Avalon Shoot Report 16th & 17th July 2011

With the hot spell over and a forecast of some showers this weekend was promising to be cooler and slightly damp and having just returned from a week in Istanbul I was looking forward to some cooler weather and was not going to be bothered by a bit of rain.

But as they say you should be careful what you wish for because on Saturday the it was not raining Cats and Dogs it was raining Elephants and Hippos as the heavens opened at the start of the shoot we we all soaked within a few targets. As a result many an, intelligent, archery packed up and left early and so all that remained were foolhardy and insane.

I'm not sure which of those two camps I fit in but having been soaked within a few targets and having no equipment that would be badly damaged by the rain I decided to work my way through all my waterproofs and stick it out for the day and then try and dry everything before returning on Sunday. Fortunately I do have multiples of some items so the wet and still dripping were left in the utility room to be replaced by new dry versions. The only thing I could not dry was the leather handle on my longbow. Sunday as it turned out was a total contrast to Saturday with only a single short deposit of Elephants and hence by the end of the day even my bow handle had dried.

Avalon Shoot Report 10th April 2011

Avalon was going to be my first field shoot of 2011 and I had been looking forward to it for sometime. Having not shot much over the winter and just arriving back from a trip the Washington it was also going to an entertaining day. As usual the Avalon guys had set an extremely entertaining course that combined fun and difficulty to make the one of the most enjoyable for a while. In addition to a well laid course we had exceptional weather for early April with clear blue skies, as seen below, and temperatures in the 20s (I'm glad we were under cover for most of it or the factor 30 would not have been enough).

As events would happen John was not feeling up to shooting today so it was going to be one of those odd days shooting without his banter but at least he would not out shoot me as he usually does. As it turned out I was going to be shooting Debbie, Wayne and Steve from Invicta HT archers so I had the honors of the Longbow Archers on my shoulders to prove we can score just the same as they can.

With a good chatty friendly group today's shooting was going to be fun but first a bacon butty and a cup of tea.

We we due to start on Target 6 "The Bees Nest" and following a warning by Clive we avoided the taped area near the Red peg and awaited the sound of the horn to start the shooting. The first target of the day was a Bedded Deer and it was with some trepidation that I took to the Red peg. The first field shot in, ooooooo, months. But as it was a 16 was on the cards and I was off to a good start and shooting coming back to me like falling off a bike.

Avalon Shoot Report 17th & 18th July 2010

When this shoot first appeared in the calendar it classed with Jim's Jungle Jaunt which was not great because I wanted to shoot both. Fortunately Avalon moved their shoot date and so I could shoot both. Having watched the weather with interest the week before I was not quite sure what we were going to be in for but as luck would have it the rain of the previous week (although I understand they had none in Sandy anyway) had disappeared for the weekend and it promised to be warm and pleasant and rather entertaining especially on the Sunday but more of that later.

As usual the course layers at Avalon did an exceptional job providing an entertaining and at time rather difficult course that was changed over night by the sadistic pixies. We only had one issue on the second day with the course which required target 40 to be removed.

To all those Archers who were complaining and swearing about the Cub that had a ricocheted off the back of the Leopard, that was target 40, narrowly missing the marshal taking photo on target 2. Just think if the course had not been layed the way it was it would never have happen. All he did was highlight a fault in the course. 

But enough of whining archers back to the positives and as I have already said the course was well structured and very entertaining.

As this was going to be Ruth & James last shoot for a while, because of an impending sprog, Sam & Owen had requested to shoot with them so John and I would be shooting with Emma and Trevor, from Goshawk, both shooting Unlimited. An interesting combination 2 Unlimited and 2 Longbow archers. Two taking the time before the shot calculating distances for their guaranteed hit and 2 spending time after the shot hunting for stray arrows.