Welcome to the 151th episode, which is mainly focused on the Thornbury shoot over the weekend, but there are a couple of other things too.
Firstly, in the podcast I mentioned we still have places for the Briar Rose Field Archers NFAS shoot this month on the 19th of July, open to all NFAS archers and styles. Details can be found on the Briar Rose website.
Tips on field and 3D archery
Secondly, I have had a request from a follower to provide advice on shooting field and 3D courses. I’ve created a couple of videos, available on my YouTube channel as quick guides and I hope to create a few more in the upcoming weeks.
If you enjoy this content I’m producing on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@offthearrowshelf), then drop us a review, hit the like button or consider following / subscribing.
Now on to the shoot report. First off the links to podcast episode available on amazon music or spotify.
Shoot report
Thornbury is a relatively easy drive for us being about an hour down the motorway towards Bristol. If you are interest you can read a shoot report from a previous visit.
We were very fortunate with the weather only having a couple of light showers on the trip down. Thankfully the heatwave the UK has been encountering had broken so temperatures were comfortable.
The day would flow well with no hold ups, impressive when you consider there was just over 100 archers.
It’s obvious Thornbury had put a lot of effort into celebrating the 50th anniversary, with new 3Ds including a huge dinosaur in the form of T-rex, complete with a giant champaign bottle. Yes, I did say champaign bottle.
I think there were a couple of shots that I really liked. The T-rex was unique and reminded me greatly of Kong at Wolverine shoots. It was a long way even for the junior pegs, but set well and offered a real challenge.
The other shot I liked was one of the novelty shots, which was a fan shot. Thornbury had used a similar one previously, but this year rather than the archer having to stroll between shooting pegs, they would take all 3 shots at the 3 targets from the same peg. This had to be done within 1 minute.
The key thing I realised was the necessity to adjust my stance and body position for each shot. To add to the shot they had positioned the peg at the top of a small gully, with you shooting down into it for the first target a 3d otter, the second was part way up the bank and was a 3D beaver. The last was a 3D bear lounging on a log across the gully. Nothing was particularly long but technical and under a time limit. Each arrow was scored as a first , second and third so 24/20/16 for first arrow, 14/10 for second and 8/4 for third. A max of 36 points
Speaking of novelty shots there five in total, one being the fan shot. Three predator prey shots, one tube shot where you shot one arrow down one of 3 tubes. Scoring either 24,20 or 16 points if successful.
Personally, I felt 3 predator preys were more than they needed, especially with the way they scored them with the possibility of scoring 48 points as if you hit the Predator with first arrow, then your second arrow you would shoot at the prey but scores as though a first arrow, meaning you could score a 24 on the predator and then a 24 on the prey.
There were several other good shots, worth mentioning such as the grizzly bear which was face on, the close snake which was face on. The ram coming up the bank and boar uphill are others worth mentioning.
Thornbury has 3 towers on their course and there is one very tall tower. This year the 3D target would be a standing black bear at over 40 yards. Sadly, there was no junior closer target so our 9-year-old would end up shooting at the same target. A real challenge for his light low draw weight compound and arrows. Sadly, he didn’t get it though did give it his best with one arrow deflecting off the branches.
I know they had increased the distances on many of the junior and adult pegs, though I feel some of the junior pegs could have been a bit closer.
I really liked the fact every shot had a Wasp peg and some of them looked very tricky, making the archer think carefully of their alignment.
I definitely struggled in the latter stages though, with some poor releases. I think this was down to fatigue from the previous days work down at the wood.
Overall, I feel it was a good shoot with a good atmosphere and challenging shots. Thanks guys and heres’ to the next 50 years.
If you have any questions or queries you can drop me an email on or via the website.
Thanks for reading and listening, enjoy your archery.
My Archery Experiences 