Category Shoots Reports

Write up and photos of shoots I’ve attended

Apr 23 2013

Shoot report – Severn Valley 21st April 2013

Starting Announcements
Its been a while since my last shoot report due to a trapped nerve in my shoulder preventing me from shooting. So this shoot report is from the view of a marshal rather than competitor, but I hope you will still find it interesting.
Each year SVYF runs 2 shoots one in April and the other  in October and last weekend saw us host our first shoot of the year.
Archers arriving

Archers arriving on Sunday

We were lucky with weather as it stayed dry all day and nowhere near as blustery as the previous weekend, which had seen numerous branches down.
Saturday saw us, along with other club members, descend on the wood from before 8 am setting up the 3d targets, clearing paths and ensuring directional signs were up. The club house was tidied and kitchen cleaned from top to bottom in readiness for all the cooking that would take place.
Sadly recent weeks have seen the death of the land owner of our wood and the passing of Pete Bates, a well known character in field archery. Rather than having a minutes silence  it was decided to have 30 seconds silence followed by 30 seconds of applause in respect of their memories and achievements.
The course is split in two halves with separate course layers setting each side (A+B) which makes for a variety of shots and spreads the work load.
3d target

3d target on A Course

The Spring course is made up of 40 targets with a  mix of paper and 3ds. This time round it included a few special shots –  fan shots and negative shots where if your arrow hit the wrong target you lost 10 points.

B course layers

B course layers message to archers

With an average of 4 to a peg it gave us about 160+ archers and 20-30 marshals and cooking staff so the wood was pretty busy.
As a marshal your role is to ensure the shoot is running smoothly.

Long bear shot

Long bear shot on B course

There was  a good mix of traditional archers shooting longbow and American flat bows, along with those shooting compound bows with or without sites. All targets are over unmarked distances so judging the distance is very important and complicated by the use of avenue shots or dead ground.

Shooting group

Shooting group on one of the numerous bridges we have

As a marshal your role is to ensure the shoot is running well. Duties including helping search for lost arrows, replacing paper faces and guiding people out first thing on the walk out.

Another target on B course

Another target on B course – with marshals checking view

A friend who was shooting had a pedometer on and he said at the end of the shoot he’d walked 4 miles round the course. If that’s true I must have walked over 10 as I walked the entire course twice and one loop 2-3 times more helping search for arrows etc. Truth be told I was shattered when we finally got home on Sunday night.  At least we have 6 months before we have to do it all again.

For those interested full shoot results are available off the club website here. The feedback has been very positive from those attending.
As always thanks for reading.

Mar 24 2013

Scottish Championships CANCELLED

This is to all NFAS friends that were heading to Scotland over Easter Weekend for the Scottish Championships.

Due to adverse weather conditions the event has been cancelled.

Some of you maybe aware that the UK is presently blanketed in snow and more is falling. The event is run in an abandoned quarry and I quote from the organisers

“The courses are over a steep woodland and rocky route with dips and climbs making for slippery conditions, and bumps and lumps which are now obscured by snow. The AKB course layer and his assistants have indicated that they feel it is unsafe to proceed. “

Can people please pass this message on to all NFAS archers they know so the message can get out there.

Thanks for reading

 

Mar 6 2013

Shoot Report – Pride Park

Pride Park

This shoot report covers our experiences of the Pride Park March shoot. This was the first trip to their new wood, which is only a stones throw from one of our old clubs Black Arrows wood.

So on Sunday we headed just north of Derby, about  an hour and 20 minutes drive for us. The weather was dry but not as sunny or warm as the previous day, which had been the first real sign of spring arriving. But as I said it was dry, though it did get cold in the afternoon, which was a shame.

The shoot would also be a test for Sharon’s new arrows or rather piles for her x7. We have been experimenting with the pile weight in her arrows and she had tried a few different ones out on Saturday. So Saturday evening was spent with me swapping out old points for new inserts and screw in points.

Our shooting group was made up of 5 people, Pride Park limit their group numbers to 5 and I think this is a good plan. There was a good flow with no hold ups. The only delay in the day was after the lunch break, by which point it was getting a bit cold as the wind had picked up. In fact there was a really relaxed atmosphere all day.

The course was a mix of paper faces, 3D targets and couple of hessian / fabric faces. We started in the small wood, with a downhill hessian target.

first target

Sharon at first target

It was good to see that targets, especially paper ones, had been put out at sensible distances making them hitable targets.

target 13 Close paper duck

target 13 Close paper duck

In fact there were a few larger faces put closer than normal that confused a lot of archers, resulting in them misjudging the distance.

Scott shooting target 15

Scott shooting target 15

The paper faces included my 3 least favourite, the ermine,  standing hare and red squirrel.

JVD Ermin target face

JVD Ermin target face

JVD Hare target face

JVD Hare target face

JVD Red Squirrel target face

JVD Red Squirrel target face

Why do I hate them? Well besides 2 of them being very small (ermine and squirrel have a 20mm inner scoring zone) the 3rd, the hare, is easy to miss if you lose your line and go slightly left or right, as it is quite tall but skinny.

For those interested I scored 20 on the ermine, 8 (3rd arrow) on the hare and 16 on the squirrel. so that is 2 first arrows and one 3rd, not too bad really.

It all it was a good day with Scott and Zack Ball, Norman joining Sharon and I to make up our group of 5.

Despite being very close to Black Arrows wood the grounds are very different. Black arrow is on a hillside and quite small whilst Pride Parks ground is made up of 2 woods with a connecting field / hedge row, with a small coppice that allows for steeper angles and downhill shots, the other wood is more open and flat allowing for longer shots.

As for how I got on, not great 604 on 36 targets, top score in my class was 654 I think. Sharon did well getting first place again in ladies Barebow. Guess the new arrows worked.

As always thanks for reading.