The Wngs Of The New Breed

July has come and gone, and with it brings another year to my age, and experience. As my birthday was in the same week as my daughter and Alisa's we decided a family holiday would be nice to have so it was off to Wales, calling at Rhyl, Llandudno, Beamouris and Almwch. Which was a great holiday with wonderful sunshine. But archery cannot be forgotten and during the fun at Almwch viking festival both Alisa and I partook in the archery stall, of which we both did very well, Alisa getting 45 with five arrows, whilst I got 48. Though seeing as I've had just over 3 years practice, it should be expected. Also my armoury was expanded, and I'm now in posession of a Agincourt style helm.

Though what also comes with it, are the first seven of a new set of ravens dubbed "Sons of Carc". So named due to the grey fletchings as a cock feather, making it seem it was from an old bird, hence Carc from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

As you can see from the picture on the right, I've incorporated my initials into the design and numbered them all. If you are wondering, the binding and the ravens are all done by free hand so they are all slightly different, but just gives each a personality.



Their first real flight was at the Yorkshire Championship open longbow shoot, where despite shooting well at 100yds my shooting seemed to suffer at 80yds, and was not my best at 60yds either. Just to prove it, the only two golds I got through out the day were at 100yds. Something in my loosing has gone wrong, and without much time to practice its hard to discover what it is that is happening. But the arrows flew very well. Also a congratulations to both Hugh and Lizzie foster, who got best scores for visiting archers doing the Double National. What was nice though was the fact I got both my arrows and my quiver (again home made) admired by other archers, and it was a new PB for a York round, and as it was shot in a 2-way shoot, shows something. But still wasn't enough for a 1st class score, though just means more practice is needed.

I am trying out a new shooting glove recently, and I'm not sure what I think of it. Its the bearpaw deerskin glove, and though the extra padding on the finger tips is good and does stop my fingers burning after a few dozen arrows, but with the finger sticking on the sides of the finger rather than on the back , it does mean that sometimes I'm gripping the arrow and not realising because its wider than my previous glove, so I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Its really still molding to my fingers.

What I have found recently that after a few dozen I'm really struggling to draw the bow back to my anchor point properly, which does effect the flight of the arrow alot so I'm going to have to work on drawing properly, which I think I will really concentrate on when we eventually move inside.

Honestly though my interest in target archery is starting to waver, as aside from the different ranges its all the same, so I might look into trying out some field archery. I'm tempted to get some 2D targets and see if I'm allowed to shoot them at the club. I don't see a problem with it, but you never know rules and politics.

I will end there with a quote from "Winning Words":

Long as I have been alive

Archers bold and archers fair

Have been ruthless with the drive

Of their arrows everywhere.