Field Shooting

12 January 2008 - Wescott Archers Indoor 3D shoot

Now playing: Keep Holding On - Avril Lavigne

Yes you read that correctly, a field shoot indoors! I think it's just an excuse for Wescott Archers to hold onto their unwanted Christmas trees for a few weeks longer, but all the same this was a fantastic shoot! From the photos I saw of last years shoot, I was expecting something on a slightly larger scale, but essentially what they had done was to make a fairly compact hall into a forest scene using old Christmas trees, logs, huge pot plants and branches off bigger trees. The targets were well hidden in amongst the undergrowth, on top of pallets (made to look like a mountain!), and they even had a huge spider's web adorning the back wall. There was the full range of 3D animals ranging from hulking great boars to tiny little pigs, ducks, foxes, deer, bears, and even a crocodile in a little pond. The best and most challenging shots though were the two flying pigs and an oscillating owl - these shots had to be timed correctly otherwise your arrow just went sailing past! I've never actually shot at a moving target before!

The set up is very like your standard indoor shoot, in that everyone shoots from the one shooting line - and there are two targets per shooting position, each at differing (unmarked) distances. On each detail you get one arrow at one target, and then you move to the next shooting position along the line, and do the same again. Once you've traversed the entire line (and shot at 20 targets), the course is changed and you do it all over again. So bearing in mind this entire shoot was only 40 arrows, it's hard to imagine shooting so few arrows and having so much fun! The hall was fairly cramped, especially as there were 3 details, with people milling about carry bows, bumping into one another, knocking bows over and generally saying "oops, sorry", and "excuse me" an awful lot. All in all I think it just added to the fun!

Things started off well, and I was able to hit the animals with relative ease, until I realised that the person I was shooting with was actually out to win our 50p bet, and I noticed them checking out exactly where on each target the kill zones were. Up till then I was just happy to hit it, but you soon realise that you can score an awful lot more if you hit the correct parts of the target! So every time you go up to score your arrows, everyone was checking out their next targets to see where they should be aiming (usually the heart / lung area). So throughout the afternoon we were about 5 or so points apart until it came to the final two targets, and I stand there on the line (shooting next to them) and watch in awe as their arrow sails smack into the 11 ring on the first target, (that's counted as a pro kill) and neatly into the 10 ring on their final shot! So no pressure then! I managed a 10 and a 5 on my last two arrows, and conceded defeat by a huge 10 points to them. So instead of the 50p they got a Westcott sticker for their efforts!

Once again I've come away from a field shoot with a huge smile on my face, having had a great laugh, enjoyed my shooting to the very last arrow, and not had to worry about handicap, classification, position or whatever - it's just a laugh! And personally I think this is sometimes what a hobby should be all about. If you're feeling a little down about your shooting - go do a field shoot!

2 December 2007 - Company of 60 Open - NFAS 3D unmarked

Now playing: Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Only my second ever field shoot, and I have to admit I'd been looking forward to this since I'd booked it back in September! Company of 60 is quite a large field archery club, and have access to a very large wood near Leatherhead in Surrey. However, they are also fairly traditional in their approach, and don't allow any bows with any sort of sighting device at all. So among all the English longbows, American flat bows (AFB), Mongolian/Scythian type bows, and occasional compounds, I had to enter the classification of bare bow - the Helix *is* allowed in this class, but it's basically a stripped down bow, with no sights, no stabilisers and no use of the clicker either. They allow carbon arrows, but I'm still too precious over my Navigators so I used my trusty XX75 Platinum Plus aluminium arrows. A pressure button is also allowed, so I spent half an hour at the club on Saturday using a spare button and shooting the bow (bare) at targets at 10, 20 and 30 yards just to get the feel of it - and boy did it feel different!

When we arrived on the morning of the shoot, a very vocal lady gave us our target numbers and some cursory instructions on what NOT to do, sounded a very loud whistle, and sent us on our way. The course was a mixture of 3D and flat targets ranging in both size and distance, although all the distances were unmarked. This made for a lot of guesswork in the aiming, and after about 3 or 4 targets it was simply a case of "guess your best". Shooting without a sight does take some getting used to, but after a while it became a lot easier and more natural, especially (I found) when you shoot with both eyes open - somehow the perspective of the target and the arrow tip seemed to work better with two eyes rather than one. I also shot with all three fingers under the arrow rather than the Mediterranean style (one finger above, two below), and this seemed to ensure my arrows mostly stayed low, rather than sailing high over the target (with a couple of notable exceptions!) Thankyou to Mike J for this piece of advice!

The course was fairly flat, and very well laid out, and had some very well-conceived shots, one especially hard one was a tiny owl inside a tree stump, which proved very tricky - very few people managed to hit it. And you'd also think that hitting a full sized elephant from about 50 yards would be easy too - except he was deceptively far away, probably closer to 60 yards, and again proved a tough one. Due to the woods being as flat as they are, there were no shots like the Holmbush shoot through pipes, or over lakes, but they made up for that by making you shoot through trees, between trees, and from behind trees - a couple of memorable shots of mine ended high in the braches of an oak tree which I had to climb to retrieve, and another which went flying over the top and into the undergrowth behind, never to be seen again. Hence the reason for not using expensive carbon arrows! Another hint - if you're like me, and have the occasional miss, make sure your arrows are brightly coloured - it makes them a lot easier to find!

I think I managed to work out the scoring system today too (with a little help from some friends!) - the following table will explain the system

The kill zone is an area marked on the animal, usually representing its heart or lungs and generally not much larger than about 12" in diameter, all the rest of the animal is considered a wound.

I think I finished with a score of about 310 from the 34 targets, which I was fairly happy with, but nowhere near any medal placings. But again I wasn't there to win anything but just simply to have some fun in the woods, wade through a lot of mud (good boots are essential) and to just enjoy my archery. One arrow lost, but it was a cheapie so I'm not too fussed, and the pay-back in terms of pure fun is immeasurable - field shooting really is a great laugh and I can highly recommend it to anyone. Definitely doing this again!

11 August 2007 - Holmbush Farm NFAS 3D unmarked

Now playing: I'll be there for you - The Rembrandts

I've never had any interest in field archery before, and was preferring to focus on getting my ability in target shooting somewhere reasonable before diluting it by doing something that, up until now, I'd considered as not particularly fun. You wander around the woods, shoot at targets that you have no idea how far away they are, and (probably) lose or break your arrows in the process - not my idea of a laugh.  How wrong could I have been?

Today I shot at the Holmbush Farm NFAS 3D (unmarked) field shoot, and had an absolute ball!

To begin with, because of the potential for over-shoots or hitting something you shouldn't, you MUST join the National Field Archery Society (NFAS) before they'll let you loose in the woods with a bow, for insurance purposes. Did that quite painlessly and trotted off down the M23 past Gatwick at the crack of dawn this morning to a woods in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on the South Downs.

In a clearing was the check in tent, a camp fire, and the smell of sizzling bacon, and the sun was beaming down through the wood smoke and the leaves - this is my idea of fun! At assembly we were given some cursory instructions on the peg system, the scoring system and a few safety rules (it has been known for archers to get shot at). The course is basically a large figure of eight, looping back to the centre where the check in tent is, when you're about halfway round, where we stopped for a bite to eat before carrying on with the second loop. I must admit, I felt a little out of place with my Olympic recurve bow, the stabilisers, and sights etc, compared to nearly everyone else who were all armed with a variety of longbows, flatbows and some compounds. Shooting with my type of bow is apparently called 'Freestyle' and all the other bows have their different categories as well.

Once shown to our first target the peg system was explained to us. There are three pegs in the ground (red, white, & blue) from which you must shoot, and you must touch the peg with your leading foot as you shoot. Each peg is a progressively closer distance to the target, and you shoot one arrow from each until you hit the target. If you hit first time, then you stop shooting. Each person in your group does this and then you go off to either a) score your arrows in the target, or b) hunt for your arrows in the undergrowth. What's interesting though, is that the target distances are not marked, so you have absolutely no idea how far they are - that's all down to guesswork and hoping!

I wont bore the reader with the scoring system as I'm not too sure how it worked myself, but essentially you get a higher score if you hit the target from the furthest peg, and the scores gradually decrease as you move closer. I was very grateful for having some experienced field archers in my group to do the scoring for me, and I just told them what I'd hit (or missed, as the case may be).

The targets were amazing - a mixture of 3D solid targets (large foam animals) and 2D targets (pictures of animals on foam boards). They ranged from tiny rabbits, foxes, wolves, deer, bears, boars and a couple of tigers. They were all very challenging, and usually set in between trees, in ditches, over streams and lakes, and one in particular you had to shoot through a large pipe - due to the way shot was set up, it wasn't until you went to score the arrows that we realised that the pipe led over a lake, and we'd shot through the pipe and over the lake in one shot! That was pretty impressive!  Another memorable one was a small mound of earth, on which you had to stand, and you were effectively surrounded by four rabbits and a fox - the nearest of which was only about five yards away, and almost hidden in a ditch. You could tell a lot of thought had gone into setting the course out, and when talking to the organisers, it apparently had taken them nearly a month to set up beforehand!

Anyway, I came away with a score of 588, which I have no concept of whether that's any good or not, but frankly I don't care - it was such a great laugh just wandering around the woods shooting at animals and not having to worry about things like handicap, scores, and classifications etc. And as an added bonus, I didn't lose or break any arrows either!

I can highly recommend field shooting if you want to just have a laugh and some fun shooting with absolutely no pressure at all, and get away from the pressures of target archery for a day (or a weekend).