practice, like you will get better at it. [00:19:00] And I think starting out, focusing on form instead of accuracy is going to make you more accurate as soon as you start focusing on accuracy. Yeah.

Samantha Mathews: But you know how I go, if I'm not good at it, I walk.

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That's not true. I,

Samantha Mathews: yeah, if I, if there's something that I start that isn't successful, that I'm not good at, I'd rather stop that and do what I could do that I'm, no, I'm good at something, but not after a day. Yeah.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, I know. I won't give up. I'll keep going. I feel like you, you push hard between now and the start of archery season.

Yeah, that's two months. Deal handshake, two months from two days ago. Pinky promise. Why are we doing all of these weird things? Nobody can even see it. They just hear you saying, handshaking. We could have been done, we could be in two different states. And we just said handshake and pinky promise.

Samantha Mathews: And they have to guess what guys? We are sitting together and they are envisioning us handshaking right now.

Dan Mathews: I think that if you practice a bunch before season, you could actually be ready to shoot a deer with your bow. Okay.

Samantha Mathews: I'm scared to shoot. That's too much. I, oh, that's scary. That's a lot of pressure.

Can I just do rival

Dan Mathews: season? Why do you [00:21:00] have a bow then?

Samantha Mathews: That's a good question

Dan Mathews: I have. I have a handful of people that would love to have your

Samantha Mathews: bow. Right now I have a Matthew's Prima. We didn't even tell

Dan Mathews: them what kind I have. Oh yeah. So we got her a Matthew's Prima. She has a better bow site than me. She has a better, he stole my

Samantha Mathews: B case, so I did have a better case than him,

Dan Mathews: but now you do again.

Yeah, that's true. Cause you just bought a new one basically. Yeah, I had a cheap case and I hated it that you stole mine. So I stole hers cuz she wasn't using it for the last nine months. And now we both have a good soft case, but I mean you do have a really nice bow. Yeah, actually there's something in the mail right now that als ac that also goes with your bow.

What? I'm gonna have to go get it and show you. You bought me something? I think it's in the mail. I think it's in the box right now, babe.

Samantha Mathews: So what? Did you buy me a target?

Dan Mathews: No. Oh. You're just gonna have to wait and see. You always tell me what you buy. Yeah, but you don't know about this one. This

Samantha Mathews: was your birthday this [00:22:00] weekend?

Dan Mathews: Yeah, and I got nothing.

Samantha Mathews: Whatever I ordered you, I got nothing. You got new case and that was something else. And an emotional wife on your birthday. No, I got you. Burley Bow, two of those performance hoodies. I don't see 'em. They are in the mail. They should be here today. They are delayed thanks to ups.

Dan Mathews: No, but I think that if we go out.

You will be really good at it. Yeah. It's just, it's something that you have to have mental fortitude for. A lot of people rush shots. They have target panic, like when it comes time for that moment, like they flinch last second, they pull too early. If you can convince yourself right out of the gate.

Yeah. As soon as we start practicing. If we get your bo dialed in where like you're 20 or 30 or 40, 50, 60 is dead on. Yeah. If you shoot right and have good form. You have to make this mental note that I will not send an arrow. Unless it's gonna hit.

Samantha Mathews: Unless did you, cuz I did [00:23:00] notice that whenever I would pull up in, make sure everything was ready and in line that I felt like I was.

Holding there for a while. Yeah. Was that bad or is that good? So you can make sure you're accurate. Obviously, make sure you're accurate so you don't just like randomly shoot. But

Dan Mathews: The thing about being drawn back for a long time is that's you have to make the mental No. That I don't have to let this arrow fly.

Yeah. Some people feel like, oh, I'm drawn back. I have to. You have to. And then now all of a sudden they're getting fatigued. They're shaky, they're not settling their pin and boom, they let the arrow go and it's not even close. Yeah. It's oh, I just made a bad shot. Yeah. And people think that, especially when there's a deer or an elk or an antelope or an animal of any

Samantha Mathews: kind in front.

Yeah. And you don't wanna miss and then harm the animal.

Dan Mathews: I have to send this arrow. I'm already drawn back. It doesn't matter if you're in a tree, stand in a ground blind in a saddle on a stock in the woods, you do not ever have to let that arrow fly. You think you do. Yeah. You think you're gonna regret it, not doing it.

Yeah. And there may be that doubt. [00:24:00] But what's going to be a lot worse. As far as regret goes, is gut shooting an elk and losing it? Yeah. Is wounding an animal and not recovering it and then all of a sudden you go back, people are like, dude, how'd the hunt go? I lost one. Yeah. You know it. That will eat you up forever.

Oh yeah. Way worse than not. Letting an arrow fly is not gonna do, you're gonna be able to look back on it and Yeah. It might be like, dang, what if? What if. But the what if is a lot more easy. It's a pill that's easier to swallow on. One that you use restraint instead of poor judgment. You rush a shot and you wound something.

Yeah. So for sure, that's one thing I'll say is as we progress, as we get you more, more comfortable with your bow when you draw back, just know because it

Samantha Mathews: doesn't feel right. It takes a minute to get all set up and then to take that deep breath, to calm my heart rate and. Calm my movement before I could let

Dan Mathews: it go.

[00:25:00] And there's a lot of really good resources. There's a lot of people online right now, archery's blowing up. It's like the pickleball of the hunting world right now. Okay. Really? Dang. Everybody's getting into archery. Everyone wants to be like that. Look, that's why I bought a

Samantha Mathews: bow super ba part back

Dan Mathews: country hunter, and they want to hike in a million miles and they want to do everything with the bow.

They wanna be able to shoot 120 yards. And, but because it

Samantha Mathews: takes more skill, right? The than just than rifle.

Dan Mathews: So I will say getting close to an animal is way more difficult Yeah. Than getting a shot at 700 yards. Yeah. There's no question to that. The mental toughness of it. The physical toughness of it, it's just more challenging than going out and shooting a deer with a high powered rifle.

It is. That's why all the seasons are longer for it. Yeah. That's why the tags are more readily available. That's why success rates are way lower. But everybody's getting into it and it's just like the challenge, but also [00:26:00] the intimacy of it. Because shooting a deer from here to the other side of the living room.

Yeah. There's way more of a connection. You can see that thing blinking. Yeah. In the breathing you can see the wetness on its nose. Yeah. You can see the dust shake off of it when it shakes its back. Whereas from a long way off, it's like you don't get that same experience. Yeah, that's true.

So I think you're really gonna like archery, I think you're gonna like spot in stock more than anything. Because you, you're not a sitter. No. You don't like sitting around doing nothing. Yeah. But it's something that I think you're gonna pick up quickly. You're gonna really like, and if you find friends to do it with, Or like even me and you, I was just gonna

Samantha Mathews: say that could be our thing.

We go out, we shoot priorit, prioritize weekly date night. So what if we just go,

Dan Mathews: yeah, there's a lot of courses around here, but even out on the property, we can go and set up a few, we can set up one target and then back up to 20, 30, 40, 50,

Samantha Mathews: 60. This is dance way of getting targets [00:27:00] you've been asking for,

Dan Mathews: wait, does that mean I can go online and buy my own birthday presents now?

Go on Amazon and get a whole range full of targets.

Samantha Mathews: He told me the other day that's what he wanted. Is this your way of

Dan Mathews: getting, I feel like it would be sweet. Yeah. I feel

Samantha Mathews: It would be fun and if we're gonna spend the money at a range, then we might as

Dan Mathews: well. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good idea.

Yeah. We'll get out. We'll get you dialed in and you don't have to have a suite setup. You don't have to have a super nice target. You can practice your form. And just getting better paper and a hay bill. With paper and a hay bill. Or you could literally do it in a garage. Yeah. You could set up a target three feet in front of your arrow and just practice drawing back, holding, settling in, continuing to pull.

Yeah. Good. Surprise trigger release. Yeah. And then do it again. Yeah. And again. Yeah. And it doesn't matter where you hit, it doesn't matter that. You're only [00:28:00] shooting three feet in front of you, like you just need to focus on form. Yeah. Once you feel comfortable and it's easy for you to draw that bow back, you can get settled.

Samantha Mathews: Maybe I do that just in the front room putting the release on, drawing back, no arrow. But then I know that's not good because you don't wanna, you don't wanna release it without an arrow. You don't want to. But if I let it down,

Dan Mathews: You could let down, I think it would be better to find a spot to where you could go out.

Even like in a storage unit here, you could just,

Samantha Mathews: or like you said, practice my form with the ACU bow practice.

Dan Mathews: With the acu bow, although it's not the same there's a lot of things that you can do to get better, but really the best practice is gonna be actually putting arrows down range.

Yeah. And I think in a, probably two more days of you shooting, just working on form. Maybe we buy you an armed guard just for now, so that doesn't accidentally happen, and then once you get comfortable with it, we'll start actually dialing your pin in so that you're [00:29:00] ready to shoot. I'm excited.

Are

Samantha Mathews: you? Yeah, I am. I'm gonna try my best. I'm gonna do my best as long as I'm not emotional.

Dan Mathews: I love watching couples do the total archery challenge where they go hike around, they shoot. And it's like your bow can shoot a long ways. Yeah. It's a matter of just getting it set up. Do you like when I

Samantha Mathews: do this stuff with you or do you prefer to do it

Dan Mathews: alone?

I love it. No, I love it. I think it's, I think it's an awesome way for us to just hang out and do Yeah. Something, I

Samantha Mathews: agree. That's why I picked up pickleball for Dan

Dan Mathews: again. You've played like twice. Have you used your paddle since you bought it?

Samantha Mathews: I've used it twice.

Dan Mathews: At least you used that more than you did your bow.

That's true. You could have got a really nice paddle for the price of that bow.

Samantha Mathews: My paddle was even, I wanted the cute one, not the, I don't know, right

Dan Mathews: one. Yeah. No, you're, You've got all the equipment that you need. Yeah. Do you wanna see what you got? Should we end this podcast and I can go get your package?

Samantha Mathews: Dad, can you tell me? [00:30:00] No. You're not gonna tell them what you got me.

Dan Mathews: No. They'll have to go look at your story. How dare you Or my story, or wherever it ends up

Samantha Mathews: our story. This is our podcast.

Dan Mathews: Our podcast, our

Samantha Mathews: story. No, I'm excited. I think it'll be fun. And thanks for letting me come with you. Thanks for getting me my bow.

And whatever else you just got. Yeah.

Dan Mathews: Thanks for hanging out. Yeah. Sorry about

Samantha Mathews: your, come see us at Beau Fest. Come see how I do.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, for real. If you guys are in the area, if you guys are in the area, you're gonna say superior. Superior. Yep. Yep. If you guys are in the area of superior Wisconsin or you just wanna come up for it, or you want to just come hang out, bring a tent.

Bring your camper. There's onsite camping. What? Sweet. Yeah, there's onsite camping. Oh, nice. So bring your tent, bring your camper plan on staying for the weekend. Come hang out, listen to awesome music, get some food. You're doing a giveaway. Come sit down and do a podcast. I'm doing a giveaway, [00:31:00] actually. I'm giving away several things.

A bunch of OnX hunt memberships and then also the brand new Vortex Triumph Binos. What These are Vortex Triumph, hd. 10 by 42. Binos, giving those away. I also have a bunch of stickers. Yeah. Stickers hat. We got

Samantha Mathews: podcast

Dan Mathews: stickers. Lots of stuff that we're gonna give away at the booth. But you gotta be

Samantha Mathews: autographs, pictures with Samantha.

Yeah. Pictures with

Dan Mathews: Samantha, they're like, yeah, we don't want your sticker, but a picture with your wife maybe. No, I, Hey,

Samantha Mathews: your TikTok follower is like me.

Dan Mathews: They do. It's true. Yeah. Yeah. All the ones with you and it get way more videos, views, so yeah. Come hang out and. Honestly, if you want to come be a podcast guest

Samantha Mathews: Yes.

Onsite podcast recording. I think it's gonna be so fun. We've got a table set up. He's gonna have the headphones, some stools, and it's gonna be a blast. Yep.

Dan Mathews: And go check out my stories. I'm gonna talk more about the giveaways also. There's gonna be a [00:32:00] link to where you can sign up to be a podcast guest on my link tree.

So go do that and then we'll see it. We'll see it Bo Fest. At Bo Fest. Did we say what the dates were?

Samantha Mathews: 27th through the 30th. Okay. Of July.

Dan Mathews: Just checking. I was like, I don't know if we said that yet, but I don't think we did.

Samantha Mathews: July 27th through 30th. Come hang out. See you guys there.

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