The Archery Project

The Art & Science of IBO 3D Archery: Zakk, Bryan & Cody Harrington

• Zakk Plocica • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Ever wondered how the pros judge yardage without rangefinders? The secret world of IBO competitive archery offers fascinating insights that can transform your bowhunting success. 

In this episode, we dive deep into the techniques and strategies used at the highest levels of unknown-distance 3D archery with our lead tech Cody, who recently competed in the IBO National Triple Crown event in West Virginia. From the surprising method of listening for the time between arrow release and target impact, to the psychological game of maintaining confidence when judging distances up to 52 yards, this conversation reveals the calculated approach behind what appears to be simple guesswork.

Cody shares his journey from placing last in his previous IBO competition to achieving a remarkable 40-point improvement this year. He explains his equipment choices, including why many competitors push for maximum arrow speeds near 309 fps, how they strategically cover their sight tapes from competitors, and why a 17-pound back wall tension helps maintain shooting form through long tournament days.

Whether you're a dedicated target archer curious about IBO events or a hunter looking to sharpen your skills for those moments when technology fails in the field, this episode offers practical training methods you can implement immediately. Learn how establishing visual markers at known distances creates a mental framework for more accurate field estimation and why understanding your personal tendencies when judging distance (like consistently underestimating) can become a strategic advantage.

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Zakk Plocica:

All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the archery project. So I've got brian and cody in the house today. Thanks for joining us guys. Yes, sir, absolutely so. Starting off, big news. Did you guys see this morning? Uh, bode turner signed with matthew. Signed with matthews I did see that. Well, that's exciting it was bound to happen.

Bryan Gay:

It was it's just depend upon who was gonna fork out what him and his dad wanted.

Zakk Plocica:

Let's be real. I'm curious what that looks like.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, I will never know.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, I don't know, yeah, big news. I mean Matthews, that's. I mean, I think that's why Matthews is. I mean, when you look at it marketing-wise, the brand, everyone knows brand, everyone knows the brand, everyone wants to shoot a Matthews bow and they have done a fantastic job getting all of the stars and the studs within the archery.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I'll be curious to see if he has to do any ASAs or what his stipulations are behind his contract. Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure there's going to be. There's probably so many. There's usually a number of shoots they have to attend and everything.

Bryan Gay:

So many events.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, it's just a general contract were to be a professional athlete, you have to do these things and you got to perform.

Bryan Gay:

that's the other thing consistently and that kid does man. Oh yeah, how old is he? Like 16, 18, 18 now yeah impressive man. He's a, he's a stud, he's a shooter yeah an athlete goal, a real athlete, and that man yeah, I mean honestly, realistically, the goals.

Zakk Plocica:

When it comes to the archery side of things, I mean, he's done it. Yeah, all of it, yeah, all right. So we're moving in. Cody, you just got back from the IBO National, the first leg of the Triple Crown in West Virginia, the Pipestem Resort. Yeah, it's just held on the golf course, cool. So how was it Humbling Humbling? Yeah, cool, so how was it humbling humbling?

Cody Harrington:

yeah, always, judging distance is humbling if you don't really have any experience doing it yeah that me and one of my best friends decided to jump in. Just do the semi-pro course so and it's no range finders, no nothing out to 52 yards. What? What bow are you shooting, uh?

Bryan Gay:

concept x 37 oh, so, like trad, bow, target. Oh, target, bow. Okay, got it. Yeah, I don't know what concept x is.

Zakk Plocica:

Well, see to me, yeah, yeah, we hunter, yeah, yeah, just hunter a little bit of everything dabbles in all sides of our tree. Yeah, I, I'm more on brian's side as far as the hunting setup. I've never really run a target bow, but that's why we've got you here, cody. We are going. You know, we kind of want to talk about it. So, when it comes to IBO, this is their national triple crown, right? So there's three events.

Cody Harrington:

Are they Franklin Pennsylvania, which will be next month mid-June?

Zakk Plocica:

I think yeah, June 12th through the 15th.

Cody Harrington:

Yep and thenville, Nelsonville, Ohio, will be the final.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, which is in?

Cody Harrington:

July, yeah, and then you have worlds.

Zakk Plocica:

So the IBO world championship, right. So do you have to go through and qualify? Yeah, okay.

Cody Harrington:

So I can't remember what place. I don't know if it's how dense the field is, typically like it's either half I know online it said 30, like top 30 qualifier for Worlds, so you could shoot at Worlds.

Bryan Gay:

So now, in order to do, you have to get invited to this first event.

Cody Harrington:

You just show up. You can pay the entry fee, which I think was like $148 for my class.

Zakk Plocica:

Shoot. So that was what was crazy too, because so what are the qualities? So you shot the semi-pro class and then they have the pro classes, right?

Cody Harrington:

Yes, so because? So what are the quality? So you shot the semi-pro class and then they have the pro classes, right?

Zakk Plocica:

yes, so what? What's the?

Cody Harrington:

distinguishing difference between the two. Biggest thing I saw was entry fee.

Bryan Gay:

It's almost 200 more to shoot in the pro class. You don't have to have, like, a pro card or a semi-pro shot the same state.

Cody Harrington:

They kind of just rearrange the targets a little bit really we all shot from the same state, everything and so you guys.

Zakk Plocica:

So the way, the course is, you're not shooting with the pros, you gotta shoot separate yeah, they split us up.

Cody Harrington:

So for our ranges we were on m and n range. So day one semi pro senior and, I think, pro hunter class. So bow hunting setup shot the m range and the pros shot the n range. Okay, so you got to shoot two different ranges it's a two-day event and it's 40 targets, a total of 40 yeah, 20 per day.

Zakk Plocica:

So with the bow hunter classes their range finders louder than that one, it's out to 45 nope, no range finder so, ibo, across the board you're, you have to it's unknown distance and you have to be able to range that walk up to a stake and hope your guest right so this was.

Zakk Plocica:

This is what was really interesting. So I was talking to cody a little bit about it already, um, and kind of picking his brain. That's why I want to do the episode is some of the things that you picked up and learn, because obviously you evolve and learn every time you go to one of these shoots, especially this type, because you have to be so tuned in with what's going on. So one of the things that you were talking about is because guys aren't going to tell you what until after the fact, right after everyone shoots, what the distance is. Some of the tips that you picked up. One of the things that you made mention of is listening to the bow and how long until the arrow impacts the target.

Cody Harrington:

That was a big one. So, assuming your group which I got very fortunate with my group first day because it's completely random, and then second day you're with your peers. So going into day two I shot a 171, which is pretty low, so I was grouped with everybody either a point or two above me and a point below. Whatever like four people in a group, but day one I was with the top guys that shot this weekend, which is crazy.

Cody Harrington:

So I got very lucky and we were all within like two feet per second, so all within 301 to 304 feet per second and the low thirties. It's real hard to tell, but if you walk up to a target you can kind of like it's like low to mid thirties and just see that, and then you get the report when they shoot.

Cody Harrington:

if you're not leading off, like okay, that was got there really quick, it's when you get to the mid 40s, to max distance, when you're like okay, that took up, took a second to get there, like you heard the bow go off and you heard the arrow hit the target like a second or two later like okay, that's a far shot yeah, so you're using that to help you, that's just a gauge, so like obviously, when you walk up to the stake, we're all standing there. We're like trying to get, like trying to see the depth perception. Use trees, use whatever we can, our methods of judging and just being like in my head that's 45, so I try to talk myself into.

Cody Harrington:

Is it more, is it less? Am I over guessing? And then I'll use, you know if I'm shooting last, or whatever.

Zakk Plocica:

I'll use information I can gather from them to like, okay, like he shot and he's like wow, I hit really low, so okay, I'm judging it for this.

Cody Harrington:

Did I under judge it? Did I over judge it? Stuff like that.

Zakk Plocica:

Right. So there's a lot of things, so it's so. It's like whenever we shoot 3d and stuff, right, it's fun. You're kind of you're not doing that with this oh we are.

Bryan Gay:

Oh, are you but you're not talking, oh my mannerisms don't change.

Cody Harrington:

But yeah, we don't talk ranges until we're done. Or if we're going to talk ranges like, say, zach's on the stake and me and you are behind him, yeah I'd be like if I've already shot, I'll just like hold up a number and be like that's what I shot it for, if you've already shot and you can tell me what you shot it for.

Bryan Gay:

Oh, gotcha, gotcha, but you won't tell anybody who hasn't shot yet.

Cody Harrington:

No, because then it puts an idea in their head and our sight tapes are covered so they can't see what we shot it for.

Zakk Plocica:

Interesting. How are you covering them?

Cody Harrington:

I just poked a hole in a vein and screwed it in.

Zakk Plocica:

Dang see, I would never even have considered that my stuff would have been exposed. It wouldn't have mattered if you were following me anyways, and I had to judge so Zach's cutting off a piece of his shoelace to tape it on.

Bryan Gay:

Hey man, whatever works right. Yeah, I guess. Is that a requirement that you have to cover yourself?

Cody Harrington:

Wow, that's for IBO. Sure, that way, like if you see my bow and say it's on 45, you're not like in your head, you're like, okay, he shot it for 45, he's two inches low, I'll shoot it for 47 and it might help you and like I went into this with my sight tape being about a yard, hot did that help you at all because when I set up my hunting bow I normally my 20 is always 22, so I'm a yard and a half to two yards hot always, I think, in case I have to gap shoot.

Cody Harrington:

Because I've noticed, even when I shot this last year for the first time, I tend to underjudge everything. So when I'm off, I'm usually off about one to three yards under what it is.

Bryan Gay:

Sure.

Zakk Plocica:

It's like a self fail safe running a little hot If you're continuously under jerk.

Cody Harrington:

It just gets tough when you're leading off and then you're like, like. I had a. It's a pronghorn. I shot it for 47. It was probably 44. I hit like two inches under its spine, still got an eight. It was like really high, right, so it didn't cost you.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, oh yeah, did you miss any?

Zakk Plocica:

no, well, there you go last year is three so dude, so that was what I said when we were talking, I'm like you know, how did you, how'd you feel like you did? You like I did, okay. And then I was like, did you miss any? No, I was like, dude, that's a like for judging and then shooting under that kind of pressure on a course like that in the semi-pro. Um is impressive.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, I almost didn't ask you know, you don't ask somebody why they're in prison. You know.

Zakk Plocica:

I wasn't sure, the etiquette of IBO. That's why we do in the podcast. Here we're asking the questions.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I like it. I had almost a 40 point improvement over last year.

Zakk Plocica:

Which is huge. So so what do you think has led to to that? I mean, is there a training schedule? Is it? Is it the bow setup? Is it the?

Cody Harrington:

I mean I am a big fan of that bow, so I was. I think that did help some just confidence and comfort with it. But I think the biggest thing for me was realizing the little bit of practicing I did, shooting at more county and stuff on an asa course was realizing that my 20 yards is a lot closer than it appears. So when you're standing in the woods on a stake like you really have nothing to base it off of, right. So I've tried to imprint like okay, this is my 20-yard mark. And when I first started judging this year on noon going out of cold, my 20 was like my 25. I was way off. So when you try to judge from that, you're just multiplying that.

Bryan Gay:

See, I always do that in the woods, though, as I'm sitting there, I will range trees, all right, I know that's 20. I know that's 30.

Cody Harrington:

So that way I'm not trying to range, if that animal is not stopping but, like when I went to do this, we don't have our range finders with us Right when?

Bryan Gay:

I went to do this. We don't have our range finders with us?

Cody Harrington:

Right In practice we will, but typically we don't have them with us.

Bryan Gay:

Now you say it was on a golf course.

Cody Harrington:

Yes, so was it wide open shots on the course About eight targets wide open on the course, and then everything else was wooded.

Bryan Gay:

Okay.

Cody Harrington:

The first course. The end range was tough and it was all wooded. It was down a ridge and we just worked our way around. It was pretty rough. There was like two open shots.

Bryan Gay:

Oh, wow.

Cody Harrington:

Down a road, so it was just a hallway.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, which also makes it extremely difficult to judge range, because it's just a straight road. You're like, oh, it looks about 300 yards to the end of the road.

Zakk Plocica:

Do you find it's easier to judge in the woods?

Cody Harrington:

No, because we don't have any terrain or anything here to judge off of Right and they take yardage away any way they can.

Bryan Gay:

Oh, with elevation and gotcha.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah. Yeah that's tough, yeah, like. Two targets that got me this weekend were the Javelina. It was like 50, 51 yards. That's a long shot on that target regardless. Didn't see it, couldn't find it Couldn. That's a long shot on that target regardless. Didn't see it, couldn't find it, couldn't make it up. I shot it for 45 and barely caught underneath it. Then the Wolverine was. I think everybody shot it for 37, 38, and I shot it for 30 because I could not see it yeah. So I should have missed, but I got lucky, yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, so in West Virginia. So the style, of course, is there a lot of elevation out there.

Cody Harrington:

Most of these were downhill shots, okay, so you would kind of want to make sure your third axis is good. I had a lot of weird low right misses. I'm going to blame the wind, because we had 30 to 40 mile an hour gust up there. Oh wow, yeah, I would definitely blame the wind, but had 30 to 40 mile an hour gust up there.

Bryan Gay:

Oh wow, yeah, I would definitely blame the wind.

Cody Harrington:

But I don't know if it was me, because I had some shots where I was like, okay, they were still downhill and I hit right in the 10 ring. But, then I had a few which cost me an eight and a couple fives. That were just way right. I have no idea what they were.

Zakk Plocica:

Interesting. So with this, this triple crown setup which leads to the world championship, right, so do you have to attend all three? Do they drop below a score?

Cody Harrington:

No, you'd have to attend all three.

Zakk Plocica:

You've got to do all three.

Cody Harrington:

Because it's an accumulative score if you want to compete in that Gotcha.

Zakk Plocica:

So you can shoot all three and still not qualify.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, oh yeah, and you have to pay that $150 every time.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep for the semi-pro class every time for the semi-pro class? Oh wow. So what'd you think of the actual location of this? So I know you're from west virginia. It was close to your home, um. As far as this course and setup um and the facility itself, is it pretty, pretty cool?

Bryan Gay:

it was good from virginia though no, yeah, you can't get those confused. Yeah, oh, you're in virginia.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I don't know why do I I thought you told me I'm right there on the line you're on on the border.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh, okay, so you're from Virginia, not West.

Cody Harrington:

Virginia. So I stayed with my grandparents in Virginia.

Zakk Plocica:

Gotcha.

Cody Harrington:

We'd fish and stuff and then go shoot. That makes sense. Okay, that makes more sense the terrain's literally the same, though, in both areas Right.

Bryan Gay:

So what with that IBO? Right Is the arrow. What arrow are you?

Cody Harrington:

shooting. So I was shooting an X cutter, a gold tip X cutter. I think it was like 28 inches and came in at 366 grains. Pretty big diameter, though 25. Okay.

Zakk Plocica:

It came in how much. What was the overall weight? 366 grains. So when you're building your arrows, are you building them to achieve a specific speed?

Cody Harrington:

So for that I was Okay. Typically my ASA arrow from where I'm shooting known. I'll shoot in the mid-280s because I'm not worried about trajectory as much and I know what I'm shooting.

Zakk Plocica:

Right. So everything in IBO is based on strategy from the way you build your bow to your arrow, to the speed you're trying to achieve to the way you judge yardage. You've got strategy involved in every aspect. Achieve to the way you judge yardage you've got strategy involved in every aspect.

Bryan Gay:

It's a thinking man's game, oh yeah, and you and you really got to take, you, take it trajectory into effect like you want it as flat as possible yeah, you want it as flat that way.

Cody Harrington:

If you misjudge yardage, it's not, as it doesn't impact you as much right if you're shooting 303 compared to 283 at 20 feet per second, like you could be off inches sure?

Zakk Plocica:

huge, yeah. So what's the the max speed you can? You can get out of it with their chronograph.

Cody Harrington:

If you test it there, it can be 309 okay, so you've got to stay within that.

Zakk Plocica:

So whenever you're setting it up, if you're on 309 here, you could be way over there or way under there, yeah, okay, so I try to keep it in the low threes which is way faster than I usually shoot yeah, so how many pounds are you shooting?

Cody Harrington:

I've twisted up to 64 okay so very manageable.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, what's your holding weight look like? Do you know?

Cody Harrington:

17 and a half pounds, so you're holding a lot of weight on the back side. Yeah well, not for me, but okay, but for, like, a standard holding a lot of weight that makes sense.

Zakk Plocica:

So for, and so is there a reason so for me. Whenever it comes to holding a little bit more weight on the back half, I feel like it keeps me honest and keeps me on the back wall a little bit more, versus relaxing, because whenever I relax I tend to throw my shot. It seems like do you notice like you shoot better when you hold more weight?

Cody Harrington:

I think it just helps me balance out my stab weight overall, and it does keep me in the shot longer too.

Bryan Gay:

So with that stab weight, how much are you barred out?

Cody Harrington:

I mean, I don't think it's substantial, but it depends on who you ask. I'm running 17.5 on the front and 28 on the back. Ounces, yeah, what are the lengths of the bars? 30 on the front and 28 on the back? Ounces, yeah, what are the lengths of the bars? 30 on the front, 12 on the back.

Bryan Gay:

Okay, so you're holding all of that weight and holding 17 pounds of back wall tension. Yeah, that's. I mean that would get to me tiresome, Coming from shooting, just a hunting bow.

Zakk Plocica:

Well, I don't know if you know Cody, cody shoots a bow more than you. Maybe, more bow. Well, I don't know if you know, cody, cody shoots a bow more than, maybe more than you. Yeah, I do shoot a lot, like a lot. Every time I talk to him like what are you going to do, he's like I'm going to shoot my bow.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah I mean nothing, but something to do.

Cody Harrington:

I have my house and I've got a variety of targets there.

Bryan Gay:

So do you um? Do you live in a neighborhood? No, not really okay because I got a lot of flack for that.

Cody Harrington:

I'm like it is technically a neighborhood but I live in a cul-de-sac and there's a swamp behind it yeah, well, I have to stand in the cul-de-sac and shoot. I can stay in my yard and get eight.

Bryan Gay:

No, I can't. I gotta shoot over my neighbor's driveway through my fence dude.

Zakk Plocica:

So brian posts these videos and it's him shooting across the neighborhood and I'm just waiting at some point for one of the neighbors to complain.

Bryan Gay:

They have.

Zakk Plocica:

That's not going to stop you, clearly.

Bryan Gay:

Well, they called the police and said I was discharging a firearm in the street. Wow, technically, firearm yes.

Zakk Plocica:

So I went through and I went through and I looked at all the scores from this past weekend and the top 10 shooters shot a 384 or better. Yeah.

Bryan Gay:

Like that's, but that's both days combined right?

Cody Harrington:

Yes, okay, yeah so that's a really hot second day where I only dropped 10 points.

Bryan Gay:

Oh nice, I don't know like what happened.

Cody Harrington:

I can just see it. Better Got a little luckier.

Zakk Plocica:

Was it the course set up? You said the one course was more challenging. I thought it was.

Cody Harrington:

They were both tough, though Right, I think the pros, from what I could gather, had issues with their day one the in range, just like we did too.

Bryan Gay:

Really Do you think it was maybe because you got used to judging right, because it was back-to-back?

Cody Harrington:

I've only judged. I count on both hands. How many times I've been on a full course judging? Really huh I don't know, I can just. I guess I just understood it a little better, maybe, yeah is this the first one of these you've ever done? This was the second so I came out dead last, last year, so it was nice, I was like for me, going into this, I didn't have a goal, aside from improving on not being dead so I Dude.

Zakk Plocica:

so I went and, like I said, I was looking at the scores when I was making my notes for this and looking at everybody and, yeah, from going dead last to where you are this time, that was a huge improvement. It was almost 40 points from last year for me. Yeah, that's a massive jump man.

Cody Harrington:

So you weren't last? No, not even close. Yeah, I was 20th, yeah 20th Out of 32, 33. 33.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh, nice yeah 33 shooters and the thing about it is none of those. All these shooters are decent shooters, are good shooters. I mean, you're not just shooting guys that are just casually. No one's paying 150 bucks to casually go shoot a competition.

Cody Harrington:

So it's all good shooters. The guys I shot with the first day. They have known each other for plus 10 years and they've been doing IBO since. I think one guy was like the mid-2000s. So he's been doing this for a long time and then one of the dudes that won it. I think he got into it in the early 20-teens.

Bryan Gay:

So I would think that continuously doing this and judging those targets on the fly, you're bound to get better. Yeah, the hard part is.

Cody Harrington:

It's 40 reinhardt targets that nobody ever shoots, especially in the southeast.

Bryan Gay:

Everybody does asa or nothing uh, dude, I like those targets so much better so it's just literally the 10 ring. Yeah, you have a 10 and then 11.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, okay so it's hard, if you drop an eight, it's at least two targets to make those points back. Okay. So it's hard if you drop an eight, it's at least two targets to make those points back up.

Bryan Gay:

Right.

Cody Harrington:

So it's really just a game of trying to stay even and catching an 11 when you can, catching an 11 when you can.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, Dude. I'm shooting for vitals when I shoot a target, I'm just foam, especially like tack events. Well. We get excited when we hit foam.

Cody Harrington:

Oh, I was happy hitting foam for this.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, understanding they're guessing.

Zakk Plocica:

An educated guess is what I would call it, because you've taken so many factors into consideration when you made that guess. Yes, I mean, whether you realize it or not, listening to it from somebody who doesn't do it and listens to how calculated you are on everything, and then knowing you personally, because every day I come inody's tinkering with the bow, like like every and every day is a different bow until he's, until he's getting ready to shoot something. From what I can tell, like he's got a was like an ax2 yeah, that was that you were shooting and then you got all these target bows and then trad bows, constantly tinkering and then being able to efficiently just the fact that he he knows everyone's 302 to 309 and you're counting the seconds it takes from release to target.

Cody Harrington:

Not only counting, but you get to hear that report when it hits. Never would have thought of it.

Zakk Plocica:

That's what I said. Never, he was telling me. I said well, I never would have considered that. That's a very good, that's a good strategy, man, Because you will be able to hear that report obviously. Sure, it starts to give you a little bit of idea where you should at least start, I'm assuming.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, it gives me like an idea. I'm like, okay, that's not 40 yards, that's a little further.

Bryan Gay:

So can you walking up to a target? Can you walk us through your shooting? Second, walk us through your process.

Cody Harrington:

So I go. We typically for this. We'd all go up on the stake, so we don't waste a whole lot of time If there's not a bottleneck. A bottleneck actually helped us out on one target. I've got a picture of it. It's a 46 or 47-yard coyote and it's the Reinhardt coyote, so it's super tiny, yep. So we just thankfully there's a bottleneck there so I could hear two groups shoot before us.

Cody Harrington:

Okay, that's definitely a longer shot. Like you could hear the bow go off and then the arrow hits the target, sure, so that did help there. But when we get up to the stake, we're all standing there and we're looking at it, trying to calculate in our head how far we think it is. And there's a little more pressure on you when you're leading off. Sure, because you have nothing to go off of besides your number.

Cody Harrington:

That's in your head, yeah, so what I've been doing and it could be wrong, could be right, but it worked for me is I'll try to find my 20 and, like I said earlier, like I've realized my 20 years a lot closer than it appears, I'll guess where my 20 is, and usually I'm within one to two yards and I'll try to double it. And if I can double it, like I'm like all right, that's more than 40 for sure. Like how much further than 40 is that? So then I'll start. Is it 45? Can I see more? Can I see like, okay, it's 46, and I'll talk myself into 46 or out of 46 are you allowed to use binos.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, okay.

Cody Harrington:

So going up to the stake, after that you can make all of your site changes you want until you draw the bow. So once you come to full draw and say you look at it, anchor in, and look at it through your scope, you're like, oh no, that's, that's 50. You can't change it Once you're at full draw. Even you can't change it Once you're at full draw, even if you let down. I think you can have three or four let downs. Okay, you can't touch your sight.

Zakk Plocica:

Well, that changes everything.

Bryan Gay:

I know.

Zakk Plocica:

I know, because it looks way different.

Cody Harrington:

That's why I shoot, like my scope setup. I have a 31 millimeter Excel housing with a six power scope. I've known noticed for 3D because I've shot the same housing for two or three years now and I've been using that more of a gauge like okay, if I can see a lot of the target, it's a lot closer than it looks. Or if I see a little bit more like I can a little bit less.

Cody Harrington:

Same with detail sure I can see rings like I've shot it enough. If I could see rings, I know it's at least 40 yards or something like that. I can gauge it off my scope.

Zakk Plocica:

That's interesting. So that's one of the reasons for using that smaller scope housing for me it seems to work, yeah so now can you just hold the bow up and look through without drawing it?

Bryan Gay:

I?

Cody Harrington:

mean look through that scope be real blurry so you have to look through your clarifier and everything oh, so you are using a clarifier and magnificationification?

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, he said 6x.

Bryan Gay:

Oh yeah, I wasn't paying attention. I noticed.

Zakk Plocica:

Sorry, I picked up on it, though I'm listening.

Cody Harrington:

There was one target that was thankfully the last one. It was either the last one, that was the last one up on it. It was a bear and we could not see. It was max yardage, so 50, 51 Down a gravel driveway.

Bryan Gay:

Mm-hmm.

Cody Harrington:

I couldn't see. I set my sight for 46, and I was like and I could see a lot of black in my scope Like it doesn't look, like it's that far, and it turned out it was like 50 yards and I hit. I was holding it on the hump and I still hit at the bottom of the 10. Wow, so I was still four yards off, probably.

Zakk Plocica:

That sounds pretty dang good to me, though.

Bryan Gay:

I know, probably that sounds pretty dang good to me, though I know, yeah, wow, that was perfect.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, it's still a 10, so I didn't lose any points, but yeah, but it wasn't an 11. No, I mean, let's be real. Yeah, I wasn't getting any points back, jesus. So these courses, I mean, what is it like as far as, like so, someone that's never been to these, what's the atmosphere like being at at these? Is it pretty? Is it high tension? There's a lot of it's high stress, it's or is it just based on who you're around?

Cody Harrington:

I think a lot of it's based on who you're around. Just like everything else, I try to keep same mentality and personality going into all this, where I'm just really chill not you yeah, and I'll fill the group out on lists, but eventually we all start to cut up and everything, but even the pros, I mean, unless it's really tough or they get upset about something, because we interacted with Levi and Tim and they were really really chill.

Bryan Gay:

That's cool guys.

Zakk Plocica:

So I mean and with that, though, was there any complaints from any of the guys out there?

Cody Harrington:

From what I could gather, yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

What's the biggest complaint with a course like that? I don't know the whole details though. Is it course-related or is it the way it's run? I think it was course-related.

Cody Harrington:

The way it was ran was kind of a pain because there's not a lot of information out on it.

Bryan Gay:

I tried to look it up.

Cody Harrington:

That's the hard part with IBO.

Zakk Plocica:

Dude, I went on the website. That's what I was trying to do. I was trying to gather more information about IBO in general. There's like a history from like 1949, so-and-so and then 1979, or whatever the dates are. But as far as information on it itself, how it operates, the structure of it, I couldn't find anything helpful.

Cody Harrington:

The only thing I found. I joined the Facebook group last year, so they actually sent out almost like a flyer for the events and like the way it's going to be laid out okay last year doing. My first one being there was like this is a nightmare. So we showed up early friday me and my other buddy to register and we thought we were going to shoot friday, so we got there at seven o'clock 7 am.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah to not shoot turned out. We just showed up to register and we don don't shoot until Saturday and Sunday.

Zakk Plocica:

Joy.

Cody Harrington:

So we shot. They have a bow hunter defense course there. It's just a 10-target range. You get put into two raffles for that too, Just cool.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah.

Cody Harrington:

But you kind of just pick. They have 10 random targets scattered around the golf course and you just pick they, of course, and you just pick, they'll have a stake showing you where the target's at and you can pick whatever yardage you want to shoot. Just to get you know, warmed up, get used to judging with a little bit of terrain through the woods and everything. Yeah, that's kind of cool.

Bryan Gay:

So now were you there. You were there a day early last year. Yeah, was there like a vendor village or anything like there?

Cody Harrington:

is at TAC.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, there was some okay, but it's slowly dying, yeah it is slowly dying really, just because it just the attendance wise, I think tack.

Cody Harrington:

Being in west virginia didn't help because it was less than an hour away from us and then not a lot of people like to judge yeah, right, that's yeah, that's the hard part too, so so that's interesting.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, look, and when you look at the archery as a whole, right the industry, it's very niche and there's not. I mean there is a lot but there's not a lot. And I think TAC has really revived a lot of it and honestly brings a lot of new individuals into the target side of shooting things just because it's such a welcoming venue, there's so much to see. And do I mean, look at ATA. Ata has slowly been dying. I mean your massive manufacturers have pulled out of that event in the last couple of years. I mean the big Matthews, I think Hoyt have not attended. Matthews was right beside us at TAC in Tennessee. So I'm curious, as far as the target side of things goes, how one if it's going to you know it's just going to be stale and stagnant, or if there's a way that it can be revived and get more people involved in it to to grow it.

Cody Harrington:

I would hope it could be revived. Me too I find a lot of relaxation in doing this because it's less stuff I have to take into the woods, which is always fun for me. Always fun for me kind of just walk out there with a bino harness and a quiver full of arrows and walk around and guess, I mean, yeah, I mean, and there's, there's a lot.

Zakk Plocica:

I think that you can gain from that as well, too, as far as being, um, confidence building wise with the bow right, yeah, I mean one, you're shooting a different style of bow, so you got you, get you familiarized yourself with different setups, you play a little bit more, you become a little bit more technically savvy with your equipment. Um, and then the skill of being able to judge yardage I think that would carry over wise in a hunting scenario is big too, uh, big as well. Just because for me, like whenever, hunting wise like we talked you just talked about, right, you pre-range, like indicators, so you kind of have an idea. But there's going to be gaps and if you can look through your, your sight as an, as an animal's moving, and you can kind of gauge that yard accurately, your shot's gonna be a lot better.

Cody Harrington:

You'll be a little more confident in guessing, yeah yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

So I'm curious, man. I wonder what the, what target archery looks like in the future, how it grows, how it's revived, um, and you know what, what sticks around, I mean you think about it, could that be a reason that matthews went after bode turner so bad, you know, because he can do.

Bryan Gay:

Obviously he's got the vegas, the 3d shoot or the you know three spot, five, spot, whatever he is winning now all of it.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, so yeah, every soon I mean so?

Zakk Plocica:

I think it'd be fun. Yeah, no, I look at it and you make a good point about it too. Cody, is you know when we talk about the target side of things, where we're located? Like we target archery was big during COVID. For us, like that was when it was big, that was its peak and then that was its death. Afterwards, where we're at, we like target archery is not our focus anymore. It's so small but you talk about. You go a little bit Western, west in the state, even here in North Carolina, and it's a big, much bigger crowd, so we might be missing out on the actual size of it. Cause one, we don't attend any of the ASA or IBO events which hopefully, you know, in the future. Yes, we were. You know, we can get involved in those side of things as well, because I mean, obviously we got some guys who do a really good job there. One shooting them knows all about them. Um, I don't know where I was going with that, but I don't know.

Cody Harrington:

I'd like more people to get in target archery it is good, I mean it keeps you for one. As soon as deer season ends, a lot of people just put their bow down, right right, which I'm not one of those people, but that means usually when deer season ends, we got indoor season starting, which I hate shooting paper and indoor, but agreed it does teach you how to shoot better because you're trying to do the same thing for 30 shots or more yes, yes, but I like to cut up and have fun and I don't, I don't know.

Bryan Gay:

I I feel like the, the few 3d or the indoor paper shoots that I've done here. There's a lot of seriousness that goes into it and don't talk and don't.

Zakk Plocica:

There's a. There's a handful of individuals and that was one of my, you know, one of my I don't say turnoffs, but you know it's. It's definitely a little bit more tension and they take it and the guys that are doing it take it very serious. So it's not as fun to me because of that.

Bryan Gay:

Right. Well, and especially like we did the Toys for Tots shoot this year right or Christmas time. Yeah, it was for a great cause. I brought in an unwrapped toy of X amount of dollars and I wanted to make it fun for everybody. And there was just those couple guys that were like I'm here to win, like there's nothing to win, we're not doing this for you, we're doing this. So I was like, wow, man, I don't know if I like shooting dots anymore.

Cody Harrington:

It does get frustrating. It's great practice, though.

Bryan Gay:

Sure, I agree, and it keeps you shooting.

Cody Harrington:

And then you know, once indoor season's over, we roll right into 3D.

Zakk Plocica:

I think too, though, talking to guys like you about it, how you can look at it as more of an asset to improve your shooting versus just mindlessly going up and shooting them. There's a little bit more strategy. I think that to me, would make me more engaged in it and make it more enjoyable, because there's an end goal with with it, obviously not just to shoot good, but you're you're putting something else into practice, and talking about you know, archery is repeatability. You've got to do the same thing, the same way over and over again to be consistent, accurate. It's just another approach at becoming a better archer or bow hunter.

Cody Harrington:

that's the whole reason I really got into target archery like I've shot since I've strictly bow hunted since I was in my early teenage years and then when I worked at Hamsky Devin, one of the engineers there got me into target archery because I used to shoot hunting bows so much.

Bryan Gay:

Right.

Cody Harrington:

And that was a good foot in the door with target archery and it just teaches you to tinker more, like usually, if you're hunting bows perfect, you don't want to mess with it. Right, target bow. There's so many disciplines you can get into. You're constantly changing things and you're able to work with your stabilizers. You're able to tweak your rest, your sight, everything, I think that's why you're such a good tech too.

Cody Harrington:

I mean because you're always chasing that one little thing that can make you hold a little steadier. You know you can't really see better, but you know everybody's chasing something.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean for me, I mean it's it's not nearly as uh, involved, but like when we were at tack right, my bow shot really really well. I feel like I shot really well but the bow it just it floated really bad for me. So that's what we only got a couple of days. So we to Pennsylvania and I haven't made time for it. But you know, my goal was to, you know, talk to you know, cody, you and JR, and see, you know, where should I add weight to the bow? You know what should I change on it? Where should I, you know, should I run a back bar on it? Should I add a little bit of weight? Should I run a longer stabilizer Just to improve my shooting out attack? Because that was my biggest struggle was that Mach 33 is so light and it's. I'm running a six or eight inch front barn and that's it. And it just at full draw in any kind of little bit of breeze or wind and those long shots. It just seemed like it floated a little bit more than I wanted it to.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I mean with the. That's where I like target archery. Like I don't, I'll tinker with everything from draw length, d, loop length, timing, everything trying to chase a certain whole order feel. And when you get it right and you're balanced right with your bars, like the bow almost doesn't move.

Bryan Gay:

That's the goal. Yeah, is your shot process different? From a target bow to a hunting bow, nope.

Zakk Plocica:

Shoot the shoot the same. Release everything same grip position. Do the same thing with both bows, so you run a hinge.

Cody Harrington:

Yes, just one hinge, just a hinge with everything. What? What hinge do you shoot the true ball?

Zakk Plocica:

broken fulcrum flex dude, it's hard to go. So I moved over to the hbc yes, from true ball and I feel like it has made my shot significantly better. So I still really enjoy shooting the Stan Onyx thumb button clicker. I really, really enjoy that release, but I feel, like going back and forth and then putting more emphasis on the hinge, that I execute a shot a lot more consistently For me. I don't know why, but I feel mean I pull through my shot better with that release than what I do with my thumb button it's a little harder to cheat with the thumb button.

Cody Harrington:

You can literally just squeeze the button.

Zakk Plocica:

It's going to go off right hinge.

Cody Harrington:

The only way to cheat it is to just dump your pink. Dump your ring finger, pinky finger if you have a forefinger on it, right?

Zakk Plocica:

so and I feel like but I feel like my like the from the time I get into anchor to the time the click goes off, to the time execute my shot. It's more consistent with my hinge than what it is with my, my thumb button, because sometimes I'll hit that click and I can't get the release to go off.

Cody Harrington:

Freeze, yeah, and I just say I get frozen in my shot that's why I try to tell people to just keep the release moving, because, like, that's why I can shoot a button and then my mind takes over and then I anticipate when it's going to go off yeah so if I want to shoot a button, I have to like my whole shot process is going to be me telling myself to like, keep this thing moving.

Cody Harrington:

If you're going to get a little bit of movement, just try to keep the pin in the middle. Just keep squeezing, it's going to go off.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah and the thing too I like about the the true ball releases too is so some of the hinges that I've shot whenever you hit that click, because I like shooting with the click. Whenever you hit that click, that click almost like it. The click is hard. I don't even know how else to explain it right it's, but with the true ball releases it feels like it's. It's just enough to feel it and hear it before it goes off, because some of the releases I've hit it feels like it. My hand jerks a little bit when I hit the click.

Cody Harrington:

Like the internals, it's machined almost too deep.

Zakk Plocica:

Yes, yeah, yeah so.

Bryan Gay:

So with the hinge and this is the only thing that scares the crap out of me with the hinge, I feel like I have to over-exaggerate that forward motion with it for the draw cycle.

Cody Harrington:

That's just you being scared you don and scared that's. You don't have to like I try when I do mine. I've got it set up cold enough for me where I can keep even tension, so I don't fall back to anchor. It's literally just a little bit of relaxation. I get to the click and I just start to squeeze a little bit and it goes off okay, yeah, I haven't really played with them because they just scare me so bad I think that's the biggest thing with most people is they have a fear of it.

Zakk Plocica:

So we were at tack and you know, matthews was right beside us and it's all kids in there. I say kids, they're young guys from the factory there, like the customer service guys. There was a warranty guy there, super cool dudes, um, just real nice guys. And they were two of the younger guys there. They were messing with the bows and they were shooting a hinge but they couldn't get the bow back Cause they were scared. They they never shot hinges. I just thought it was funny because it was like the common problem, you see, with people with a hinge is their fear of drawing the bow or the bow prematurely going off because they don't know how to hold the release or, you know, draw the bow back without yeah, that's why I recommend one with, like a safety, like the Sweet Spot Pro by True Ball.

Cody Harrington:

It has a safety, so you just engage it as you're drawing and you could literally rotate your hand any way you want. Yeah, and it won't go off. And when you get to your anchor, you just disengage the safety and you can start your shot process huh, I feel like that defeats the purpose of a hinge and still activates the same way, it just yeah, gets you more comfortable with how it shoots yeah, Dude, the way I did it.

Zakk Plocica:

I just got on a shot. Trainer.

Cody Harrington:

That helps the most. Dude the shot trainer is the move.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, that's what anybody that comes in the shop that wants to get on a hinge they're like let me shoot it with my bow. We're like nope, here you go, here's your shot trainer. First, yeah, and now you can go try it with. Or you send another arrow into our lights, another, yes, another, yeah, all right, dude. So as far as IBO, what are your plans moving forward? Are you going to shoot the second and third leg of it?

Cody Harrington:

Probably not the second leg because it's like northwestern Pennsylvania, I don't feel like going to almost Canada to shoot. Yeah, it's a poke, it's up there. I looked it up this morning it's like 10 and a half hours.

Zakk Plocica:

Hey, that seems like everywhere we go.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, I mean it's right by Seven Springs.

Cody Harrington:

We're going there next weekend, yeah, I might look at Nelsonville, or if I did qualify for Worlds. I might look at that because I think it might be with the first leg, I could still shoot, I just wouldn't win anything.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh, that makes sense. Okay, I understand it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay got it. So you're looking at potentially doing the third one, maybe.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, or I might try to do an ASA, I don't know, because London got canceled this weekend because of that tornado Dude.

Zakk Plocica:

It was insane, yeah, dude, so taking it back this past weekend for archery was bad All across the. East, nothing good happened. London got smoked by a tornado. We were supposed to be in West Virginia. I was super sick. We ended up canceling on it. A dude got shot in the face at tack which unreal how that happened. I mean across the board. All the events that happened were just it was. It was not a good weekend for the archery world at all and it.

Bryan Gay:

It doesn't help all of the speculation no, it doesn't I mean because no one, only the folks that were there firsthand know exactly what happened. Absolutely everyone else is speculating and then it's.

Zakk Plocica:

It's a wildfire right now as far as when you look at the comments and stuff, because exactly what you're saying, everyone's speculating on what has happened and we don't know exactly what happened, but clearly there was a miscommunication somewhere and something pretty.

Bryan Gay:

Multiple things went wrong in that chain of events for something like that to happen. I feel like it's good that.

Zakk Plocica:

T took the disabled to comments on their facebook page because people just kept asking questions and kept posting the same thing dude super smart and also so we talked to some guys that were out at west virginia tack that uh were kind of feedback and they say tack handled it so well when it came to how they they took care of the, the, the shooters at the event.

Zakk Plocica:

They were. They literally whatever you wanted to do they were willing to do. Whether it was refunds for Sunday, they were giving you guaranteed positions for next year, they were handing out just pro anytime. People were going up to the um, to the registration. They were giving out tons of product, apparel and stuff because they canceled it Saturday after it happened and then they shut down Sunday, so nobody got to shoot on Sunday. Vendor Villa shut down by noon. I think everyone had to get out, but there were still guys who I guess didn't get the email that everything had closed down. So they were still showing up to shoot and the guys from tack took care of everybody like the total archery guys did a phenomenal job on that um.

Cody Harrington:

So hopefully the dude that got ended up getting shot is okay I mean hopefully started to go fund me for him too they did. They've raised a ton of money for him so yeah it was it's unfortunate it is, and a lot of the guys that did shoot. I think some of the guys in my group day two had people coming from TAC to shoot one of the trail courses IBO has. Yeah, I think they had shots out to 104 yards is what I gathered.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh, wow, oh. So there's more going on there than just that.

Cody Harrington:

I didn't even know about the trail course.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh, wow.

Cody Harrington:

I mean there's limited information from what I could find.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah.

Cody Harrington:

I looked it up today too. It it was like a three and a half or four mile course, 20 or 30 targets out to 104 yards.

Zakk Plocica:

So maybe that's one of the problems is the marketing side and the reach that they've had, Because it sounds, I mean because that right there is kind of enticing, it's like okay, so there's more than just shooting those.

Cody Harrington:

And from what I gathered they didn't have enough people to do it, but they were going to do like a PSE giveaway or an elite giveaway. Those are the only two vendors there.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, it sounds like For bow manufacturers at least. Oh yeah, it sounds like they're missing the marketing or at least the general awareness about it. Yeah, yeah.

Cody Harrington:

But it's the same thing. Like nobody wants to shoot unknown, this is true.

Bryan Gay:

To 104 yards.

Cody Harrington:

Well, you could range that.

Bryan Gay:

Oh, okay, but nobody wants to go to.

Cody Harrington:

I Fabio to shoot, you know, 40 targets without a range finder. Well, I mean, I think it would be, I think it would be cool because they have a vet class, which I found this out earlier this year. It's only up to 40 yards and you shoot with a bunch of vets.

Bryan Gay:

But it's only going to make you better.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, why aren't you there? Why I didn't know about it See, there's the other thing too.

Bryan Gay:

That's one I'm scared to shoot a hinge Probably a problem too.

Cody Harrington:

Shoot whatever you want. One of the dudes in my first group shooting an index.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's funny. I talked to the R&D guy from Victory Super cool guy, that's all he shoots and he's a big target guy. I mean you hear Levi say he's been beat by people shooting an index that punched the ever-living crap out of it. You know we takes me this is off topic, but we were talking. You talk about target. Looking at some of the techniques and stuff for some of the target archers is is wild for some of the guys that shoot as well as they do.

Cody Harrington:

I mean there's what you find comfortable and that's why I try to tell people here like the way I shoot may not work for you, the way my bow is set up may not be comfortable for you, but it sits perfectly still for me.

Bryan Gay:

Yeah, that's why I asked if there was a difference with the way you shoot a target bow versus a hunting bow.

Cody Harrington:

There's probably like a pound difference between the overall mass weights of everything and holding weights a couple pounds off.

Bryan Gay:

Well, I mean like actual your process, the actual way you draw the bow, the way you shoot it the way you follow through.

Zakk Plocica:

Nothing changed. That's like I was looking at a picture of a girl uh, I don't remember who she shot for last night and her. The arrow was way, way low to where you typically see somebody anchor. It was super low and the people's really really high. It looked like the. The arrow was almost like below her chin. Um it works, yeah, yeah I mean, I guess it is as long as repeatable for you and you can do it consistently.

Cody Harrington:

That's what I try to tell people too, especially shooting long range. It doesn't matter where your anchor is, even if it's down here floating. As long as you get that peep centered, you're going to hit roughly what you want to hit, you'll be all right. Yeah, that's a big misconception with archery. Really, as long as that peep center you could shoot a 32 inch draw length as long as you can see through that peep and center it on that housing.

Bryan Gay:

I ripped my ear off yeah, I don't think I could shoot 32 inch drawings.

Zakk Plocica:

You could do it. Maybe that's what we should do set our bows up wrong for tech. See how well we do.

Bryan Gay:

I don't know if that's right to begin with, yeah right.

Cody Harrington:

I mean, it's really what y'all, what everybody finds comfortable, because there's no specific form or technique that's perfect for everybody.

Bryan Gay:

Like Josh Beaumont was literally just talking about it, looking at some of the factory shooters, his head's way back, and he's talking about draw length, too long or too short? What kind of pin float? You'll see. It's super long, circle eights if it's too long, if it's too short. It's really freaking like a typewriter.

Cody Harrington:

So you got to find. That's where I think, target archery, or if you can have a couple hunting setups and like you when you feel comfortable tinkering with and you can fine-tune all that right and that's where target archery for me has helped me with everything. So I just I will tinker daily with it I've got good resources to reach out to as well when I have questions on stuff. Just to see if they've done it.

Bryan Gay:

That again. That's what makes you such a good tech Like you or JR. If I come into a problem where I'm tinkering at the house, I'll call you guys Like, hey, man, this is what I'm working with. Just like, for instance, when we were setting up my bow for this year, I didn't realize the mods for Matthews would throw the timing off. And you're like, oh yeah, every time I was like, huh, go figure, never would have thought that. Just I mean the mods, that you can't tell a difference visually, but it threw the timing from 70 to 80 off.

Bryan Gay:

What do you know? I don't, you don't. That's why I call him Constantly learning and evolving.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, I think that's one thing that makes a tech good is someone that's willing to be open-minded, to continue to learn, because as technology evolves, things continue to change. You get more experience on all these different pieces of equipment. I mean, it grows you as a tech. You just have to be open-minded. Oh yeah, I think that's why we got some pretty good guys. Oh yeah, they're just, they're willing to learn and they want to learn. But, um, so moving on, dude, so you're potentially looking at doing another one. Do you have, if you were going into this again, giving someone advice that had never been to an IBO event, what's your like key advice that you would give people? Like, where do you start?

Cody Harrington:

Really just have fun. Like I go into things with really low expectations.

Cody Harrington:

Be realistic yeah I mean honestly, like I know that I've rarely judged yardage I can count on both hands how many times I've done it in the past two years. To really just look at the resources at hand. There's a number of podcasts, I think even jack wallace, who's this senior pro he's got, I think, a full series talking about step one, to judge yardage, to everything really, to laying out your range where you need an indicator every 10 yards, something that you can visualize when you're in the woods too just constantly big enough yeah that way you could look at it and be like that is you visualize like your bucket at 30 yards, the target's way past 30.

Cody Harrington:

But really just having fun with it is that was my thing, like when I shot a five. I didn't get frustrated. Yeah, I have short-term memory to just shoot a five.

Zakk Plocica:

Just go into the next target with an open mind I think, that's good advice, because one thing that you'll see when guys shoot in 3d like even our stuff, right, they'll get super flustered, yeah, and it carries over snowballs and yeah, it's a snowball effect and by the end of it they've blown their bow of nas and arrow. I mean just, I mean it's just, they get so in their own head that they can't recover and pull themselves out of that right and that's what I try to tell the guys I shoot with.

Cody Harrington:

And like, if I shoot a five and you know it's whatever, that's five more 11s I've got to shoot to make that up. Or you know, if I'm shooting asa and shoot a five, that's I'm gonna start gunning harder at 12s yeah I'm shooting for vitals, buddy every time, every time but it's center 10 biggest thing going into it. Just have fun. Yeah, keep your expectations within within your ability. What you think your ability is.

Bryan Gay:

Is there a reason you went semi-pro vice any other class?

Cody Harrington:

I just wanted to shoot 50 yards. Okay, I feel like judging 40 or 45, I know it's challenging, but I don't see the same challenge as trying to judge a tiny target or a huge target out to 51 yards.

Zakk Plocica:

So what's the class that's below that for 40, 45? Is it just unknown?

Cody Harrington:

there's a lot of classes. I think pro hunter is 45 so how?

Zakk Plocica:

what do you think the total? Because we talked about it, there was only so many people in your classes and I didn't think take into account there's so many other classes. So what do you think the overall attendance look like thousands of people hundreds of people.

Cody Harrington:

I think last year it was smaller than it had been. I think it was around 500, and I think this year might have been less gotcha and the weather was a huge factor that was the other crazy.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah yeah, because you were going to do some fishing yeah, they got hit with like seven inches rain that'll put a dampener on it.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I didn't get to fish that much it didn't rain while you shot, though it rained thursday and the friday morning, and it's just all the tributaries were flooded oh, I'm sure the lakes were flooded. It was wasn't fun.

Bryan Gay:

So with the bowhunter pro, can you like only have certain link stabilizer, no magnification I haven't looked at that I'm assuming it's no magnification, you might be able to have an adjustable sight.

Cody Harrington:

Yeah, I can't remember some of them. It's pins only.

Bryan Gay:

So you right.

Cody Harrington:

You know four pin or five pin.

Bryan Gay:

Hmm, yeah, I'd have to look at the rules, yeah.

Cody Harrington:

Everything I go into I do double check the rules to make sure my setup fits that. But I haven't looked at the bow hunter class.

Zakk Plocica:

Got it. So, if you do the the next one, what are your plans moving forward in order to prep for that? Do you have anything? Do you? Are you gonna like? Okay, I'm gonna take this a little bit more serious.

Cody Harrington:

I'm gonna have a training schedule or I'm just gonna continue doing what I'm doing I would probably redo my home range, definitely either do buckets or something that I can visualize, like I was gonna do little survey flags, just a little flag. But I want something bigger, and I've talked about it with the group of guys that I usually shoot with. We need something bigger that you could visualize.

Cody Harrington:

So like a bucket or something's what jack wallace recommends too and just have it every 10 yards. That way, when you're standing at your 50 yard line or whatever that you can visualize, each yardage so you're saying buckets?

Zakk Plocica:

are you putting a target beside the buckets? No, I would just have them. You're just standing there looking at the buckets.

Cody Harrington:

I'll have my zero mark, and then 10, 20, 30 out to 50. And I'll have targets scattered in between all that.

Zakk Plocica:

Got it Okay. Okay, that makes more sense now. I thought you were just sitting there.

Cody Harrington:

I've got my deer target at 42 yards, but I could see the 40-yard bucket. I could visualize what two yards past 40 looks like.

Zakk Plocica:

Got it. That makes perfect sense, okay.

Cody Harrington:

That makes more sense to me. If I had the money, I would buy one of the small targets like the Wolverine or Javelina and put him at max yardage. I can get used to seeing what that looks like.

Zakk Plocica:

Right, I have a hard time seeing it.

Cody Harrington:

I could see it, but it does not look like 50 yards to me.

Bryan Gay:

Sure it makes sense. You thought he was just out there staring at buckets.

Zakk Plocica:

That's okay. Tell me, that did not what it sounded like.

Bryan Gay:

I 100% did not think that at all Okay so my mind went to.

Zakk Plocica:

That's why I asked are you putting targets beside?

Bryan Gay:

him, oh yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

But you're just essentially laying out yardages so you can see, and putting targets in between those to help you gauge distance.

Cody Harrington:

Okay, Since it's perfectly flat down here Right, we have no terrain or our woods are just open pine woods. Yeah, it's hard to really gauge stuff in the woods here, and then it's also hot and mosquitoes are horrible. Yeah, that makes sense.

Zakk Plocica:

All right, so we're going to start wrapping this up. Worst shot.

Cody Harrington:

Worst shot. I'm going to go with either the Javelina or the Wolverine.

Zakk Plocica:

Was it the ones that were super long?

Cody Harrington:

The Wolverine. I just could not see 40 yards on or 37 or whatever it was. I looked I was like that's like 30, 31. I held a little high. I dropped really low, Dropped it low. Okay so what about did you have? What was your best shot? I'll say that long coyote. Really, I hit the 11, hit the top of the 11 on it.

Zakk Plocica:

At 52?, 47., 47., 46,. Yeah, dude, that coyote is tiny, tiny. That's a hard shot if you know the yardage.

Bryan Gay:

Once it's all said and done, do they tell?

Cody Harrington:

you the actual yardages? No, oh, I think if you know the officials you can get it. But okay, yeah, we kind of just guessed in our group, so we'd all three shoot or all four shoot and we'd be like we just accumulate what we all shot it for gotcha and the guys that did hit it, or hit it high, we're like okay, that was probably a couple yards off. Were there any like just?

Bryan Gay:

bad shots.

Cody Harrington:

Like you know, your sight was dialed right and it was just like a duff. Aside from the right issues, I had no Because, the last thing I think about is my shot with this. I'm always thinking about the number, because I don't know it well enough.

Bryan Gay:

Right, that's yeah.

Cody Harrington:

And I'm comfortable enough with my shot process and everything like. I'm just like the bow is going to sit still.

Zakk Plocica:

I'm just going to more worried about did I guess the right yardage gotcha? Okay, that makes sense. All right, dude. So we're going to wrap it up. Man, it sounds like. I mean, obviously, that's pretty impressive, you, you, 40 points higher than previous still room to improve.

Bryan Gay:

But yeah, I mean always I'm happy with what I did yeah, I mean, that's really what matters, and you did better than you did last time.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah so, oh, I forgot to ask this are you going to run the same bow setup for the next one? If you?

Cody Harrington:

shoot it. I've got no reason to change it. Okay, it's.

Zakk Plocica:

I've been really impressed with that bow yeah, I mean, obviously you shoot it very well to be able to shoot.

Cody Harrington:

I slapped it together and I've not changed anything. It's been. It's been amazing that's a win.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, that's a win. Dude, when you find a bow that shoots really good, it's hard to change like very yeah, hoyt blew it out of the water with that one well good on hoyt. They make a good bow. Anyways they do. Yeah, tough, all right. Dude, I know you're kind of a private guy. Do you have any social media that anybody follows you or you put out any?

Cody Harrington:

I have an instagram and facebook. I don't ever post anything. You don't ever post anything. You don't ever post anything. I just follow stuff.

Zakk Plocica:

Well, if you're looking at archery related, if you want to get ahold of Cody, you can get ahold of him at the shop at extreme outfitters. Uh, he is our lead tech. Uh, very talented and clearly a very good shooter and dedicated to the world of archery. So, yeah, that's awesome, man. Brian, you got anything else? No, sir.

Bryan Gay:

That's it. That's very interesting, but definitely opened my eyes up it does, so it makes you kind of dab it. Yeah, I do. I want to try it, it's fun.

Zakk Plocica:

We could go out there and just pay a lot of money and lose arrows.

Cody Harrington:

I think it's maybe $40, $60, and it's only out to 40 yards. It's doable, yeah, and they have a good vendor row too. Good barbecue, real good barbecue.

Bryan Gay:

So that's why Is there so with those classes, the lower classes, like you said, the vet classes, is there a speed rating? Yeah, 290.

Cody Harrington:

Oh, okay.

Bryan Gay:

Because that'll put my pins super close. With my arrows set up and I just put them all on the target at the same time, you, with my arrows set up, and I, just, I just put them all on the target.

Zakk Plocica:

At the same time, you got to build a new bow man. Why? Cause that's what archers do you gotta have a boat and IBO bow.

Bryan Gay:

Okay, you got to.

Zakk Plocica:

You have no choice.

Bryan Gay:

It's a good thing. I know a place to get one.

Zakk Plocica:

There you go, that's it. Yeah, all right, guys Appreciate project. Make sure you guys go and give us a rating. We need some ratings on this to help grow if you enjoy listening to the content. So again, got any comments. Drop some comments for us. You can listen to it on Spotify, apple. You can watch it on YouTube head over there. Like it. Follow along, drop some comments, give us some feedback and we will see you guys in the next episode. Peace.