By: Bears Butt

I have something to share with all of you.  I like to gamble a little, not too much but a little.  I’ve never been one to play sports much, dabble yes, but not play like my life depends on it and for sure I find it a waste of time to watch it on the tube.  Baseball, football, basketball and all the rest, and yet I have friends who can’t live a day without some sort of view, story or dialog about these sports.  They even have imaginary teams they make up with the real names of players and they play their imaginary teams against their buddies imaginary team and bet beers and such on them.  I never could understand any of that.  How on earth do they know who won what?  Anyway, suffice it to say, I will watch the big games like Super Bowl and World Series, but only if I have a number on the game.  I really could care less about which team wins, as long as my number comes up and I win some money!

So, I get talked into “running a board”…..100 squares for $X per square.  I make up some rules and away we go.  It’s not too hard to find enough people willing to “pay to play”, as I have found there are a lot of people who think like me, but who have to have the game playing in their house because of a fanatic that lives in the same house and so they might as well have some money riding on the outcome.

Well the board has been full for several big games, but at the last World Series a small group of 5 guys who have coffee together have 5 squares on my board.  When the numbers for each of the squares had been pulled they complained that 3 of the 5 of them had “tied” scores….like 8 to 8, or 9 to 9….When confronted my defense was that I choose totally at random.  I have 100 playing cards with numbers 1 through 100 on them and I mix them into a box and pick one out at a time and corresponding that number with my list of names, beginning with the first name and going down the list, that name gets put on that square.  Square one is the upper left square and square 100 is the bottom right square.  In choosing what number goes at the head of the column or row, I take 10 cards out of the mix, 1 through 10 and pull the number and write it either in the first square along the top or the last square along the top and move either left or right across the top accordingly.  The same with the side numbers.  At any rate, it is totally random and anyone can end up anywhere on the board.  AND when you think about it, there are 10 numbers across the top and 10 numbers down the side, 10 of the squares in the field (of 100 squares) will be ties, who cares?

Well, they accepted that fact and went on about business.  Did they win?  I don’t know, but at least they had a square, which is more than most people….and I have a waiting list of people wishing they could get on the board.  The way it is set up, the 100 squares are spoken for until someone opts off and then the square becomes someone else’s…it’s all fair!

Randomness is always the most fair when it comes to something like this.  Some people run their boards by allowing the square holders to write their names in any open square on the board when the come to pay and will continue to sell the squares in this fashion until it is full.  Then put the numbers along the top and along the sides…those being the only randomness of their board.  I’ve played with boards like that and they are fine.  Any gambling board is fair, especially if the end of the game numbers are the same as my numbers on the board!  Then life is really good!

Ok, so it is Super Bowl time!  Big name teams paying out tons of money to big name players, who may or may not be taking bribes etc. to sway a game one way or another.  Maybe even deflating the balls to give them a better advantage.  The gambling casinos in Nevada and other places around the world are taking all sorts of bets on this game.  Bets on who will win the coin toss.  Which team will score first.  Which player on the team will actually carry the ball across the goal line.  Which water boy will drop his basket of water bottles.  Which players will pick up the drink cooler to dump on the coach when the game is over.  They bet on anything and everything.  And so, trying my best to be like them…..I have this board (insert humble smiley face here).

Giving a lot of thought into how to make this drawing as fair as possible so as to avoid these 5 guys from getting tied scores.  There are 90 squares that will not be ties and only 10 that will be ties.  What are the odds that I need to worry about any of them getting a tied score on this board?  Hey, gambling guys!  There you go!  What is the bet and what can I win?  They have a 10 to 90 chance of getting a tied score.

Well, I’m still worried about it and so I really put my thinking cap on.  I have a list of 96 names and the four of us who collect and distribute money get one square each for “working” the board, for a total of 100 names.  Today I decided to number each of the names on the list 1 through 100.  I mixed up the multiple square holders (some have two, some have as many as 5) so that each name had numbers representing their numbers of squares.

Then I went to the internet and found a “random number drawing system” and had it print me out a random list of numbers from 1 to 100.  The first number on this list was “51” and the last number on the list was “6”….as random as it gets.

Comparing the list of names to the list of numbers, number 51 was “Joe Dokes”(name made up to protect the innocent).  I wrote Joe’s name in the first square on the board.  The second number on the random list of numbers was “62”…The name on the list that was numbered 62 was “Martha S.” (We all know who she is), and her name was written in square two on the board.  I did this for every number on the random list and checked off the name from the list.  Multiple square holders were treated the same as their respective numbers came up.

I ask you, how could I have ever done this any more random than that?

OK, there is more to this than that.  We still have to select the numbers that go across the top of the grid and also down the side.  There are 10 squares across and 10 squares down…10X10 = 100.

I again went to the magic of the internet and used the random numbers list generator to give me two lists from 1 to 10….the first one I printed I wrote…across the top….the second one I printed I wrote…down the side.  Those numbers were written in their respective squares, across the top of the board and down the side of the board.

One last detail!  There are two teams playing in the Super Bowl…Denver Broncos and South Carolina Panthers.  A quick flip of the coin and I wrote the Panthers down the side and Broncos across the top.

Random as random can get!

Well, all of us “workers” like to make sure everyone playing has a copy of the board once it’s filled out and ready to go.  The rules are also copied and made ready to anyone wishing to know what those are as well.  Everything is above board and with that…Happy Campers Every One.

As I was highlighting the names of the 5 guys who drink coffee together I was thinking to myself just how fair I had been to everyone involved and then I looked at the scores for each of them.  Player one…5 to 6 (not the real score, in fact none of the scores I’m about to write are correct, but you will get the drift), Player two…1 to 1…..Player three…5 to 5…..Player four…8 to 8 and Player five…7 to 7.  (How about that odds makers?)

OH MY HECK!  Four of the five players have tied scores!  I’m going to be hearing about this soon.

Now for real.  No score at this point in the process is a bad score.  In fact every score is a winning score.  It isn’t until the game is played that the winning scores will be known.  But, as a consolation and as I have two squares of my own, I have offered any one of them the chance to trade one of my squares for theirs before the game begins if they would like.  I’m very fair like that.

Bears Butt

January 25, 2016

 

Written on January 25th, 2016 , Uncategorized
By: Bears Butt

SweetBreads

Sweet Bread!

PotChili1

Chili!

Today is a multi-tasking day!  I saw Sherry off to work and then MY work started!  A big old pot of boiling sweetbreads and a double batch of chili!  Both of these dishes are yummy to my tummy!

Well, the sweetbreads are pretty much an easy task with one exception…preparation!  You can go on here and read how to do it, just search for sweet breads or sweetbreads and it will pop up.  Enjoy yourself and remember…even though your back hurts really bad by the time you get finished prepping them, the enjoyment of eating them later will make you forget all about the pain!

But the main reason for this writing is my chili recipe!   I always like to take a look at the recipe before I begin cooking even if I have it memorized, just so I don’t forget some important part or something.  Well, I came on here and did a search….NOTHING came up!  My first thought was that my site had been hacked and some of my stuff vaporized…but that was not the case.  I looked through every  posting under recipes and no chili recipe was there!  SO!  Today it will be posted up!

I’m currently waiting for my back spasms to die down a bit from standing over the sink the last hour and a half doing the 9 pounds of sweet breads, so this is a good break.

BEARS BUTT’S CHILI:

Please read all the way through this recipe before beginning to cook it!  I’ve warned you.

My chili recipe is not any different than anyone elses, but here it is anyway!

What you will need:  1 lb of beans…I like red beans, but pinto beans are good too.  Today I’m making a double batch so I have a pound of each and of course everything else is doubled as well.

1 Lg. yellow onion (chopped)

1 Lg. green pepper (chopped)

1 Lb. burger (today, one lb. of venison burger and one of beef, I don’t want to run out of venison too soon, it’s still 7 months till archery season).

1 Lb. Chili con carni mix

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder

1 Qt. tomatoes (the way mom always puts them up)

1, 8 oz can of tomato sauce (optional)

Simple ingredients for a simple yet delicious meal!

In a fry pan mix and fry the burger, onions and pepper until the meat is done.  If you have purchased greasy hamburger you will want to drain it off at this time.  Nothing will spoil your chili like having that tallow taste on the top of your tongue after a bite of chili with too much grease in it!  (I am finding myself smacking my tongue against the roof of my mouth right now).

When that is done, toss in the chili con carni mix and blend it in, add 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt and mix that up too.  Once all that is blended in together, you are going to add this to the pot of beans.

HOLD IT!  Where is this pot of beans?

I forgot to tell you at first.  You are going to have to sort your beans out and soak them over night….LAST NIGHT!  Well, you might as well tell the family you won’t be having chili until tomorrow night because you didn’t read all the way through this recipe before you started making it!  Don’t blame me!  I warned you!  It’s you that wants to make this chili!  Always read through the recipe and make sure you have ALL ingredients before beginning to cook it!  Also, make sure you are following the directions (some say “to a ‘T'”….I say, follow it…”sorta”).

So, now you have sorted the beans and picked out all the rocks and ugly stuff, right?  Then you put the beans in a large bowl and covered them with water, like an inch over top of the beans in the bowl, and soaked them overnight…right?  Now pour the swollen beans/water through a colander (a bowl with lots of holes in it.  If you don’t have one of those just carefully pour the water off the beans and be done with it.  Pick up dropped beans and put them in the pot with the rest….it’s O.K.).  Give them a quick rinse and then dump them in a pretty big pot.   Pour water in the pot until the beans are covered by at least an inch of water (2 is better) and start the pot boiling.  CAUTION:  Keep an eye on the water level in the pot and add water as necessary during boiling process.

You know, pots of beans don’t come without some sacrifice.

Once the pot begins to boil you will have about 2 hours to wait until the beans are done.  Begin sampling the beans after an hour and 15 minutes.  Don’t over cook them, but don’t under-cook them either.  I hate chili with beans that sort of “crunch”, I’d rather eat chili with beans that will mush when I press them with my (un-tallowed) tongue against the roof of my mouth.  Those are the best!  Keep in mind too, this is not one of Chef Ramseys chili recipes, and it probably won’t be seen on TV anytime soon, so it is your recipe as much as it is mine.  Do what you want with the ingredients and mix things up a bit.  I’m old fashioned and like my meals plain and simple, meat and potatoes, salt and pepper…that pretty much sums up my meals.

Let’s pretend the beans are now cooked just the way you like them!  Grab up the pan of fried meat and add it to the beans!  OH, you didn’t save it.  You made taco’s out of it last night huh?  Well, it’s a pretty good way to make taco’s if you ask me.  Chili….Tacos….Mexican type food and they are a simple sort of culture…meat and potatoes kind of folks, why make a meat mixture any different for one thing than another?  I agree.  Well, get to cooking, you got chili to make.

At this point you are probably wondering…”Why doesn’t Bears Butt drain the pan of cooked beans?  Look at the water in that pot!  It’s all reddish brown and yucky looking”.  Well, honey, this is my recipe and if you want to drain them go ahead,  I like to think of it this way…Those beans have a lot of good stuff inside them and when I boil them some of that good stuff comes out into the water.  Thus the color.  Why would I want to take something that God put in them and dump it down the drain?  Besides, water ain’t cheap and if I drain them I will have to add more.

So, now I’ve added my fried meat mixture into the pot of beans (cooking water and all).  Pour in the quart of tomatoes and the tomato sauce and stir it all up really good.

The mixture in the pan is rather “liquidey” right?  Well, here is where really good chili takes a turn for the better.  Even though all the ingredients are now in the pot, slowly simmer it down, adding garlic powder, salt, pepper and chili powder to your taste.  The seasonings get stronger as it boils down, so be careful, especially with the salt.  Keep in mind, you can always add it to your individual bowl if you so desire, but you can’t take it away from the big pot once it’s in there.

Don’t plan on leaving the house at this point in time and please don’t put a lid on the pot of chili.  Let is slowly simmer and steam and make the windows in the house fog up…it’s all ok!  The neighbors will wonder just what is going on inside your home….”Hey Ruthy, there is something going on over at Bears Butt’s place.  The windows are all fogged up and I know for a fact Sherry has gone to work.  What have you heard from your hair dresser”?…..

You will simmer this and stir it often as it cooks down, this part of the process takes a couple of hours or more.  Please don’t let the mix stick to the bottom of the pot.  Have just enough heat to make it steam and maybe occasionally blurp up a bubble.  STIR!  STIR!  STIR!  Keep this up until it cooks down to a “non-liquidy” state.  It will take hours for this to happen but when it does your mouth will be SOOOO ready for a good bowl of it you can hardly stand it!  It really doesn’t get any better!

Serve it hot, with maybe some shredded cheddar cheese on top, but certainly with some Saltine Crackers and a can (or two) of very cold beer!

ENJOY!

Dec. 2022….I thought you might like to know just how much chili you can get from a double batch.  So, I put in 2 lbs. elk burger (pure ground elk meat), 2 chili bricks from the store, one large onion, one large green pepper and two pounds of beans.  Cooked it all up really good.  I ended up adding at least 12 cups of water while it cooked, mostly to get the beans tender.  Once it was all together I turned the heat down to minimum (number 2 on my stove) and let it simmer, stirring about every half hour.  It simmered down to a consistency I like, sort of thick…it yielded, 14 bowls of really tasty chili!

Bears Butt

January 21, 2016 (I can’t believe I didn’t post this early in my doings)

Updated December 9, 2022

Written on January 21st, 2016 , Recipes
By: Bears Butt

StinkingRules

Yesterday afternoon Sherry and I decided to head on up to the Ice Castle exhibit near Heber, Utah.  The ice castles are actually West of Heber about 10 miles, nestled in the foot hills on the backside of Mount Timpanogos.  The weather had been quite mild but a storm was coming into the area but not expected until later in the evening.  Not to worry…we have all wheel drive!

So, we planned on leaving town about 3:30 and stopping in a place we had talked about but never been to…Taggarts Grill.

Taggarts is a whistle stop of a place as you proceed up Weber Canyon toward Evanston or points between home and there.  I’ve only stopped there once before in my life and that was when Bob took Rick and I fishing on the Weber River and we stopped in to see a caged Bobcat they had there.  That was a hundred years ago (or so it seems).

Well, we pulled into Taggarts and went on inside.  The pictues you are about to see of Taggarts Grill and the food have all been downloaded from the internet and I thank the photographer(s) dearly for these as I didn’t bother taking any pictures of the place myself.  I thought about it, but just didn’t do it…my bad!

TaggartsGrill

Taggarts Grill looks just like this, only add about 6 inches of snow and ice all around it.  When we went in I found the atmosphere to be wonderfully rustic and rather Western.  Would you expect anything else from a place tucked away in a wide spot in Weber Canyon?

The very friendly waitress seated us at a table in a closed in patio with sky lights overhead and lots of windows around to see the snow outside.  We noticed too they have an outdoor seating area on the far end of the building for summer enjoyment!  A very nice cozy place with a fireplace that put off lots of warmth and was right alongside me!  I thought to myself as we were waiting for our meal, just how can such a small place tucked away like this afford to pay two waitress’ and 3 cooks?  After all, we were two customers among the 5 that were sitting in here.  Oh well, not my problem.

Sherry and I decided to order sea food.  She would order the shrimp plate and I the halibut.

TaggartsOldMenu

This menu is a little old but will give you an idea of their prices.  Not too bad considering today’s restaurant prices.  Our sea food was priced a dollar more than this shows.

When the meal came, Sherry had about 10 medium whole body shrimp on here plate….Sorry Bones…no tails!  A salad and good old french fries finished off the plate.  I might mention too, the plates were rectangular and fit on the rectangular table perfectly.  Four people could eat at one of these tables and not bump into one another….something I have often wondered about at restaurants, using round plates on rectangular tables.  The table clothes were not clothes at all but butcher paper and the paper dispenser was hanging on the wall just outside the entry and next to the cash register!  You don’t see that everyday.

Back to the plates of food.  So, Sherry has shrimp and I had halibut.  Both plates looked the same with the exception of the meat.  They served us each with our desired salad dressing (Ranch in both cases) in small metal bowls.  The meats could be dipped in either cocktail sauce (Sherrys’ Shrimp), or tarter sauce (my halibut) and then there was the ever present Utah famous fry sauce in its own serving dish as well.

The salad:  This is not an ordinary salad the most restaurants serve.  I have no idea what the “lettuce looking stuff” is called, but it sort of tasted like lettuce.  It had olive slices, spinach leaves, small tomatoes, some other greenery and topped with a sprinkling of shredded cheese.  It was very fresh and refreshing at the same time!  No carrots, no purple cabbage and no normal lettuce.  I loved it!

The french fries were cut extremely thin and coated with something that make them crackle when you ate them and the flavor was WONDERFUL!  The halibut wasn’t too bad either and you had to watch out that your bite wasn’t too large because they were hotter than the dickens (heat hot)!

We didn’t have any, but they serve beer there as well, and I think wine…not sure of that however.

We enjoyed our meal and before we were ready to go, the place began to fill up with customers!  Everyone had on cold weather boots and clothing and were obviously either skiiers or snowmobile types coming in.  Large family groups and the place was about to fill up quickly.  That sure explained the number of people who worked there.  They were going to need “all hands on deck” and this was a Tuesday night!

So, off we go toward Heber and the Ice Castles!

Our appointed time to enter the Ice Castles was 6 to 6:30 according to our tickets…bought on line through Groupon for about $14…a saving of 4 or 5 dollars for the two of us.  Driving up the canyon we saw lots of deer and a few elk and even a bald eagle.  One lone fisherman on Echo and as we drove into Heber and headed West the sun had long since gone down and it was getting dark.  A light snowfall was beginning.  That would not damper our trip.

We wanted to see these Ice Castles in the dark because we had heard there were lights and music and the whole thing sounded great and we would probably miss something special by seeing them in the daylight.  Even though we had read that no matter what time you go see them they are great.  Upon arriving at the parking lot we first noticed it was PACKED!  Where in the heck are we going to park?  As I sat there in the line at the very beginning of the parking lot, I noticed a “space” right next to a car that appeared to be the first in the row…Heck, this car can fit into that space!   And in I turned…sure enough, as my headlights hit the snow bank I saw tire tracks from someone else who had been parked there!  Front Row Parking!  You can’t do any better than that!  For those of you who might be planning on adventuring up that way, be prepared for a LONG walk uphill from where you park to the event.  And don’t forget it is icey!

StinkingRulesYou can’t read these even when standing right in front of them, but these are the rules of the Ice Castle event.  Roughly it says, if an ice cycle falls on you you can not blame them because it was probably something you did to have it fall in the first place.  Any picture or movie you take while at this event and post it on your personal wall, Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else and it is located by one of the Ice Castle people, it can be downloaded and used at their discretion with no payment to you AND no photo credit given to you either.  Kids found at the event after closing will be auctioned off to the highest bidder and in the event there were no bidders, the kids will be raised to become slaves of future Ice Castle events.  It went on but Sherry wanted to go inside.

I’ll let the series of pictures show you what you can expect and I wish (always do after you are finished with something like this) I had taken a video of the inside of the castle when we first entered.  It was pretty amazing and made the whole trip worth while (even if it had been half the event it is, would have made it worth while).

IceCastle1

IceCastle2

IceCastle3

IceCastle4

IceCastle5

IceCastle6

Does it look cold to you?  It was FREEZING!  And like a dummy, I forgot my gloves!

IceCastle7

This is blurry, but they had made a slippery slide out of blocks of ice and the kids (and adults) were sliding down it and having a blast.

IceCastle8

IceCastle9

IceCastle10

IceCastle11

IceCastle12

IceCastle13

IceCastle14

IceCastle15

IceCastle16

IceCastle17

IceCastle18

IceCastle19

IceCastle20

SherryEmergingFromTunnel

And after we walked and walked in what seemed to be many circles around the same thing, we asked a photographer lady if she had seen us come past anytime before now….she said she didn’t, but I think I remember seeing her once before.

IceCastle21

There is an EXIT sign!  Surely a way out!  But not before I saw some stranger stuff that most people would not have taken pictures of:

ConstructionArea

DANGER!  DANGER!  Area is still under construction!  Do NOT enter!

And of course the “Employees only break area”:  EmpOnlyTwoBuckets

Well, it was a very fun evening and we highly suggest that if you have some warm clothes, especially warm boots and hats and gloves and coats….go see this.  Keep in mind too, you will be walking in about 6 inches of very cold ice chips and snow.  This walk is not for little kids in tennis shoes (even though we saw some of that), nor one for anyone without warm clothing.  They do have a hot chocolate, coffee etc. stand at the end of the trail inside the event and of course they channel ALL participants through their curio shop at the end of it all….at least it was heated and very warm inside there.  BEWARE of the lady standing behind the cash register….she is looking at all parts of you to see if you have picked up anything you aren’t going to pay for!  At first I thought I looked hot to her, but then I realized what she was doing.

Fun times!

On our drive home we had a little surprise…the weather had come in quite hard and we had to follow a snow plow up and over the Park City summit and then the travel down toward Echo was about 55 mph which then got worse as we entered Weber Canyon headed for Ogden….40 mph max following 3 big rigs with flashers going.  Slushy and slick!  By the time we got out of the canyon and onto I15 headed for Willard it was just rain and the temp raised to 38!  We made it home in time for a beer and then off to bed!

Bears Butt

January 20, 2016

Written on January 20th, 2016 , Uncategorized
By: Bears Butt

I took the 50 minutes to listen to this man speak and I strongly believe you too need to take those few minutes and listen to what he has to say.

North American Wildlife Model – Shane Mahoney nails it . . .

 

Thanks!

Bears Butt

January 16, 2016

Written on January 16th, 2016 , Uncategorized
By: Bears Butt

AntAcid

Written on January 14th, 2016 , Jokes I like!
By: Bears Butt

June112015Endtwo

HEY!  It’s been a very long time since I last posted anything on my site!  Sorry folks, but things in my life can sometimes get very hectic.  Toss in a 3 week long cold (that is still hanging on), Christmas, New Years etc. etc. etc.  I know….No Excuse!

Let’s talk archery, or in my case, slinging arrows down range.  Last summer, down on the farm I was feeling pretty dang good about my shooting…Black Ring In…as I was calling it.  Well, something has happened to my shooting.  Maybe it’s the arrows, maybe it’s the bow, maybe it’s just me.  I think it is me.

Weasel and I signed up for a 10 week league back in November.  We shot 30 “counting” arrows each week and scored the shots.  3 shot ends, 5 ends, then move the target and shoot 5 more ends.  A total of 300 points possible after the 10 ends.  Well, I was feeling pretty good about my shooting going into the league but I was working on my form and trying to get rid of my “plucking” the string.  Plucking is something you don’t want to get into the habit of doing when you release the string.  But over the summer I had developed it so well, it was part of me.  Try and get rid of something that is part of you and you will see it is very hard to overcome.

From what I can gather, plucking causes the back of arrow to come off the bow and head in a left direction.  The string is actually being pulled away from your anchor point, or away from your face which causes the arrow to be drawn away as well and then when the string pushes the arrow down range it is starting out by pushing it to my left (right handed shooter).  Archers paradox takes over, which is usual, and wants the arrow to bend around the handle of the bow (riser), left to right and then straighten out and hit the bullseye down range…sure it does….With the back of the arrow (nock end) pushing the arrow to the left, it kicks the arrow out away from the riser, while at the same time the arrow is bending around the riser, which then causes the arrow to “fish tail” away from the bow and fly awkwardly toward the target.  Sometimes hitting where you desire, but most of the time not hitting anywhere near where you want it to hit.  In all cases, there is no consistency in my form and therefore no consistency in where my arrows will land down range.  Frustration sets in and almost causes me to throw the bow down and jump up and down….

So, I’ve been working on my release and think I’m almost there.  Occasionally I will still pluck the string and I know it when that happens.  Now let’s talk about an archer with something other than shooting on their mind.  What I have read and what I have experienced (shooting at targets at least), is that any distraction will cause you to “blow the shot”.   From a competitive stand point, and as an archers etiquette, when you are on the line shooting, you should not talk, even to yourself and you should honor the shooters around you by not stepping off the line when they are shooting.  You stand on the line and wait until they have finished their shot before stepping off the line.

Let’s toss in a scene that could actually happen:  I’m on the line shooting and am concentrating on my stance, form, target, anchor point, release, follow through….all these things are what is needed to be thought about, or at least become a normal part of your shooting in order to consistently hit where you want to hit.  If any one of these things is “off”, your arrow will not go where you want it to go.  I’m at full draw and I know my anchor is spot on, thumb is against my lower jaw, string firm against the end of my nose, the target is in full focus….The room erupts with laughter from others just coming into the range area…loud talking, cutting up etc….they have no idea what I’m doing….my mind is totally on what is happening behind me, suddenly I pluck the string and the arrow goes down range and hits the wood support holding up the bale….DAMN!

That can and does happen and the archer needs to be aware that if it means that much to you then perhaps you need to be in another venue when you shoot.  Don’t blame your surroundings for an arrant shot.  It’s all in YOUR head!  If that is all it takes to break your concentration, well, you need to work on that yourself.  Don’t blame the others.

Another scene:  I’ve had a rough day at the office but need to take tonight and go shoot my league score.  It’s my last chance for this week.  At the range I’ve got all my stuff in order and am through with my practice shots.  Time to score.  On the line, I have a quick thought go through my brain about my co-worker causing me extra work during the day.  My thoughts are totally on that when I release the string…arrow goes off from its mark…DAMN!  You have to let all other things get out of your head when you are shooting, especially when you are trying to do the best you can.  X’s are my norm, but 8’s are my score today.

So, let’s look at my league scores and try to figure out what was going on at the time I shot them.  A 10 week scoring sequence.  Wednesdays are out because of lessons being taught at the range.  So I have to shoot my scores any other night, 6 till 9,  except Wednesday and Sundays the hours are 11 till 2.

Week 1:  Score 120.  Well, not really very good when you consider 300 is possible.  But at least I was able to get most of the arrows into the scoring rings.

Week 2:  Score 114.  Hmm, I thought by practicing during the week I would get a higher score.

Week 3:  Score 120.  Better than last week, but still not as good as I know I can do.  Those damn zeros.  If I could just get rid of them.

Week 4:  Score 92!  Is that because of my cold.  Coughing, sniffling.  For sure my head was not into shooting this night.  I should have waited a couple more days.  Oh well.

Week 5:  Score 176!  Now THAT is more like it!  No zeros!  It’s all up hill from now on!

Practice rounds scored:  125 and 143…feeling good.

Week 6:  Score 123.  Those zeros are at it again.

Week 7:  Score 121.  I guess I might as well settle into the fact that I shoot in the 120’s.  I’m practicing a couple times a week and I think everything is going good, but then I shoot for score and this happens.

Week 8:  Score 154!  YES!  Only 2 zeros tonight!  I’ve got this!  Relaxed, no cares, life is good.

Practice rounds scored:  130 and 151.

Week 9: Score 151!  And in addition to a pretty good (for me) score, I still had 4 zeros!  One of my ends was an X, 9 and 7!  Maybe I have this game figured out!

Practice round scored: 140.

Week 10:  Score 114!  Bummer dude.

So, week 10, which just ended for me on Monday night, I was really trying to do good.  I suppose trying too hard.  Every shot was calculated.  Every shot was deliberate.  Every shot was total concentration on my part.  I wanted so much to do even better than my high of 176.  I did have one pluck during the evening, but the rest of the shots were clean releases and great follow through.  Why the arrows flew where they did is because I was trying too hard.  I thought about every shot.  I thought about my anchor, my stance, my form, my follow through.  I thought about everything.  I kept changing one of my arrows…I would “fire” it from being shot.  Then I would re-instate it because another arrow didn’t seem to want to hit a scoring ring.  I would hit an 8 ring with my first shot and then have two zeros that followed that.  Every zero caused me more mental panic, until I realized there was no way I could catch up with even a 150 score and so I just settled in for a score of under 100.  But even after I relaxed and accepted that fact, I still produced more zeros…all my zeros are now called “Bears Butt’s”.  I’m not sure how many zeros I had that night, but at least 7, I was too embarrassed to count them.  I think I only had two ends without at least one zero.

OK, enough of that.  I have to get my mind off of zeros.  What you think about expands…..That is something Wayne Dyer used to say all the time…What you think about expands.  So I need to think about high scores.  Thinking about high scores should expand into reality and I will shoot high scores.  But now let’s talk about “high scores”.

Weasel shoots pretty good.  Good enough to cause him to lose his mind and sign up for the International Vegas Shoot and spend a heap of money to compete against the best in the world at archery.  He shoots in the upper 280’s most of the time and it only takes a “hair” to make an arrow go from a 10 ring to a 9 ring.  His fat arrows have given him a few points too, going from a 9 into the 10 ring and even into the X ring because of that “hair”.  Well, a high score to him is a 290 plus.  Remember 300 is max and shooting 30 arrows, most of them have to score 10’s in order to get the score up near 290.  You can only have 10 arrows scoring a 9 to keep you at 290.  For him it is devastating to shoot a 270.

We have friends who have just gotten into archery, partly because of Weasel and my “fault”.  But they seem to be having fun and of course they are keeping score just to see how they are improving.  I over heard the other night where one of them shot a 170.  They were very pleased with that, and rightfully so!  I know that feeling!

Keeping score is a very good way to make sure you are improving, but more importantly than what the score is, is your own mental attitude toward what you are doing.  My long term goal is not to score a 300, which would be a miracle, but to tag a buck deer while using my recurve bow to do it.  And I’m confident I could do that today.  Sure, I have to work my way to a distance shorter than 20 yards, but I know I can do that too.  I have the confidence to do that, BUT, I owe it to the animal to be hitting my desired target, CONSISTENTLY, at farther distances.  I will be working my way out to 30 and probably 40 yards before the 2016 bow hunting season begins in August.  In the meantime, look for my scores to get better at the indoor range this Spring.  My average for this 10 week league ended up at 128.  I’ll take that.  And 128 is my starting point with my desired “high score” to be higher than that!

Bears Butt

January 13, 2016

 

Written on January 13th, 2016 , Archery stuff

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BearsButt.com | Stories, Ramblings & Random Stuff From an Old Mountain Man

Just some of my old stories, new stories, and in general what is going on in my life.