Black Arrow – archers gathering

I have to say it was a little strange going to the Black Arrow shoot as a competitor, having been a member for several years. The club has moved from the wooded hillside near Coxbench in Derbyshire where I learnt to shoot to now being located near Lout. Even though it is a different location there were some similarities, including the old trap covered shelter. This new site being a stones’ throw or should that be an arrow flight, from Harlequin archers, Long Eaton, and the new Merlin archery wood.  Seems the area is fast becoming a nexus or archery clubs in the midlands.

There was a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere at the shoot with over 80 archers or so attending, though I think they had quite a few no shows. Fortunately the strong winds forecast didn’t arrive until late in the day and even then it wasn’t too much of a problem as its quite a dense woodland.

Our first target a hessian owl

The 40 target course would be a mix of 3D, 2D, paper faces and some very well painted hessian faces ranging from badgers to bears. The only downside being not always seeing the detail of these targets until you are up close, so you are having to guess where the scoring zones were. But they did look good.

The club has invested in some of the 2D targets similar to those owned by the Harlequin club. One of these being a 2D lion which I hadn’t seen before and was a lot smaller than expected, might explain why it was so hard to hit and see from the white peg thanks to the fast growing bracken. Glad I managed to hit it from the red peg, one of my few good shots of the day.

The not so large 2D lion

They do also have some homemade 3D targets, including a large bear, complete with a salmon which was the kill zone and a coloured peacock. The only problem being the latter target was still wet though, so I now have a blue and white right boot.

3D peacock – should have come with a warnings as paint was still wet

As for other shots there were a few framed shots which I quite liked, though I think a few of the peg positions were a bit tight for younger archers and too close to trees or branches that you could have caught a limb on.

Sharon shooting off the tower

Our group for the day would be Sharon, myself, D’No aka Dean shooting bow hunter and David shooting AFB both from Hanson. The club catering was great as they had two food stops, which enabled them to run a shoot through, both having a wide selection of cakes to keep archers going along with hot drinks.

Paper face red squirrel

It’s obvious they are putting a lot of effort into the courses, including building a tower enabling them to set a more technical elevated shot involving height difference. This is something they struggle with being located in an otherwise flat woodland.

A slightly different angle showing Sharon shooting from the tower

They had one interesting shot through a barrel and another of a paper face duck over a small pond and used dead ground well. Another nice feature was the way they had covered all their target bosses with camouflage tarpaulin making them less obvious.

Marshals were all friendly and proved good at reacting to problems when reported, which is always good to see. Though I think they struggled with the speed of growth of the bracken in some areas as a few shots were very hard to see despite having been trimmed the day before.

In all it was a good day seeing friends and catching up with an old house mate Stuart, from university days. On a personal note I think I would have preferred to see some the well painted hessian targets on the closer shots, as I felt some of the small paper faces (Jay, duck etc.) felt a bit stretched. Still Sharon shot well, winning ladies AFB and I managed a second place.

It was good to see the club appearing to be thriving and running shoots at their new grounds, I hope this continues in the future.

Thanks for reading