Category Clubs

Details on clubs I’ve visited or am in

Jan 23 2012

Pines Park charity Shoot

Pines Park charity shoot this weekend saw approximately 100+ archers manage to bypass the car-boot sale and road works to get to the woods.

Despite the best efforts of the stormy weather, the organisers put on another good show, with 36 3D targets out at different distances, and settings. The longest being the giant grizzly that looked deceptively small from the shooting peg.

The organisers have changed the layout again, shortening the course walk out but still keeping the same feel for the woods. This enabled us to pass catering twice and allowed for a very free-flowing course, with no hold ups we were aware of. Would have liked to see a few marshalls at the longer shots to help search for arrows as this slowed us down some.  Keeping the numbers down on the pegs worked well, with most groups being only 4.

Sharon won Gold on her first competition shooting in BareBow, Well done. Other members of Black Arrow (BAFAC) did well with Adrian getting bronze with his new bow and Barry coming 20 points behind third place in Longbow (not bad for his first ever NFAS shoot)

Sadly I did not do well, managing to snap 3 arrows (2 in targets) and shooting very poorly. I could blame the arrows etc but think it is more me 😦

 

Nov 11 2011

Artemis Shoot

So it has been awhile since I last posted, sorry for that. Last weekend (5th-6th of November) saw me camping in a field just north of Belper in Derbyshire, helping out at the Artemis Archers shoot.

This was their first NFAS shoot and because of the vandalism that the site has suffered from recently a few of us braved the cold November night and camped out, patrolling the 20 acres of woods until the early hours to make sure no undesirables tried to trash the place. It must be said that is was a little cold that night and I was very grateful for my sleeping bag which kept me warm through the night.

I’ve uploaded a few photos from the day here https://picasaweb.google.com/111701601294639380446/ArtemisShoot?authuser=0&feat=directlink

It proved a great day with over 130 archers attending the shoot enjoying the wide mix of targets and ranges, ranging from over 60 yards to under 10 yards. The club had chosen a mix of target faces including Martin, Delta, JVD and the new ones from Flybow (DFSV faces) and some of the new range from Merlin Archery  too. One thing I thought was a great idea was a display at admin with images of all the target faces on, showing the scoring zones. Since many people hadn’t seen them before it gave people the opportunity to have a look and idea of where to aim for.

The photo below shows the longest shot in the wood. Over 60 yards across a small valley to the target (brown bear) which was the one I was helping Marshall at.artemis archers famous long shot

Feedback has been really good following the shoot and I hope to be able to get the chance to shoot the course sometime soon, rather than just marshal it. Bye for now

Sep 13 2011

Pines Park 9th September 2011

It was once again with some nervousness I returned to Pines Park this last weekend. I hadn’t shot the week before as I was helping out at Artemis Archers site (they are about to run their first NFAS shoot in November and there is still quite a bit of work to be completed for the course) Sadly Artemis have been the victim of vandals that have repeatedly burnt their buildings and some bosses.
I’d managed to shoot a little on Saturday but my should was aching and causing quite a bit of pain so kept it to just a few shots at the practise bosses. Back to the Pines Park shoot.

It was a 36 target course with a mix of paper and 3Ds. Some people had commented they would prefer all paper faces in readiness for the nationals, but I like many others thought the mix was just right
By their standards it was a quite shoot with only about 100 archers in attendance, which made for a very relaxed feel. Sharon and I were joined by Helen “H” Harris from LEFA, making only 3 of us in the shouting group. Big thanks to H for her support and company, was a great laugh. Maybe some people had been put off by the weather forecast but it remained dry and not that cold, but it was windy at times. Despite my shoulder giving me quite a lot of pain I managed to scrape a 3rd place with 526 points. When the painkillers kicked in the afternoon my score jumped by 100 points!! Must remember them for next weekend and take them in good time. Sharon didn’t shoot too well but managed a 2nd place (This in theory meant she bought dinner on Sunday night, which ended up being fish and chips by the way, but she didn’t have any cash)
The course was really good, with only a couple of targets that could be thought of as stretched distances and enjoyed shooting the new paper faces they have got from flybow (http://www.flybowshop.com/) in Ireland. If you could mark 24s on them I think they would be great. I’ve shot their course 5-6 times and think this was by far the best they had laid, with some really nice 3D locations that just looked good and right.
Top marks pines and look forward to next one. Now just have to survive the nationals