Sunday morning we were packed and on our way to South Cheshire shoot early as it’s one of the further shoots and takes about an hour and a half journey time. The problem was the motorway north was down to 1 lane instead of 4 due to an accident so that made for a very stressful drive as we sat in the traffic for 30 minutes waiting our turn. As it was we made the shoot in time to register and by all accounts several others had been delayed in the same incident. Let’s hope the passengers in the van that had crashed and flipped onto it’s side are okay.

The weather on Sunday was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the low 20 degree centigrade a complete contrast to recent weeks, this meant I was able to get a few photos.

This would be the first outing with my new Black Brook flatbow.

The course was entirely 3d targets and they had painted small pink dots in the centre of the kill zone for every target.

I’m unsure if I like the idea or not. In some ways it means all archers know where the highest scoring zones note just those with sights or access to listing of 3ds, also there are no arguments as to which scoring zones count.

The downside was it appeared to wear off as the day went on so not all archers were as clearly visible later in the day. Possibly the use of different paint would solve this.

There were some new 3ds including a sea lion and big cat which we hadn’t seen on previous shoots at South Cheshire or other shoots.

There were a number of shots framed between trees and branches making them hard to judge.

I think a few well placed catching nets would have sped the search for arrows up on a couple of targets, especially the ones near the water.

My thanks to the two marshals who helped retrieve the wayward arrows in the lake. Glad I could help launch and retrieve the boat, though I think a couple oars might be useful next time.

Discovered that the arrow sock labels I’d put on the night before don’t cope with being in water.

Sharon shot well winning ladies afb and actually scoring higher than the gents did too. Unfortunately my first outing wasn’t a very auspicious one, I really need more practice.

The journey home was less eventful but looks like we’ve developed an issue with the cars rear breaks, so no doubt that will be pricey to solve. So all in all was not the best day for car journeys.
Thanks for reading.