Last Sunday we headed south on the motorway to Thornbury Field Archery Club for their 40th anniversary shoot. I have come to the conclusion that I really hate road works on motorways and especially 50 mile an hour limits, which only some people adhere to. Anyway on to the shoot report. We’ve shot at Thornbury a couple of times and this was by far their busiest shoot with over 120 people attending. You can read the last shoot report here.

Despite the size of the event it was still friendly and flowed quite well with only a couple of hold ups.

We would be shooting with a couple we’d not met before, Helen and Jason. Helen shooting Barebow and Jason his compound. It was really nice to meet another archery couple and we hope to shoot with Jason and Helen again in the future.

Unlike previous shoots at Thornbury, this one would be a full 40 target course, with a mix of 3D, paper and hessian faces. They had managed to secure the adjacent field to their wood which has enabled them to set 4 targets in field including a lovely 3d target of a badger under a fallen tree.

There were a couple of predator prey shots (only one arrow at each target allowed) along with some challenging shots over banks or window shots between trees.

I think one of the hardest shots of the day was one of the special shots, where you had three 3d deer targets and a wolf 3d behind. The target was the wolf and if you hit the deer you blanked the shot.

I’m not sure but think they must have some very gifted artists in the club as they had some lovely hessian targets on the course including a fantastic tiger and a fish jumping out of the water for a dragon fly.

The elephant shot returned, though not at the great length it was previously, but it still made for a challenging shot between the trees.

My complements to the cooks as the chilli at lunch was great as was the homemade lemon cake. Sharon shot well winning ladies AFB and I was pleasantly surprised coming first in gents AFB.

Thanks for reading.