I’ve been joining Weasel down on the farm the last couple of nights to shoot bows.  He has his goals and I have mine.  It doesn’t seem too long ago my goal was to shoot my arrow and hit the backstop holding up the paper target.

These arrow stopping blocks are made of layers of foam, compressed together and held with metal bands.  Watching Weasels arrows slip through the air at a very fast speed and slamming into the foam block is pretty impressive.  But when he goes to pull the arrows out of it, he has to use his arrow pulling devise as the speed of the arrow causes it to melt the plastic foam.  There is a lot of heat produced via friction.  On my side of the coin however, I don’t have to worry about that.  My arrows arc high and hit the foam with a slight “bonk”, sticking in maybe 4 inches.

So, back to my story.  Hitting the backstop is a good thing.  First off, it saves you time trying to find the arrow that missed it, second, it saves money because the arrows don’t get all bent or broken by the rocks and other debris down range.  And best of all, you feel pretty good about your accomplishment.

At the indoor range the blocks are 20 yards down range.  In the field it can be whatever you want it to be.  Weasel is trying to hit the bullseye on his paper target, 5 out of 5 times at 60 yards.  The bullseye is a circle about 3 inches across.  He has his mind made up that he will be doing just that some day, but now, he is working his way up to that goal.  I’m not exactly sure what his method is, but he keeps moving up 10 yards every once in awhile.  I think when he puts all his arrows in the bullseye or no farther out than the 8 ring, he moves back to 60 yards and shoots again.  60 yards is a very long way to be that accurate with a bow set up for hunting.  So, while he is shooting at 60 yards, we have my backstop set at 40 yards and we stand on the same line to shoot.  That keeps things safe.  When he moves up, so do I….he will shoot at 50 yards and me at 30.

Well, I’m still learning this bow shooting thing and my target is much bigger than his.  I can pretty much hit the backstop at 40 yards every time, but I use the entire thing right now.  My goal at this point is to put all my arrows within the paper of the target at that range.

To a lot of archers that is an easy thing to do.  But for me it a pretty lofty goal right now.  In my mind, I think if I can hit that paper at 40 yards every time I shoot at it, when I move up to 20 yards it should be a no brainer that I’ll hit it and maybe then my goal will be like Weasels is right now, to hit the white circle in the center of the paper.

By the way, I’m still working on my gap chart and 40 yards is still my point on distance.

(Note:  The pictures of the backstops are NOT the ones we use on the farm).

AND, I absolutely LOVE this picture that Addie took the other day:

My Samick Journey resting on a bush!

Berz But

April 22, 2015