I think they have suffered recently with some archers not booking on their shoots due to parking and access issues. In response to this the club had done a lot of work to improve access to the car park. When I say a lot, I do mean a lot. They have laid 100 tonnes of hard core and gravel to make a road from the entrance to the wood to the car park.

The Shoot

As for the shoot itself, it was a 40 target course with a 50/50 split of 3d and paper faces. We (Sharon and I) started on peg 15 with Andrew, Mike and Cassey all from Black Sheep club. I was the only wooded arrow shooter in the group,  the others being all bare bow archers, which made me feel a little outnumbered.
Weather was good, with sunny spells and warm but not too hot, which makes a change as it often rained at Hanson shoots.

The club had done a lot of work on setting up new and interesting shots, through trees and a great one where they have put a paper face spider target and draped false cobwebs round it to make appear in a cave. Wish I had chance to take a picture of it.

Another was a long standing bear, between the trees. This is a photo a friend took and posted on Facebook. This was a real challenging shot that resulted in a few arrows finding their way into the branches.

Overall it was a really good day, though the afternoon was slow, I think due to the number of archers present (there were 5 to a peg so 200).We kept catching the group up in front not their fault as at the longer shots people were taking 2 or 3 arrows.

The mistake we made was not taking an early lunch as we passed catering, the thing was when we got to catering the first time we had shoot  only 5 targets so weren’t feeling hungry. The problem was we would have to shoot 20 more targets before returning which meant we were hungry, tired and in need of a break.

The important thing was there was still apple pie when we finally got to have lunch at 3:00. Hanson do great food and I always try to get some apple pie.

Overall I think it was a really good shoot, everyone appeared to enjoy themselves despite some of the delays. I can only think of one target that might be thought of as being stretched which was a paper faced Wildebeest.

So how did we do?

Sharon came away with 680 a great score that got her first place. I thought I was shooting okay,  but not great having missed a few first arrows so  was surprised to hear Sharon say she had been chasing my score all day!  I came away with 700 matching my personal best. This won me first place. Maybe  my shoulder is finally settling down.

Post Shoot

The only problem with the day was at some point before I put on bug repellent I was bitten on the back of the hand  by a horsefly. This resulted in an allergic reaction and a very swollen hand, I managed to get my wedding ring off before it got too swollen. Thankfully I’m on the mend now.

Moral of the story is remember to put on insect repellent.

As always, thanks for reading.