Tag Archives: bare bow

Oct 10 2012

Shoot Report – March Hare October 2012

March Hare

Misty morning at March Hare

Been a while since I’ve written one of these reports, but then again been a while since I’ve been out shooting. Moving house kind of gets in the way a bit of going to shoots 😦 Well there are now a few less boxes and most things are getting sorted, slowly!! Just need to set up the range in the garden 😉 anyway back to the shoot report.

So this misty Sunday morning we packed the car and headed south to a new ground for us March Hare. The Autumn chill was in the air, with car showing only 3 degrees centigrade, but with no cloud cover it would soon burn off and we would enjoy a sunny early Autumn day. It had been a last minute decision to book on the shoot as we thought we were going to be entertaining house guests that weekend, but things didn’t work out.

March Hares ground is about 35-40 minutes drive from the house and is part of a disused airfield which makes it very flat. The ground cover is made up of a young broadleaf  woodland and mixed scrub. The one down side of the ground is that if you miss a target your arrow tends to travel along the ground a fair way disappearing in the long grass.

The club has great facilities with not only a members hut but full indoor toilets (a luxury compared with many shoots) along with plenty of parking space. I think the ground is shared with a shooting club too which could explain the quality and quantity of facilities.

March Hare club house

March Hare club house

One thing that is strange is the way they run registration. You present your NFAS card and pay, but you aren’t given a score card at that point. When they are doing the shoot brief at teh start of the days shooting, they call the peg and your name, which is when you go up and collect your score card with the other members of your group. Also no double scoring. The downside of this was it made for a late start and in turn a long day. Must say this confused me, (yes I am easily confused these days).

The shoot itself was twice round 20, with a mix of 3D and paper targets with about 60 archers present in a mix of classes including all except crossbow.

March Hare have what appears to be a huge ground and I think they could easily put on a 36 target course and they have the bosses as they are set up for EFAA shoots, but maybe the low numbers explained why it was twice round 20.

We we shooting with Keith and Marion, also from SVYF who were great company. Keith was trying out some new arrows (5 1/4 shields with a helical twisted fetching) appears to straighten faster but lose distance).

Normally a twice round 20 is pretty quick but this was very slow as we caught the group up in front on most targets.

As a shoot I think they could have made it more interesting. Thought some of the targets were stretched for the faces on them. We started on peg 4 which was a long 3D deer, felt like it was over 40-45 yards through trees and Marion lost one arrow on this target, just disappeared into the long grass, not a good start for her. When we shot this second time round I managed to put one of my arrows through a tree 😦 but in fairness I know others enjoyed it.

Managed a 24 on a 3D turkey

Managed a 24 on a 3D turkey

I think the problem I had with this shoot was that everything was flat and many of the shots felt stretched. They might not have been, but a few were, about a quarter of them by my guess. Not helped by the fact we couldn’t always make out scoring areas. I’ve never been a fan of flat ground or long shoots,preferring shots of 15-25 yards and through trees, framed etc. with use of dead ground. Guess this is because I’m used to shorter shots and shooting at a club on a hillside.

(Sorry just realised something. When I say the target is stretched I don’t mean the target face or image is stretched or distorted. I mean the distance to the target from the peg is longer than normally expected. So a target face that would normally be shot at 15-20 yards might be at 25-30 yards.)

I know March Hare is a strong EFAA club and in EFAA you shoot longer distances, so maybe that is just the clubs style. Sorry if this sounds a bit of a moan.

So how did I get on. Well I had a couple of good shots but not many.I didn’t shoot well and came in with only 548. Far too many blanks(5) (the lack of practise is definitely showing so really need to sort the range in the garden). I did come away with a first place though (largely due to very few AFB archers) Sharon got 570 and won again, very proud of her as always.

Would I go back? Maybe simply because it is so close. Also have a better idea of what to expect.

We should be working as marshals next weekend for the club shoot so are hoping for dry weather.

Thanks for reading.

Sep 17 2012

Congratulations to NFAS championships

Just wanted to wish all the medal winners congratulations on their success.

Though we weren’t competing we were able to pop over for couple of hours at the end of shooting to catch up with friends.

Special congratulations to Ben Straw a young Black Arrow archer who won gold in the Under 16 Bare Bow class. (Full results are here.)

Congratulations also too to all the archers who competed but didn’t place. They will achieved personal bests or simply competed for the first time at national level. Well done.

Despite the forecast it stayed dry until Sunday evening when the heavens opened. Simply walking to the car saw us soaked.

BTW the reason we weren’t competing was it was my Mams 70th birthday on Saturday and yes we had a lovely weekend.

Thanks for reading

Sep 10 2012

Shoot report – Doverdale September 2012

Last Sunday saw us travel 20 minutes down the road to Doverdale archery club. The last time we had shot there was over a year ago and a lot longer journey time.

Unlike last time the weather was great, bright sunshine and blue sky for most of the day. Numbers were down too, though there was a good turn out from SVFY with us shooting with Sue and Ian from the club. Due to the low numbers they opted for a lunch break from 1 – 1:45 rather than a shoot through. On that topic I would like to say thanks to the catering guys who slaved in a hot kitchen to make sure we had a hot meal. Thanks guys the food was great.

Doverdale bow stand

Doverdale bow stand

As for the course, this was a mix of 3d and paper faces, making a 40 target course in total (10 3ds and 30 paper).

The course was hard, not like Wolverine the previous week which used the terrain very well. Here it was small targets at longer distances than they need to be. Don’t know whether they set it up as a pre champs (National Field Archery Champs is next weekend), but think it was very tough, tougher than it needed to be.

Second target on the day

Second target on the day

It’s a lovely large mature wood with lots of great opportunity for deceptive shots. For that reason I couldn’t work out why they would put a target out 3-10 yards further than it needed to be. I don’t believe this helps to make a shot a challenge, just stretched. This won’t affect the very good archers but gets demoralizing for us mere mortals.

There were also too many repeat target faces and a lot of archers commented on that. I think we shoot the same paper duck target face 4 times at different points in the wood, and standing hare a few times too. For a 40 target course where 10 targets being  3Ds,  having the same face 4 times is a bit much to say the least. Bit disappointing too when you consider the number of faces out there. (This is turning into a bit of a moan sorry readers.)

The other thing I would like to say is how much I hate the plastic legs on some of their 3d deer or on any 3D.

For those of you not familiar with these 3D targets I’ll explain. The body is the normal foam 3d but the legs from just below the body are hard plastic like the plastic used for heavy-duty plant pots or urns in garden centres. They aren’t very friendly for wooden arrows, I  snapped 1 arrow in them when trying to remove it. They tend to close round the piles. I know a couple of archers that joined me in losing piles or snapping arrows. Sue who was shooting a low poundage bow due to a shoulder injury had her arrow hit the leg and bounce back because they are so hard.

So why are they used? Price I guess, I think they are cheaper than having full 3D targets

Last target of the day

Last target of the day – deer with plastic legs

There were some nice shots one-off the raised platform, but even this was off-putting as the next peg was so close you had archers in front of you.

View from platform

View from platform

Sharon did well despite blanking one target she won first place in ladies Bare Bow.

In all I think I might return, not because it’s a great shoot but because it’s convenient, though I will take spare arrows.

As always thanks for reading.