The Annual Westcott NFAS occurred over the weekend of the 18th / 19th January 2009 and based on the fun I had last year I was looking forward to a rather entertaining few hours of shoot. We were due to shoot in 13:30 session but due to the M40 managed to miss this because of an accident that closed it for while. Thanks to a bit of luck and Cass we managed to squeeze onto the later 18:30 session (fun because I did not bring a coat expecting to be out by 17:00). As usual the "Outdoors Indoors" shoot was layed out in the Westcott hall with the prolific Christmas Trees sprouting from the concrete floor and laying their needle covered branches across the floor at least no mud or so I thought( I proved myself wrong on that one by shooting the plant pot). The shoot consisted of moving along a line with 10 shooting positions each with two targets and we were allowed one arrow at each target. These consisted of the traditional combination of long (well 20 yards) large animal 3Ds and the trickier short small 3Ds.
My son and I started on target 1 the Saber Tooth Lion and the rising Gofer the classic long(ish) shot and the moving target. It was my lucky day I bag them both and then it was off to the Triceratops and the Mini Bear in his thong devilishly hidden so that he was only really visible from close up. It was essentially a shot in the dark a black target in the shadows not happy with this the Westcott boys (course layers) decided to hide the standing bear behind the fronds of a palm tree with the only real option to shoot through the said fronds. Missing the previous Stegosaurus is how I managed to cover my arrow in the soil from the Palm plant pot. 
The second shot on peg 4 was the Boar and it was a "Pig of a shot" hidden behind the volcano and the best part of a Christmas Tree. That and the fact the shooting position was behind another tree meant I missed the boar and heard a resounding crack as I hit the volcano. Next shot was the crock on the volcano (or turkey for the second round) easy I thought but no that big red volcano was like a magnet to my arrow and crack I hit it again. 
Moving on a couple of targets it was time for the caged lion, brought in from the cold, but like the classic Barn Door at 100 yards I could not hit a caged lion at 20 (although I killed it the second time around). Moving on past Rocky the Raccoon and the disappearing Wolf (see Shoot review July 2008) it was onto the flying pigs. Now this is always an entertaining shot, two arrows at the revolving pigs, and usually generates a loud thunk as the arrow hits the back wall so save your old ones for this shot. I must admit is you aim in the right place a miss results in a hit on the lion :-). Having missed the pig I moved onto the last targets before the tea break; a moving owl and leopard. These dutifully disposed of it was time for tea and donuts and a quick comfort break. After the half hour rest whilst the Westcott course layers moved some of the targets it was back to shooting the bouncing Gofer. The tea break had obviously been what I needed because I was much more successful second time around and the extra donut my son managed had a similar effect (brightening his mood in general). 
The shot of the day was made by our 3rd shooting partner. My son had managed to bag himself a 10 but his arrow was dangling from the target. Being the "Nice" farther I am (will that's my story and I'm sticking to it) I completely missed the kill on the small wolf but out shooting partner was not quite as generous deciding a 10 is what he needed and one close to the existing arrow. The net result is pictured to the right, it's all part of the fun and gave my son another reason why we should make him some more arrows. I'm only surprised he did not suggest it as a reason for a new bow. All in all it was a great afternoon / evening shooting and if you have never shot "Outdoors Indoors" then book now for next years Westcott indoor shoot they promise it will be more entertaining and devious than this years.
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