I am very fortunate in this episode to have two very special guests grace the airways with me. Austin and Courtney Motte of St Joe River Bows, over in Michigan United States.
They took time out of their very busy schedule of making bows to record the episode where we get to spend the time talking about everything from bow making, shows they have been too and are heading to and being a British podcast we briefly discuss the weather.
If you are in the states and heading over to ETAR this year, they will have a stand there.
They are a lovely couple and huge supporters of young archers in the traditional archery community. Please take some time to check out their website (https://stjoeriverbows.com/) which is packed with photos of some of their lovely looking bows. I’ve been fortunate to see some of their bows up close and being shot and been very impressed.
I’ve seen a few posts on different forums recently from new archers asking advice on how to keep twists in their bowstring when they take the string off the bow.
If you are a traditional archery shooting a one piece bow, you tend not to remove your bowstring from your bow, but if you are shooting a take down recurve, then when you take the bow down, you will remove the string. At this point it is very easy to drop the string and thereby lose the twists in it.
I know many people use a simple clip to hold them together, but I’ve always used a technique shown to me by my coach years ago. I’ve recorded this showing the technique I’ve used for years.
As always enjoy your archery. Thanks for watching.
Welcome to this write up on this years National Field Archer Society 3D championships. This two day event, was held at Thoresby Estate with around 500 archers attending. Each competitor would shoot 2 courses, one Saturday and one Sunday, in mixed groups. The courses consisting of 36 3D targets of varying sizes and distances, the longest being 68 yards I think. I all there would be 3 course A,B and C.
This year I had chosen to shoot barebow so I could be on the same course as my son who had put down his recurve, to shoot a full unlimited setup.
This would be the first year where binoculars would be allowed for all archers and I feel this did help, especially on the longer shots where you weren’t sure what you were shooting at or whether the arrow was in or not. My feeling was it sped the day up and I know that others I spoke to felt similarly.
I’ve created a couple of galleries the photographs I took over the 2 days. First course was on Saturday which would be B course having been set by Centaura club.
Sunday would be a very early start with admin being open from 7 am to 8 am, and it would see us shoot C course which was set by Castle Bowmen. I felt that Castle was the tougher course of the two I shot, being the furthest walk out and not helped by the amount raking undertaken when looking for wayward lost arrows.
Overall it was a good event though I did feel that the courses were a lot tougher that in recent years. I know several people struggled with the distances. Though I know it is very hard to please everyone and setting a 3D course is very exhausting, I do feel that a few well placed archery nets would have made a huge difference on a couple of targets, especially in respect of finding missed arrows.
We were very fortunate with the weather as the rain arrived in the evenings, leaving the days dry and pleasantly warm. A distinct change to how warm it had been over the past few weeks here.
My thanks to all who were involved in the setting of the courses, managing and marshalling the event. I think it is was one of the smaller championships with only about 500 archers and no large trade stalls which is really unusual.
If you are interested you can listen to episode 119 where I ask if events like the champs as really worth it?
As always thanks for taking the time to read the review and listen to the podcasts. Enjoy your shooting.
My Archery Experiences 