When I bought my first sight for my bow it was simple, and functional. It had 5 pins, a level, and used Allen screws to adjust it, piece of cake, mmm.. cake. The 5 pins were sighted in at 10 yard increments from 20 to 60 yards, the max range I had with my Bear Element at 70 pounds, and life was good. Things changed when I upgraded my bow to The Truth II I purchased next. The bow was faster, more effective at further ranges and I found myself wanting more. So I bought a 7 pin sight, oh yeah 80 yards here I come! I thought this was the limit of my ability, I mean 80 yards is a poke, and I was stacking arrows out to 80. When I got my Bear Carnage, I slapped that 7 pin sight on there and was ready to go! I quickly found myself wanting more! I mean if 5 pins was ok, and 7 pins were better, 9 pins would be awesome, so I added two more pins to my sight and everything fell apart. After 30 yards I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with 9 pins staring back at me, blocking out the spot I was trying to focus on, frustration was taking all the fun out of shooting.
I was working in an archery shop at the time and started playing around with different peeps, adding a kisser button, and everything else on the shelf. Then one day I opened a shipping box and had a eureka moment. Sitting on top of everything else was a single pin sliding sight. I had seen the HHA Optimizer single pin sight in the case for quite a while but had wrote it off as a eastern tree stand hunting sight, or a target sight, not a spot and stalk Western style hunting sight. I had tried everything else so why not bolt it on and give it a try. The first time I drew my bow back and looked through the peep I was hooked! It was amazing, life changing, and all the other clichés you can think of, I was in love. My co-workers at the time didn’t have the same feelings about it as I did but I had to try it for myself. I quickly realized that I would never go back to a multi pin sight again.
With season approaching quickly I spent the next month shooting my bow daily and getting every yardage mark dialed in and found myself buying more arrows, as I was breaking one or two arrows on every trip to the range(I learned a little too slowly to never pick the same spot for more than one shot!) After a month of shooting I was ready to see how my new sight was going to perform in western style hunting scenarios.
Going into the August archery season I kept hearing the negative comments about my choice of sight from my hunting buddies; you can’t adjust quick enough for change in yardage, that sight is for tree stand hunting not spot and stalk, you can’t adjust quick enough for a follow-up shot, what if you jump a deer and have to take a quick shot, then what? All these things had me second guessing my choice, but my confidence in my shooting had never been higher, so I was sticking with it.
The learning curve was a steep one to say the least, and even though I did not fill my archery tag that year, I did confirm to myself that I had made the right decision in switching to the HHA. I spent the entire next year practicing with the sight in as real to life hunting situations as I could, pretending to jump a 3d target from his bed ranging him, dialing quickly, and shooting. I would do this from multiple angles and distances. I found that it took me about the same amount of time to range, dial, shoot, as it did to range, draw my bow and try to remember which pin was which distance. Another and even bigger lesson I learned after missing a couple of big deer, with my multi pin sight was that, by taking the extra second to dial my single pin sight gave me an extra second to calm myself and make a perfect lethal shot. I personally feel that a single pin slider sight has made me a much better archer and bowhunter!
The second season I used the HHA I took a hard earned desert Mule deer in velvet at 52 yards. Single pin sights are not for everyone, but if you hunt or shoot your bow enough and find yourself trying to remember which pin is which or not being able to pick that spot give a HHA Optimizer sight a try, you just might see your shooting go to a whole new level.
