Tag Archives: shoot

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

Jul 9 2012

How do you cope with failure: the missed shot or poor score?

missed target

Effects of missing a target

I’m curious to know how other archers cope with this. We all have bad days and poor shots, but how do you cope or overcome this so it doesn’t affect your next shot or even your entire day?
I suffer from this really badly.
If I blank a target, i.e. don’t get a scoring arrow out of the 3 arrows attempts allowed I get really down. This affects my shooting. I become less fluid in my movements, more tense in my draw; start second guessing distances and angles. I start fiddling with my coat or arm brace etc. I get frustrated with myself as I keep saying to myself it over, move on but this doesn’t always work.

I don’t think it helps that I tend to have a memory that remembers things like shots that I’ve taken.  I tend to approach targets and think “I shot something like this distance before and aimed here, but missed so need to be a little higher or to the left” etc.  Since I don’t gap shoot or use sights, my image maps and target distances are all based on previous shooting experience.

I’m talking from a keen archer who, in the past has won a couple of local shoots, but  is never going to be world class like those in the Olympics, but there must be techniques for overcoming such mind sets. Olympic archers or bow hunters must have methods of putting the shot behind them and moving on.

So how do other archers cope?
How do you overcome self induced stress and frustration?
I would be really interested in hearing from others on this.
Thanks for reading.
Jun 19 2012

Bow, arrows and kitchen sink …..what do you carry with you on a field shoot

In field archery you are on your feet walking a course from 10am until 4-5 pm or longer sometimes. This means you often have to carry not only your equipment (bow arrows and quiver) with you, I mean all the other stuff. Depending on what the terrain is like you could be on flat ground or going up and down hills all day, so carrying lots of kit can be very tiring.
Some archers travel light others carry everything but a kitchen sink.

Me at the woodGuess I am somewhere in between, on a normal shoot or when practising at the wood (see picture above) besides bow and arrows in my quiver I tend to carry a tube of spare arrows on my back. Whilst it’s not a Batman utility belt I do carry a small first aid kit, for bites, scratches plasters etc, though it has been used on many occasions for patching up other archers who have decided to try and chop their finger off whilst extracting arrows from tree stumps or have sliced it open when a carbon arrow has snapped.

Add to this a water bottle or mini thermos flask if it is cold, whistle for emergency signally which is on a retractable key ring along with an arrow puller (very useful for giving you a better grip on arrows when drawing them from a 3D or target boss), a multi-tool and an arrow rake in my quiver for finding those arrows lost in the undergrowth. I often carry some snacks in the quiver pouch (the main bag for drinks and sandwiches is normally left at central spot) and a spare finger tab etc.
If the weather isn’t great I carry a small pac-a-mac that I can put on to keep me dry.

Unlike some other archers I don’t carry a knife to dig arrows out of trees or stumps; I find an old flat headed screwdriver works just as well. It also means I’m less likely to cut off one of my fingers when extracting the wayward arrow from some tree that moved across the target as I release (always amazes me how many trees seem to move in to protect a target when I’m shooting)
I know a few people laugh at how much I carry but others have been grateful when I been able to lend then a finger tab, patched them up after cutting themselves or got the pliers out to retrieve a wayward pile from tree stump.

So what do you carry when out shooting?

To round it off I’ll have a metal detector in car, along with a kit box for spare strings etc
I quite like the small backpack that can double as a seat which I’ve seen appearing at shoots, but know I would forget to pick it up. Thanks for reading