South Wilts Shoot Report 5th & 6th May 2012

With the success of last years Bluebell Shoot South Wilts were again running it over two days with camping and partying on the Saturday night although given the weather of the previous week the field was likely to be wet and as such I decided I'd rather drive than camp.

So with the weather forecast expected to be dry and cold it was was looking like a good weekend of shooting was on the cards. Little did I know at this point that I was in for a cracking weekend and by that I do do not I had an excellent score. With 8 broken arrows on the Saturday and 3 on the Sunday I only manage to put a score in for the whole weekend that I should have score in a single day. This I have to say was totally down to the archer who could only seem to hit trees and ricochet off the backs of the 3Ds. So given my abilities over the weekend if you had asked me to hit a Barn Door at a 100 yards I'd have missed by a mile good job I was not hunting for food.

Anyway enough of the bad points of my weekend on on to the positives because as usual the course layers at South Wilts did an exception job using all the best features of the wood providing the usual mixture of tricky and deceptive shots followed by simpler and supposedly easier shots. These easier shots usually followed a deceptive one and you were left thinking is this as easy as it seems.


On Saturday I was shooting with Rob (AFB) and Peter (LB) and with a small group of 3 we would be shooting fast and spending most of the time looking for arrows (fragments). We started on target 10, half way round the lower course, and by the end of the day this meant a long walk back.

The first shot of the day was a Turkey and scraping an 8 should have been an indication of where things were to go, especially given it was an easy shot, and so with that out of the way it was off to the next target and things started to pick up. A series of 10s not the best but at least I was hitting the targets but then came the Kestrel, a blank and 2 broken arrows as I put the first to the right and a ricochet off a tree; the second to the left and another ricochet whilst the 3rd simply whistled over it's head and into the backstop.

That was the true start to the day and with each blank there was usually a broken arrow as I found tree after tree after tree. Given the way they lay the course at South Wilts and leverage every bit of terrain I was in for a smashing day and Fred, from Westcott, would be increasing the number of arrows in his quiver (he has a slightly shorter draw length than me). But as I said this was the archer and not the course causing the problems and although the course was challenging in places it was exceptionally well laid, as usual, with the challenging shots making it a fun day especially given the easy going chat with my fellow archers.

Rob was also having a slightly bad day given that he had just recovered from back problems and by half way through he was in the situation of drawing until it hurt and then release. At this point his luck improved along with his scores culminating in the "Barnes Wallis" 24 just before lunch (below).

By the end of the day I was 8 arrows down and 1 needing a new pile, at least I had spares, but having thoroughly enjoyed the days shooting it was time to head home and hope Sunday would be better.

Classic

Tricky Spider

Robs "Barnes Wallis" Shoot

Spot the Arrow

For the Sunday I had decided to use some older arrows, given Saturday, but this turned out in the end to be a mistake because my old arrows were spined for my old bow and at 65# they were simply not stiff enough. Having registered on Sunday I noticed I would be shooting with a different group with Kerry and Colin initially but we were joined by Jane after a few targets. At this point I was hoping Sunday would be better than Saturday and in one respect it was given that I only broke 3 arrows and missed fewer target. But given all of that I still scored less, just too many 4s, but again it was a well laid course with some interesting and entertaining archers.

Over night the South Wilts course layers had been out and essentially changed the course completely so if you remember anything from Saturday then it would be of no use Sunday. Today we would be starting on target 8 and to get there we needed to walk past target 1 which looked to be a very interesting and long shot at a lion, but more of that later. As it turned out target 8 was the bane of Colins life life a bright orange frog which he had so much difficulty with on the Saturday and faired no better on Sunday.

For me it was a second arrow kill and I though hey things look better than yesterday and so it appeared for a few targets but then it was back to the form I was in Saturday. It took me a fair few targets and broken arrows to realise that the arrows I was using were spined wrong and hence that was why they were flexing so much. But by this time there were simply too many 4s on the score sheet to allow for a good score and so I switched to arrows that were more appropriately spined and guess what my scores improved.

So with scores improving thing were looking up and after completing most of the course it was time to start our final 7 targets and to kick it off was target 1 which had been changed to a long shot at a Lion (see below) and knowing that behind this Lion was a deep pond it was not a shot you wanted to over shoot. This was probably the longest shot of the weekend and also maybe one of the most entertaining difficult but achievable.

With only a few more targets to shoot it had been another enjoyable days shooting with a good bunch of archers on, yet again, a well laid course.

So although overall it was a disastrous weekend it was also an extremely enjoyable one and I'll be back next year.

Bear

1st Arrow Wound :-)

Not so good for tall longbow archers

Cracking Shot across the pond

Target 1

Saturday 5th May

Target				Target
		Me	John			Me	John
10	Turkey	8	-	30	Goose	8	-
11	Deer	10	-	31	Polar Bear	-	-
12	Pig	10	-	32	Fox	10	-
13	Rat	10	-	33	Wolf	16	-
14	Deer	8	-	34	Owl	16	-
15	Warthog	10	-	35	Frog	4	-
16	Kestrel	-	-	36	Bear	4	-
17	Deer	-	-	37	Pronghorn	10	-
18	Crocodile	16	-	38	Spider	20	-
19	Armadillo	16	-	39	Panther	-	-
20	Tiger	-	-	40	Hyena	-	-
21	Bison	-	-	01	Mountain Goat	14	-
22	Red Squirrel	20	-	02	Carp	16	-
23	Deer	-	-	03	Deer	-	-
24	Duck	14	-	04	Raccoon	16	-
25	Rhino	14	-	05	Honey Badger	-	-
26	Bobcat	16	-	06	Wolf	-	-
27	Tiger	4	-	07	Leopard	16	-
28	Javelina	10	-	08	Crow	10	-
29	Deer	-	-	09	Partridge	8	-
		166	-			168	-
				Total		334	-

Sunday 6th May

Target				Target
		Me	John			Me	John
08	Frog	14	-	28	Vulture	10	-
09	Grey Squirrel	14	-	29	Bedded Deer	-	-
10	Wild Boar	-	-	30	Raccoon	10	-
11	Cobra	10	-	31	White Goat	16	-
12	Wolf	10	-	32	Fox	16	-
13	Duck	-	-	33	Deer	-	-
14	Standing Bear	4	-	34	Grey Squirrel	16	-
15	Wild Boar	4	-	35	Wild Boar	-	-
16	Otter	-	-	36	Bear	10	-
17	Deer	4	-	37	Bison	4	-
18	Moose	4	-	38	Standing Deer	16	-
19	Mini Bear	-	-	39	Crocodile	-	-
20	Tortoise	8	-	40	Wild Boar	16	-
21	Otter	-	-	01	Lion	8	-
22	Goose	10	-	02	Hare	4	-
23	Mountain Goat	4	-	03	Wildebeest	4	-
24	Rabbit	16	-	04	Fox	-	-
25	Bear	4	-	05	Hyena	10	-
26	Deer	14	-	06	Pronghorn	14	-
27	Wolf	4	-	07	Bear	16	-
		124	-			170	-
				Total		294	-