Welcome to another episode of the podcast and to another shoot report. This time is it for Paget de Vesey shoot, held a couple of weeks ago.
I have a soft spot for Paget shoots as the club hosted the first NFAS shoot I ever attended al those years ago.
Due to Paget de Vasey clubs site being quite small, approximately 2 acres they host a twice round 20 course, where you shoot 3Ds the first time round and then paper faces the second.
I feel this is quite a good idea in many ways as it avoids the club having to put double pegs out and is quite easy to manage for marshals and archers. On that point of marshalling I have to say I thought theirs were excellent. There were plenty of them wondering round and all friendly. They were also very friendly and open when I raised a concern about one shot, where I could hear voices from behind a large holly bush and was concerned the group in front hadn’t cleared the shooting lane. As it was the shot was perfectly safe and they handled my concerns quickly and professionally. Top marks guys.
As always the episode is available on both Spotify and Amazon music.
We were very lucky with the weather as it didn’t get stupidly warm until later in the day, which resulted in seats being moved in the shade. Hats off to the ladies in the catering hut as they must have been roasting in there all day. As it was Paget had provided able water for all archers to keep them hydrated in the heat.
Attendance was about 80 archers, with a few no shows.
There were some clearly laid shots and lots of effort on scene setting with a little pond for the 3D frog target, a tin bin for the racoon 3D to make it look as it was scavenging for food. The goose or large duck 3D and row of rubber ducks behind was also quite funny. One 3D I thought was really well set was the 3D bear as it as quite hard to judge the distance and height of the target.
They had 2 novelty shots, a moving target and robbo panda, where you only had 1 arrow at each. What was nice to see was that they changed the moving target from a 3D boar on the first loop to a smaller 3D badger if I recall correctly.
The robbo panda was a small metal. Yes you read that correctly, it’s a small metal panda, with a central hole. If you hit the metal you scored 16 points and a broken arrow, if you got the centre of the panda you scored 40 points.
There was an alternative target of a 3D squirrel or paper face squirrel if you preferred.
On the second time round you shot paper faces and they had tried to replicate the 3D shots with similar paper faces. This worked pretty well, though I think some targets were quite challenging. They had opted for non NFAS faces and modified some of the scoring zones to make them more forgiving.
Over all it felt a very relaxed shoot, flowing well with only one hold up on the second time round, which was at a long paper face bear shot.
Welcome to episode 152 of the podcast where I give a view of how Briar Rose Field Archers NFAS shoot a couple of weekends ago. It’s a little different to normal shoot reports as this was a shoot I was helping organise and marshal.
As always the episode is available on both Spotify and Amazon music.
We were very lucky with the weather as it wasn’t as hot as it has been here in the UK over recent months. We are currently in our 4th heatwave of the year defined apparently by temperatures over 35 degrees centigrade. Having said that we still organised a couple of water stops round the 2 loops to make sure everyone was hydrated.
Archer briefing prior to start
Our attendees were slightly down on last years number, with 88 archers attending this year compared to over 100 last year. I think this was due to being the same weekend as the Welsh Championships. Sadly, the dates were out of our control as it was the only weekend our landowners agreed to.
Longbow shooting 3D target in woods
The course was 36 targets, with 28 3D targets, the rest being made up of mesh faces. We’d worked hard on trying to find the most suitable target faces or 3Ds for each shot and I think it worked well. There were a couple of shots that would prove a challenge, including the SRT boar 3D which would prove hard to spot depending on what time of day you arrived on the peg. In the morning it was in shade but illuminated quite well after 2pm.
Tiger shot from the wasp peg
The longest shot on the course was a mesh tiger face set at 62 yards from the Wasp, though several archers performed a trick Barns Wallis shot, when their arrows fell short and due to the dry hard ground bounced up and into the target.
Tiger from the reg peg
Again, this year we did our own catering and the team worked hard to offer a variety of food options, including vegan options. Apparently, the chilli I cooked went well, so I was happy with that. I’d cooked a beef chilli and vegan one, toning down the spice level a bit. There were of course a huge amount of cakes too as we have learnt over the years archers love their cake.
As before we set out wasp pegs on all 36 shots, which we asked the sighted compound and sighted crossbow archers to shoot from. This is slightly different to normal NFAS rules as normally freestyle shoot from such pegs too. We also had the chronograph set up to check bow speeds. NFAS sets a limit of 300 feet per second with a 3% tolerance.
Overall, I think it went fairly well, with only a few hold ups through the day. We did have a couple of hiccups on the day though, including a power cut (thankfully just after the breakfast rush). Another was when a 3D was brought in before all archers had had the opportunity to shoot it.
Marshalling team post briefing
Lots of work went on before the shoot with many club members getting involved clearing paths, setting shots, including our junior members going round checking the settings of our yellow and orange pegs. I have to say how proud I was of the contribution from club members. For a small club of just over 30 members we had over 20 helping on the day.
The Wildcrete feral goat caused a few issues again with the replacement horns breaking due to arrow damage, also the Wildcrete cane toad seemed to be impervious to some lower poundage bows this year.
Over all it felt a very relaxed shoot, flowing well with only a very few hold ups. There are a few things we need to work on for next years shoot. We’d like to change the ratio of shots on the upper loop 1-18 to give a few more medium length shots of 15-25 yards.
Next year will mark the clubs 10th anniversary.
I’d like to say a huge thank you for the support. The club really pulled together this year with so many members contributing. Thanks. Enjoy your archery.
My Archery Experiences 