Tag Archives: American Flatbow

Sep 4 2012

Shoot Report – Wolverine September 2012

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve last shot Wolverine course, but last weekend we headed up there. Situated just past stoke it took a little over an hours drive from the new house, though the rain showers we drove through made us wonder if it was going to be a dry day..
The course itself is mostly on a large wooded hillside with paths criss-crossing and lots of up and down shots. We were all grateful that the rain stayed away as the paths would have been very slippery otherwise.
The course layers have a reputation for laying a challenging course and they lived up to this reputation on the day. It was a very well laid course making great use of deadground to make you under or over estimate the distances to the target.
Our shooting group was made up of Paul Jones (from North Wales club shooting Compound unlimited) Sharon and Bob Davies a Black Arrow member shooting his Longbow.
Sharon and Bob

Sharon and Bob

It was really good to catch up with Bob and Jim from Black Arrow who we also saw and was shooting in the group infront, as we’d not seen them since moving house. Jim is doing well with his new Flatbow, and I had the opportunity to chat with him about his new arrows.

He’s bought some arrows from Dreamcatcher arrows and I must say they look great and not overly pricey form what Jim said.

There were about 180 archers there and it ran very smoothly with no long hold ups.
Back to the course and shooting. Not great start blanking the first target, despite hitting it twice the arrows glanced off twice!! One either side of a small 3d partridge. One of the new part 3d targets where other it only a 3d from the front. Our second target was a standing bear, through the trees.

Paul shooting Standing bear

Paul shooting Standing bear target 2

Bob Shooting 3d Deer

Bob Shooting 3d Deer in the afternoon

The real downer on the day and made me really angry was at the lunch break, when an inconsiderate archer who had stopped early so he could get to the lunch tent walked across my shooting line when I was drawing up. It was dangerous and ignorant.

How Far is Kong

As always they had Kong out this time at about 77-80 yards. Kong is a huge home made gorilla 3d target over 11ft tall  which they placed in a field. Banked it with first falling between legs and 2&3 drifting left. The video below gives you an idea of distance and size

The course was mainly 3d targets with a few paper faces.
Liked the standing bear paper face, looked really good and well placed.
Sharon shoot at 3D

Sharon shoot at 3D

Sharon did well winning Ladies Barebow. Though she did get some lucky shots, with her arrows just staying in the target.
Sharons arrow

Sharons arrow is the top one.

I would like to say that I had shot well, but truthfully I shot terribly at a level I have not shot since starting. It has been a real confidence hit and I’m not sure what I will do. I don’t know whether to continue with flatbow or go back to Hunting tackle. Either way I really need to improve 😦
Thanks for reading
Jul 26 2012

Invite day shoot at Black Arrow

Image of a wood pile "steaming" in the morning sun

Image of a wood pile “steaming” in the morning sun

Not a true shoot report, as it wasn’t a formal shoot, but I thought it worth adding here. Last Saturday saw Black Arrow run an invite day at our wood for Long Eaton Field Archers (LEFA). It was with great delight to see so many turn up from Long Eaton Field Archers club to shoot at our wood for the day.
As I said it wasn’t a formal shoot, just one club opening its doors to invite another club round for a bit of fun and it worked really well. The goal was for people to have fun and for the 2 club memberships to mix shoot together and enjoy a laugh or two, with 15 members of LEFA enjoyed Black Arrows hospitality (free hot drinks, cuppa soups etc, big thanks to LEFA guys who brought the fantastic chilli) Archers could score if they wanted or just wonder round and shoot.
Sadly, there are no pictures of the day other that the one taken by Sharon first thing of the log pile steaming in the sun (yes we had good weather) I’m afraid I was too busy chatting, laughing and shooting. There were so many happy faces and a great laugh.
I really think this is something that more clubs should do. Rather than opening their doors for solely open shoots which are competitive events where each shot counts. I shot round the wood twice with Nick and Ady and was very interesting to see how they managed our up and down wood. LEFA have a lovely ground but its a flat ground in comparison to ours at Black Arrow. So seeing them having to shoot up, down or across the hillside was great.
Our target 7

This was taken a few weeks ago

The course was a mix of some 3Ds and paper targets. The picture above shows the angles across the hill side and was taken a few weeks ago before all the undergrowth shot up. The target boss is half way up the slope and you shoot for red peg, if you miss move to white, if you miss then blue.

Since there was no pressure nothing stopped you have a couple of extra arrows at any troubling target. Nick is a course layer from LEFA, so it was good to see and hear his thoughts on the Black Arrow ground. Nearly everyone went round the 20 taret course twice.
There was no shoot fee, simply asked for donation towards Cancer research UK a charity that has touched the hearts and lives of many in Black Arrow. We raised £78 for cancer research charity and this was matched with a very generous donation to the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institiution)as a thanks for our contribution to the club over the past 4 years. A very thoughtful gift to a charity I’ve supported for several years.

“This was a great day!…….no medals and scoring only if you wanted to……just the challenge of shooting and the enjoyment of socialising with very pleasant folk.”

Kevin Bunting Black Arrow chairman.

Big thanks to all that were involved and helped from both clubs.
The only sad thing was this would mark our last Black Arrow club event. We are in the process of buying a house which will result in us moving away from the area and so leaving Black Arrowa club that has offered us so much support and friendship over the past 4 years.

Think we left on a high. Thanks for reading.

Jun 6 2012

Shoot report – NFAS 3D Championships 2012

Announcements on B course - Pride Park - Saturday
Pride Park – Saturday

Home and after a hot bath along with some sleep and then some more sleep, we are nearly unpacked following a weekend long archery competition.  It was the annual NFAS 3D championships and it proved to be a really great weekend, despite the best efforts of the British weather to drown us all. For those of you reading this and don’t know the 3D champs are one of 3 championships the NFAS run throughout the year. It is normally well attended with over 700 archers,this year there were a few less though, probably due to the economic climate.

Sorry but having re-read this, it is really long post

We’d decided to camp for the weekend rather than driving up each day, so headed to just outside Osmaston Park, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire on Friday night to pitch tent and meet up with everyone. We joined up with the Artemis guys in their marquee and had  some food and a few drinks. Thanks guys.

This year there were 4 courses in total A&B for wooden arrows, X&Y course for metal / carbon arrows. By splitting it in this way courses can be tailored to suit class.

Before I go any further can I say a big  thanks to Hanson club who provided the catering at Admin and Y course, it was great to have hot food and not just burgers, but steaks, cakes, and fantastic apple pie. They started at 7:30 am and went on until gone 7 pm. Thank you so much.

Over the course of the weekend archers shoot 2 courses 1 on Saturday and 1 Sunday. Each course consists of 40 3D targets of varying sizes shot over a range of unmarked distances and elevations. The 2 courses I shoot were, course A laid by Cheshire Oak and Course B was done by Pride Park.
Think A course was fortunate enough to have the better terrain to work with as the problem B course had been a large fenced off area which was off-limits. This limited long shots so they worked on using dead ground and foliage to trick archers and frame shots.
One of the hardest shots is shown here. Wendy is taking her second go at it, but you can just make out the brown bear in the trees. I was really happy to just hit this one
Brown bear in trees B course - Pride Park - Saturday

Brown bear in the trees

I went up to a few target and thought this was easy and then needed a second arrow or third.

long elk on B course Pride Park - only

Long elk this was the only target I blanked all weekend

The course was designed so you passed catering twice so you could grab some food. After our first break the target below was what greeted us, a velociraptor 3D at an angle. I later found out it was over 50 yards away, so I was really happy when I got it with the first arrow. Below you can see Mark about to shoot it with his longbow.

B course - Pride Park - Saturday

First shot after lunch

The only problem with the venue was the sheer distance from the camp site to the courses. Archers once they had finished had to walk over a mile to get back to Admin to hand cards in. Made for a couple of long days as you had to register by 9:30 and walking out at 10 am,  Sharon didn’t get back to Admin until nearly 7 pm both days

The walk back on Saturday - not in the rain

The walk back on Saturday – not in the rain thankfully

Sunday was wet, very very wet, quite a few people retired due to the weather and this is why there are no photos of Sunday, wanted to try to keep phone dry. I would have liked to shoot the Cheshire oak course in the dry as Sunday resembled a monsoon at times. Glad I took a large brolly.

I lost quite  a few arrows in the rhododendron bushes which was a bit of a pain but really enjoyed the 2 days. I heard that a few people retired early from the competition due to a combination of the very poor weather  and losing too many arrows

Quiet a few  people who were camping stuck around on Sunday night rather than trying to take their tent or caravan down in the rain. So saw quite a few sore heads on Monday.  We’d decided to stay so that on Monday we could give the organisers a hand to take stuff down and walk one of the courses  (x course laid by Yorick archers) to check for any lost arrows, clear signs etc Glad I took the metal detector as found a load of crossbow bolts and arrows.
So how did I get on ?
30th in AFB and considering my lack of practise time I’m more than happy with that. Only blanked 1 target over the whole weekend too.
B Course - Score card

B Course – Score card only 1 blank

Very wet score card from Sunday

Very wet score card from Sunday

Sharon won bronze (3rd place) in ladies BareBow which I am very proud of since she has been shooting this new bow (Andy Soars Black Brook bows)  for a bout 5 months. Congrats to Andy Soars too who won Gents Barebow.