I’ve been cursed and I don’t know whether to blame my mother’s or my father’s genes. Whichever it is, I’ve been doomed from birth to not have a dominant eye. Most people don’t care and it doesn’t matter to them if they have a dominant eye or which one it is; unless of course they are into shooting sports.
Having a dominant eye and shooting according to it has many advantages in archery, shotgun, rifle and pistol. By shooting your dominant eye (not shooting your eye out!) it is possible to use the other eye’s peripheral vision to gather all sorts of useful information. For example when hunting flocking birds and shooting with both eyes open, the dominant eye can focus on aiming for the target bird while the other eye can see the other birds and give fast feedback to a second or third shot.
When I shoot targets with a scope, I can easily overcome many of the limitations of not having a dominant eye by using a circle instead of a pin or a dot. By using the hollow circle, I can look through it and right at the “X” to focus on where I want the arrow to go and not on my pin. However, for 3D I shoot BHFS where I have to use pins. In order to put the pin where the arrow should go, the pin has to cover up the exact spot. Since I must close my left eye to not have some crazy double vision going on, my peripheral vision cannot see the intended impact spot.
One solution for some people is to put the pin directly below the spot where they want the arrow to hit. I have tried this with some success on paper targets, but was very unhappy with the results on 3D targets. The reason being that when shooting at various yardages, the sight picture and the relative size of the pin to the target changes. I’ve tried scotch tape on clear glasses and using a slightly wrong prescription in the left eye of glasses. Unfortunately I hate shooting with glasses!
For a time I actually worked with using self-hypnosis to try to get my subconscious to dim out my left eye and let my right eye take control. I had limited success with this, but it’s very possible I didn’t dedicate myself enough to become successful. Because this had some promise, I’m going to go back to working with this method along with trying some other ideas.
More ideas to try
- different eye dominance exercises, I’ve done many before but have some new ideas
- something like the Double Vision Blocker but possibly modified so that it covers only the pin from the left eye, allowing the eye to still see the target
- working more with self-hypnosis and training my subconscious
- more???
I am open to any other suggestions and willing to try different things. If I want to up my game in shooting, especially archery 3D, I need to whoop this issue once and for all! I’ll keep this post active and hopefully have some good results to report and suggestions to share with anyone else experience vision problems while shooting.
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Ever seen the movie fire birds with nick cage? He has a eye dominancy issue that he must overcome in order to fly the apache helicopter…. I would suggest wearing an eye patch for couple of weeks consistently forcing one eye to become dominant….! But check out the movie it’s an oldie but goodie lol
Hah! I have seen that movie but I have never driven driven around looking through a periscope. However, I have tried the eyepatch and it didn’t work so well =/
Not take the patch for days, is for an hour a day exercises aim with the patch and the thumb of his right hand pointing to different objects, prove that to me has worked.
Ok, I just realized I am goofy, right handed, left eye dominant. This is easily overcome when shooting my handguns but with a bow I am not sure how to work it. My son in law says he shoots with both eyes open. I am trying to find a bow to start out with. Any suggestions on the eye dominance issue?
In my experience you are almost always best to shoot your eye, not your hand (notice I did not say “shoot your eye out!”) I’ve always thought it would be best to sell left-eyed and right-eyed bows myself. You will not be able to shoot with both eyes open if you shoot with your right hand but left eye.
So, I need to use a left handed bow?
That is what I would recommend.
OK, Thank you so much!
Michael you have been really helpful to me. Your article has great information. Do you mind if I link this article to my website? Leslie
That would be fine with me!
Thank you so much!
When I was young I shot a bow right handed and not sure how I was ever really accurate until I started to use a bow to hunt. My grandfather would always ask why I shot my .22 with my left hand and at a young age never realized I was left eye dominant. So last year I bought a left handed bow and will never go back to a right handed bow again. For me switching to left hand was not that big of a deal just had to build those muscle groups a little more. Its my 2nd year hunting with a left hand bow and already have 1 deer in the freezer. You can get some really good deals on left hand bows through ebay the best time is right after Christmas when everyone puts their old bows up for sale.
Thank you for the insight. I ended up buying a right hand bow. I am very consistent with it at short yardage. I shot a lot and then my son-in-law adjusted the sight. I am doing well at 15 yards. I will try longer yardage and see what happens. The further away the the more the discrepancy in eye dominance will show up. I will see what happens. I appreciate your insight.
I’m a UK shooter who also does some .22 Prone Rifle shooting. Almost all of our shooters use a ‘blinder’ – a translucent strip ( to do the same job as the Double Vision Blocker). The real top guys (X class) have honed this down to just a tiny strip attached to their shooting glasses (or a head sweat band) that hangs down in front of their ‘non dominant’ eye. This way it does not put the stress on the non aiming eye that a dark patch does. My coach (X class) actually shoots with a pair of glasses – aiming eye with no lens, and the other with a plain lens with a tiny scratched up area in front of his pupil. This gives perfect peripheral vision and allows him to block out the double vision of the iron sight ring.
Hi Mickael,
Still waiting for my 50 tips.
Several years ago I was having this problem due to a cataract in my right, dominate eye. Couldn’t
tell which eye I was looking at the target with, sometimes I would get it wrong and shoot way to the left of the target. At the time I was working in electonics, and had to do my own printed circuit layouts using a material called Rubilith. It is a very thin ruby colored layer of plastic that had one sticky side and it was partially transparant. I stuck a 3/8 Inch circle of this material to my left lense at the location of the center of my left ” non dominate eye ” after shooting for a short time I learned that if the target was red I was aiming with the wrong eye. It also caused quite a few conversations on the 3D course, but it saved my shooting till I was able to get the Cataract fixed.
Hope it helps or possibly gives you another idea. Jack