By: Bears Butt

 

 

The second day of the Formal Invitational was a very fun day.  The Brigham Bowmen group allowed me the pleasure to help run the 9 O’Clock line…what does that mean?  Well I got to wear a blaze orange jacket and carry a ping pong paddle.  It also allowed me to mingle with the shooters and take pictures.  There were two of us and we were actually supposed to watch the line for unsafe conditions and to let the announcer know when the field was clear of people so they could call the shooters to the line.  But, in reality, we just stood around and looked cool.

The only way I could have been “cooler” would be to be bigger….but those of you who know me, that ain’t gonna happen.

My goal for the day was to get some video of the archers shooting and bigger than that, the arrows hitting the targets.  I’ll be posting up links to some of that action once I get them loaded on You Tube.  Stand by for that in a future story.

What did happen at day two was some fun.  The group seemed to be more relaxed than yesterdays group.  I’m not sure why, but it seemed that way.  There was one lady shooter who had a story to tell.  It happened last weekend while camping.  Her husband pulled his bow out and started shooting at a milk jug or something and she decided to try a shot or two.  That was the first time she had ever picked up a bow in her life.  She continued during the weekend and her husband decided he needed to buy himself a new bow and gave that old bow to her.  So, they decided they needed to come to this formal shoot and give it a go.  Now, you would not believe the “rest of the story”, here is a picture of one of their groups early in the day.

I think this lady is going to be at many more events like this in the future!  Way to go!

It is always a pleasure to see the parents out encouraging their youngsters to do the best they can in all sports, but it just seems to me that archery is the one in which is it totally up to the archer to exceed expectations.  Sure it is nice when there is enough money available to set the youngster up with the “best” equipment, training and all of that, but it doesn’t take a rich person to play.  There is plenty of used equipment around and people willing to give free advise etc. to make anyone feel welcome to the sport.  I was fortunate enough today to spend most of the day with young people and watch how incredibly good they are with a bow and arrow in hand.

These two fathers were very proud of their youngsters as the days shooting progressed.  I was proud as well.  I’ve said this before…archery is one sport where it does not matter if you are large or small, girl or boy, strong or weak, handicapped or what not….YOU CAN DO THIS!  It is fun, clean, up lifting and as safe as the environment it is being played in.

To see a group of arrows all in the yellow ring, means no score is less than a 9!  This group appears to be all 10’s and X’s to me.

Remember too, that this shoot requires the shooters to pull back that bow over 90 times and after a bunch of shooting you can expect the groups of arrows to begin to spread out.  This is still an outstanding grouping of arrows!  These kids sure don’t have much of a problem with it!

And along with the shooting comes the scoring.  Each youngster would call out the score for the other shooter.  These kids were not shooting for the money, but if they had, then there would have been a double scoring sheet being written on.  In this case each shooter had their own score card and one shooter would write down the score for the other shooter.  It’s only fair.

 

You have been seeing the two shooters on the right, but at the 10 yard line, they were joined the the two boys on the left who had been shooting on their own line because they are younger.  Put the 4 of them together and look at the group of arrows finding that yellow circle!  Incredible shooting!

The smile says it all!  Nice X young man!

Let’s move over a line and see what is going on over there!

Boy!  That target is a LOONNGGG way down there!  But this young archer is not afraid to fling that arrow to find the mark and mom is right there to score the target!

When the youngsters start out at a young age, they pick up their form rather quickly and mold themselves into some very incredible shooting machines!  Going from groups like the one in this picture to shooting like this later in life.

 

So, from the line to the target it is all up to the archer to do their best.

And it wasn’t easy, but there sure were a lot of X’s scored today!

When you shoot like this and all but one of the arrows stay in the yellow circle, THAT is some great shooting!  This young lady hasn’t been shooting for too much longer than me and look that that group!  Is there an X in her day today?

Absolutely!  And even though I didn’t get a picture of it, I was told she had a 3X grouping before it was all over!  I sure wish I had been told of that one!  Congratulations!   I love X’s!

So, as with the others, the moms and dads like to participate in any way they can and mostly they were the ones scoring the targets.

Now I’d like you to follow me on a picture extravaganza showing just how X’s are born!  There were three young men who got into an “X shooting spree”, the fever to shoot X’s was growing as each end was shot and one X was not going to be enough for them!

A little background from my limited knowledge of these three shooters.  The guy on the left had 3 arrows to shoot and a heart as big as big.  His bow is a little big for him as well, but you would not have known it by his attitude to make those arrows do what he wanted them to do.  The young man in the middle has been a member of YHEC (Youth Hunter Education Challenge) for a few years and has been shooting a bow for that much time.  He placed in the State championship just this past weekend.  The archer on the right is a member of the Brigham Bowmen and has a couple of years of shooting under his belt.  All three of these young men were very fun to watch and be a part of their day.  I hope I wasn’t a pain in their behinds.

 

 

 

Count the fingers!  That is how many X’s they have racked up today!

 

We are getting close to running out of fingers!

HEY!  Where did that extra finger come from to make 11 X’s?

NOW can you see how much fun this game can be?  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves as to how much fun kids and adults alike can have shooting arrows!

A big thank you to all the archers who played this weekend!  I hope you had as much fun as I did!  Thank again to the Brigham Bowmen and the staff at the Box Elder County Fairgrounds!  A very nice venue to play in out of the rain and cold….well, it was a little cold in the arena this weekend, but at least we didn’t have any wind to blow our arrows around!  We will take that over the alternative!

JUST PLAIN FUN!

Bears Butt

April 13, 2015