I have myself a cheap recurve that I have been doing regular target shooting with. We had some visitors to our club using longbows and I thought 'what the heck' and tried taking the sights off and shooting. Much to my surprise I didn't lose any arrows although my groupings were umm..a little erratic at first. I ended up even scaring the gold occassionally. What no-one told me was how much fun it would be. I am still concerned about being accurate enough for hunting. I guess I just need to start firing arrows downrange until I start getting a few decent-ish groupings. Any tips for me to avoid wasting time would be appreciated.
Learn the gap method... The biggest waste of time to avoid would be trying to shoot "instinctive" very few top shooters shoot "instinctive" almost all shoot gap, some stringwalking but that's not great for hunting... Most people to shoot "instinctive" accurately are really subconsciously shooting gap...
Shoot, have fun and enjoy the journey. Welcome to TG!
Boy oh boy don't let 2bird's comments move you away from the most effective hunting method. If you are worrying about gaps while shooting at game you'll be removing one of the most enjoyable aspects of hunting with the longbow.
I agree with smoke . Just keep your form consistent and let your subconscious do the rest . Also shoot at varying distances like a few feet out to where ever you are comfortable .
Keep it simple and keep it fun .