Regular listeners and readers of this site will know I have a soft spot for Black Arrow Field Archers club (BAFAC). I do my best to attend as many of their shoots as possible in the year. It is a club I used to belong too for several years and only left due to moving house and was where I started my field archery shooting and coaching. Feel free to look back and read my last shoot report from there.
Links to the episode can be found below for Spotify and Amazon music
100 or so, archers would join us on the day to shoot BAFAC grounds and thankfully the wet weather promised earlier in the week never materialised, making for a cloudy but pleasant day. It was really good to catch up with people I hadn’t seen in ages, though it did feel a lot quieter than previous shoots. Especially Lynne
The course consisted of 36 3D targets arranged in 2 loops round the wood, with us starting on target 6, which was a 3d otter target.
The day started well with me shooting ok, not scoring the kill shots but hitting with first arrows. Sadly this would not continue as one one shot a few things triggered my down fall and I blanked what should have been an easy 16. I managed to get my head back in for the next but after the break I couldn’t get things to come together.
Speaking of break, I need to thank the catering team for the lovely chilli and baked potato I had for lunch. As always they put a lot of effort into the food and I think they probably had quite a lot left over due to the no shows on the day.
Now I know some of the people reading this will have seen the shoot results on NFAS page or on my Instagram feed and will know that I won my class, in fact all 3 of us would walk away with 1st (Sharon in ladies AFB and our son in U12 Unlimited). Whilst I won I feel it was a bit of a hollow victory as in myself I didn’t feel I shot well.
I had gone with my Hunting tackle rig and despite my best efforts, I would loose or break a few arrows. This time I would lose one, when it clipped the horns of the Wildcrete feral goat and skip off skyward into the depth of the woods, never to be seen again. Two others broke in tree roots, when I misjudged the distance and they slide under the 3D target. This seems to happen at BAFAC shoots as I often seem to break them there. Sharon broke one in one of their new 3D Chameleon target, when she hit a metal support tube.
The course was very similar to the last shoot and I think that got into my head a bit too as I thought I should be able to hit things as I did it before, so I was getting a bit frustrated when I wasn’t , especially in the afternoon, where my shooting was worse. It’s left me to do some serious thinking of what to do next.
Overall it was a good shoot, flowing well and with no significant hold ups throughout the day.
With fewer archers than normal we actually were all packed up and leaving the site by 4.30 and we were one of the last to leave. This was partly due to catching up and chatting to people we’d not seen for ages
Other topics mentioned
The Push
I did mention an episode of The Push, episode 426 with Ian Edwards that I am listening and relistening to and I’ve included a link to it below
Briar Rose Open shoot
We still have places for the Briar Rose open shoot is on the 19th of July and details can be found on the clubs website https://briarrosefieldarchers.wordpress.com/ It is open to all bow classes and members of the National Field Archery society.
NFAS coaches
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My Archery Experiences 