Hiding In The Shade

Hello once more, it's been a good while since I last updated this blog. Mainly because recently I've been quite busy and don't have a great deal of time at me computer.

Well since I last updated my heavy bow had a bit of damage so got sent away and was repaired. A new set of arrows, dubbed 'Blue Murder' has been made for it to shoot outdoors, and they managed to win me 3rd prize at Assheton's Early Bird shoot. If you are wondering, why I named them that, it's because they have a blue cock feather, and a group of ravens are called 'a murder'.

Though recently my shooting as been suffering recently at close range, though at long range it's been going very well. I'm not exactly sure why that is happening but I'm sure I'll work it out in the end.
A few things though have been achieved this year. Firstly the longbow shoot at Kedleston Hall is really the only longbow shoot we go as a team, and last year (not sure if I mentioned it on here) but I set a goal to have an archer from my club on every target at the shoot. Being 16 targets that's quite a push to get 16 people from one club to shoot longbow, but after some hinting, and light pressure a band of 16 archers arrived at Kedleston this year.

It was a good day (though my shooting was bad in comparison), and prizes were won in forms of trophies and raffle. You will also notice that most of the archers in the picture are sporting the new club shirts.

The second achievement is hosting our longbow shoot successfully for the second year in a row. Which once again was very successful, the moving boar provides something quite special. So you can see below the team with the prize boar.

Recently I've been having a few people ask me why I took the raven as my archery icon. Well originally it stemmed from my quiver. I chose the image of the raven with the pentagram and Celtic swirls in because I thought it looked good. Since then I liked to adopt it because Ravens like my archery is seen as both good and bad. It's often depicted as a bird of death, as in years past they would feast on the bodies left on battle fields, and in the bible Noah sent up a raven before the dove, but the raven never returned and therefore was no friend of man.Also it was said witches were able to transform into ravens so they could go secretly to their meetings.

But in other eyes they were the informers of Odin, the father of the Norse gods, and his daughters could appear as ravens. Vikings used to take them out with them to spot for land (so obviously had better luck with them than Noah). But even in England they are seen as positive birds, the tower of London always have ravens, and it's said if the ravens ever left the tower England would fall to it's enemies, and we've believed this so much, ravens were imported from Wales during world war two, and during bird flu the ravens were kept isolated in the tower. Ancient Greeks had the raven as a solar symbol and dedicated to the sun gods, native Americans see it as a symbol of the creator and a friend to mankind.

What is also interesting about these birds is their average IQ is seen to be highier than humans, also coupled with good linguistic skills it's thought that they can understand a good amount of human words and even mimic them.

But why I like them most is because they work together as a team for the good of the group, which for archery is what you want. I.e. You want your arrows to fly together in a group.

Though at the moment I'm preparing to start up a home-business in leather work, so do keep an eye out to hear more news on that, and might get a chance to get some of my leather work for your own kit. For those with facebook you can see some examples here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mudd-Hutt/126640237370394

So I'm going to close this update with a quote from an unknown source, happy shooting everyone:

Sometimes the way to win is to forget to take score

Stretching Wings Ready For Spring

Well I've not posted since November, wow. Well this indoor archery season I’ve not really been shooting very well. Most of my scores have been quite below my averages of last year, but that hasn’t put me off. True it’s irritated me a good few times but what I’m putting it down to is that the new bow I’ve been using for this indoor season is a much stronger draw and faster, so it’s more me getting to know the bow and learning how to control it.

My finger is also getting better, though I still strap it up before shooting just to help it cope till it’s fully healed. But with new bow means new arrows, which I mentioned in a previous update. But to help you remember, these are a set that are different from my old sets in the fact they are made from pine rather than cedar, which are a heavier shaft. I've also gone for a new cock feather colour and a new style of point. Do you want to see them? Do you? Well here they are in their glory, the newest set dubbed ‘The Blue Quills’

After shooting them, I've had some issues with the arrows. There is a bit of variation in the shafts which anyone using wooden arrows would know, but the variation in these seem quite a lot, whether this is something I've done or not I’m not entirely sure. It’s not put me off pine but I’ll have to make a few more sets to get a better idea of how consistent the wood is. But the other week I was shooting them to see which ones grouped with each other and managed to get a small group that grouped very well. One of them though has a bit of a mind of its own, generally when it shoots it shoots very well, but every ones in a while it decides that it’s bored of shooting well and wanders off and does its own thing normally resulting in just missing the target.

After a dismal season of shooting last Sunday we marched to Chester (Ok we drove really) for the Cheshire team shoot. Being selected for the 2^nd team rather than the first the pressure was off me. Not only did I not bother looking at the scoreboard through-out the shoot, I didn’t even look at my own score. Which resulted in me shooting much better than I had been shooting that season. Not only was it better than I had been shooting that season, but it was the best I’d ever shot at that shoot, a nice round 400 for a Portsmouth with only one miss *grumble*, but 11 golds. This meant I’d shot well enough to get a new Cheshire archery badge, the ‘black deva’, I also won Gent’s Longbow Most Golds prize.

Some more good news came out of this shoot. As regular readers of this know I whip my arrows and this has been noticed by a few people. Partly because of this and a few other things, I’ve been asked to make some arrows not for shooting but to be trophies for a special shoot between Welsh and Cheshire archers. So I’m very pleased about that as you can imagine. One thing I will note, I’ve been shooting with my new set of arrows and the quality of the thread I bought as ‘fletching thread’ is a little low because its nylon. If anyone plans to whip arrows use linen, I've used that for all arrow whipping up to this set and it’s never gone wrong its tough and lasting, whilst this nylon seems to fray and snap quite a bit of the time.

With our new range at new local, the club decided it was time to revamp the uniform and club colours. So after a large amount of discussion (you would not believe the amount of conversation and emails this took), we went back to our archery roots, esp. Cheshire roots and went with green and white, which look rather snazzy. Plus we brought club hoodies into the kit which I believe we can get zipped or unzipped. ‘But green is a boring colour.’ I hear some of you cry, well for those that don’t like to take the green can take the charcoal. Yes we brought in a charcoal grey (off black) shirt with the same pattern which as you can see from the photo above blends together rather well.

On a different hand of my archery world (though not completely contained within it), I like to play with leather to see what I can make from it, and recently this is being noted by members of not only my club but people I meet at shoots as well, and I have been getting a few people requesting me to make some things for them, which I would love to turn into a proper job rather than just a hobby. So far all my work has been received with grins and aside from one minor problem there have been no complains. So if you are in the need of some leather goods (whether archery related or not) then please do drop me a message. If you are on facebook you can see some examples of my work by searching for ‘Mudd Hutt’, I hope to hear from some of you in the future.

Back into archery and preparation for our 2^nd longbow shoot are underway. Form has been updated and published, judges booked, soon I’ll be sending e-mails out to prize winners. Even had news that some people are delaying their holidays just to come to our shoot. I think the main attraction to this shoot is the fact at the end of it we’ll be shooting at a moving target, which is a rarity (at least in target archery, I can’t comment on other forms). But with plans to expand upon last year perhaps with sandwiches or burgers/sausages something piggy themed, we’ll have to see.

Is it for this update dear readers, and I leave you with the following quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it: Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth.