Thursday 4 July 2013

Soaring On The Winds Of Triumph

Hello once more, this is the second part of June continuing from the last update, and will probably be just as long.

OK, so picking up from where I left off last time, the next shoot in line was a club shoot, so no pressure. It was a FITA 900, easy enough though being a metric round will just have to suffer through it. Anyway it did not go well, for reasons unknown I couldn't seem to hit the target at all. they were going in every direction but the target which was not putting me in the best mood. This got worse but one arrow (arrow number 1 in fact) driving itself deep into the left and gouging out a chunk of itself, in the first 6 arrows. The next incident was with arrow number 7, knowing it drops low I aimed higher and it cracked the edge of the boss shattering itself into two bits. With two arrows down though I had spares they were very dodgy ones, so I abandoned the shoot, demoralised.

I was cheered up by a test shooting of the boar target for the up coming longbow shoot. As its rather unconventional we had to test the idea to see if worked and work out any kinks and its a god job we did as there were a couple. But with a bit of testing these were solved quickly and the test shoot went very well.

So with our longbow shoot looming and with not enough arrows to shoot it, it was time to make some more. My lovely lady took our little one out for a few hours leaving me alone to get on with it. Though making arrows doesn't take too much time if you have to straighten shafts it takes a lot longer. Straightening bare shafts I've found is an art form, one which I'm getting better at I will admit, and it always helps if the arrow heads are on straight, which I found a couple of mine were slightly off, but the shafts were straight so that was good enough for me. Few hours later I straightened all but 4 to a standard I was satisfied with. For those that have never made them, I cannot describe the beauty of spinning an arrow on your hand and feeling no vibrations at all when before there was a lot.

So with arrows in production I had some of the shoots trophies to make too. Originally they were meant to be painted archers on stands, but as I was painting the archers when I was tired and it was dark so the light was poor I wasn't happy with the results. So taking the bull by the horns and on the Friday I abandoned that I idea and set to work on a new one. Of part of log rounds, cut to size to suit the different categories of the shoot: Gents, Ladies, Juniors. so off into the garden to find a suitable log of good size and proportions, then it was sawing (by hand I will add) through and shaping. Originally I did want to leave the bark on, but the plane had different ideas as it quite happily ripped chunks off, so to make it nice I removed the rest. A good sanding and bit of drilling and I was done for the night.
Saturday was a busy day, with my daughter assisting me the trophies got oiled, waxed and polished. what surprised me was how much oil the wood seemed to need, it just drank it up. So around 9-10ish the trophies were finished. Arrows were all fletched, so I was sitting up whipping my fletchings and cresting, and out of the 9 arrows I had fletched, 7 were complete and it was time for bed.

The day of the shoot was an early start, up early, dressed, breakfasted, packed up gear and lunch and off to the range, where thankfully people were already there and working on setting up the field. At this point I would like to thank Mrs. Allen for letting Shaun out for a rather long 5 mins after being away shooting for most of the week. Starting at 8 the field was laid out and ready for 9:30 and judges had already started to arrive to make sure all was OK.


Targets lined up straight as.....well an arrow :p

Thanks to Mr. Foster & Son, and Mr. Wingate for their help in making these.
 A wonderful selection of trophies if I do say so myself.


Wendy Hodkinson
In spirit of the shoot our lovely Lady Paramount turned up sporting the traditional green and white.

Being the organiser I was the one who introduced Wendy and our judges for the day, and if  I say so myself the shoot seemed to go very well. We only had one no show archer. Unfortunately for me for one reason or another my score was a little lower than what I had expected, but put it down to stress and lack of sleep, and to be fair I didn't really mind as long as people were happy and enjoying themselves that is what counts, though would have been nice to get the next Cheshire badge, as it would have meant a new PB too but next time. The addition of Port and cake after the first two dozen at each distance seemed to assure this. Even the weather was looking out for us, because despite some gusty winds it was a beautiful day, as you can see by the burnt tiger stripes on my arm.
 
Of course to finish the round 3 arrows were shot to command, dubbed an Agincourt Volley. To me no longbow shoot is complete without one. The commander (in this case our head judge) would give the commands:
"Archers nock your arrows!"
"Draw!"
"Loose!" - NOT 'Fire' as our judge found out when, he said this going through how to do it and the archers as one corrected him, he he. Now some of you may have been to a shoot when the commands are slightly different, e.g. 'Draw to the head!', or a command between "Draw!" and "Loose!" of "Mark!" mean mark your target i.e. aim.
 
Rather than show you lots of pictures, one of the photographers of the day; Jacob Taylor made a video:
 

 
 


The Boar Hunt
 
Now I know I've been keeping you waiting but we are finally here. So what was the secret of the boar hunt I was keeping from you. Well, with the finish of the shoot and volley, the boar was set up. Bosses were set either side of the run, and polystyrene blocks in front. Ah yes you spotted the key word, 'run' not only were we shooting at a boar, it was moving too.
the rules of the game were simple, as the boar moves shoot as many arrows as you can at it. If you hit it on the first pass you are through to round two. Round two was moving again but this time you had to get it in the kill zone. Some of our visitors were obviously hunters in training for we had to do a third run to find our champion. and standing next to the boar after its first run is our champion, Dale Message:


The archer with the white spiky hair to the left of the boar.


 
Unfortunately for me, but fortunate for the shoot I didn't hit the boar, so I scurried off to do the scoring, so by the time the raffle was finished everything was ready. to be honest the results were close, but our own Angus walked away with first place for gents, and Agincourt Volley. Lizzie Foster was literally one millimetre from claiming Worst White.....the judge had to get out a magnifying glass to determine whether it was touching the line or not, so she had to make do with just Junior most golds. As for myself I won best gold, being off the cross by millimetres. Admittedly there was a mistake with the ladies awards but it was sorted out in the end.


What was most satisfying was at the end, I had people come up and shake me by the hand and thanking me for organising the shoot, both people I knew and hadn't met before. So I was feeling very pleased. BUT I cannot take all the credit, so I would like to thank everyone who helped out on the day. Setting up not only the field but the function room for raffle and prizes, donating prizes, selling raffle tickets, selling cakes and drinks, taking photos, sorting out scores and tidying away. Every little bit helped to make a wonderful day for everyone, and with that success and lessons learnt we know what we can do for next year too. So a BIG BIG thank you to all of you.

Now, as you know I generally end my updates posts with a quote or saying, but this time I'm going to do something a little different. Since the shoot we've already had some feedback, all positive, but I would like to share the one that I think is the one that shows how successful the day was. Until next time, good shooting everyone.

Hi Stephen,
 
I really enjoyed the shoot, it was the first tournament for me since 1956/57 and really made me think how much time I have wasted before getting back into archery, and especialy Longbow.
 
I thought the finale of the "Running Boar" was truly fantastic and can't wait till next year shoot with you all again and to try and get a Purple Cheshire Cat,

Best Regards
Will Spalding