Last weekend we headed north towards Long Eaton club shoot in Leicestershire.
Despite it being a bank holiday weekend, the weather was good with bright sunshine and blue skies and no rain!! This meant I was able to get a load of photos this time unlike the Pride Park shoot at Easter.
The course was a full 40 3Ds and billed as a warm up for the NFAS 3D championships in a few weeks, which I think may have put some off attending as there were only about 120 or so attending, which was a shame as it was a great course.
You can see past shoot reports Summer Solstice 2013

The woods looked Lovely with all the bluebells out which made it a very picturesque setting.

The course layers had done a great job with very good target placement with some great use of the ground. The use of dead ground and the dips and hollows was excellent. Those that shot well earned their points.
I don’t think any shots were stretched though there weren’t any easy shots.

The bison looked great in a carpet of bluebells.

Another nice one was the owl half way up a tree.

Nice to see target bosses behind most of the 3Ds to catch wayward arrows and the fact they’d camouflaged them to make them less obvious meant they didn’t spoil the shot.

I’m not sure about some of the new small 3d targets they were trialing at the shoot though.  They look good but are quite dense.

Sharon broke an arrow hitting one and my only blank of the day was after I hit one 3 times in the chest and got 3 glance offs. Think the problem is the way they are moulded makes some areas very dense.
Having said this it is nice to see some new 3Ds and I liked the running hare. It is very hard for shoot organisers to source small targets and I know target 7 which we started on which was a small fish that you shot nearly vertically down to was shot out by the end of the day.
Speaking with a couple of other archers they had similar experiences. I also had the opportunity to speak to the organisers and I think they are going to review some of the smallest ones. Always good when organisers listen to feedback and Long Eaton appear to have done this based on the quality of this shoot.  Thanks guys and well done.

There were a couple of predator / prey shots  one using a lovely 3D pheasant taking flight from a big cat.
For those not familiar with predator prey shots they work like this. You shoot at the predator first and if you hit with your first arrow you get a chance to shoot the prey for bonus points.  Where I don’t mind the idea of bonus points or predator prey shots.
I’m not a fan of predator prey shots where you can score full points on the prey if you hit. Maybe a bonus 10 points if you hit the prey but I think it can open up too great a points difference if you can score up to 20 or 24 points on the prey. Hawk do these shots as second arrow scoring on the prey which is more balanced. Personal view and shouldn’t be seen as a criticism of the course.
In general the day flowed well with only a couple of hold ups at the predator prey shots which is normal.

I didn’t shoot well after lunch actually to be fair I was shooting pretty poorly at times which is a shame as it would be good to shoot the course when I was shooting well. Probably due to too much work and not enough practice. Sharon came away with a first in ladies hunting tackle

Think the only thing that could have made it a better shoot was to make it a shoot through and not have a lunch break, although the club don’t think this would be practical.
In all I think it would be fair to say it was one of the best courses they have put on if not the best. Well done all involved. Here’s hoping the 3D championships courses are as good.
Thanks, as always, for reading.