The next big shoot out with the Brigham Bowmen club is the Formal Invitational to be held April 11 and 12 in Tremonton.  The big boys and girls will be shooting at 60, 50 and 40 yards, while the 12 to 14 year olds will shoot 50, 40 and 30 yards and the 9 to 11 year olds cover 30, 20 and 10 yards.  Those younger than 9 will shoot 20, 14 and 10 (that is where I should be).  The targets look LARGE!  But I’m sure when one is on the line shooting it will be quite a different story.

So, Weasel had me convinced to go to the field and give it a go last night.  I didn’t have much time and so I only shot maybe 15 times and the big bale of foam.  No target was placed on it, just shooting at the bale.  I figured if I could hit the bale, which measures about 4 feet long by 2 feet high that would be a good start to my long range shooting.  Any practice is better than none.  I am going to have to get myself used to shooting every day that I can in order to do much of anything in the realm of archery.  My ultimate goal is to put a deer in the freezer using my recurve bow.  That will take a lot of range time.  I owe it to the deer to be as accurate as I can be.

As you can see in the picture, the target is quite large, but you can see also it is a long ways down to the 60 yard mark.

I shot a set of 6 arrows at the 60 yard mark last night and had arrows flinging all over the place, two completely over the target and the other 4 bouncing off the ground.  Not bad for my first time and I got the confidence that my bow will actually shoot farther than 60 yards….I had my doubts.

Weasel then convinced me I should move to the 40 yard line and give it a go from there.  His teaching said, shoot from there until you are confident you can hit the bale every time and shoot 50 or so shots.  Once all the arrows are hitting the bale, move back to 50 yards and do it all over again and then eventually you will be shooting at the 60 yard line.  OK!  I’m good with that.

Moving up to the 40 yard line I decided I needed to do some calculating in my head as to how high to aim the bow in order to hit the bale.  My bow will not shoot an arrow straight at the bale and hit it, however it will bounce an arrow off the ground and hit it….I did that several times last night.  I also employed the entire bale to stop the arrows….4 ft X 2 ft….Not too good of a group.  But like I said, I did end with all 6 arrows hitting the bale without bouncing off the ground to do it.  A start to my long range shooting.

I read a bit on the internet this morning about how a Formal Invitational tournament works and even though I watched as Weasel and Conner shot in last years, it was all new to me and I didn’t retain much of any of it.  The article I read did emphasize how taxing it is on the body.  You shoot 5 sets of 6 arrows per set at each of the target distances.  That is 30 arrows at 60 yards, 30 at 50 and then 30 at 40 yards.  90 arrows total!  That is a whole lot of pulling the bow back and letting the arrow fly!  And then….you have to walk down range and get your arrows and walk back.  5 X 60 yards, plus 5 X 50 yards, plus 5 X 40 yards……In comparison to a day of hunting that isn’t much walking, but for old people out of shape it is a lot of walking!

I’ll keep you all posted on my progress in the field before the big day.  I would like to do well in this shoot.

Bears Butt

March 27, 2015