With our first open
longbow shoot fresh in the muscle memory was the monthly medal, which was a FITA
60m. Now I’ve never really liked metric rounds, and I maintain that. I’m not
sure why I just prefer imperial rounds. I know a lot of archers who use more
modern bows prefer the metric rounds to separate the inner gold from the outer
gold. But with a longbow if I hit anywhere in the gold at a long range it’s a
bonus. It was my first FITA 60m and it was enough to win me the longbow medal
for this month.
Next was out clubs
longbow/barebow shoot. This is where those who have spare longbows bring down
spares and lend them out. Though because some don’t want to try or our
selection of bows is limited then it’s also a barebow shoot. Interestingly
though the regular longbow shooters were suffering as arrows seemed to just go
higher and higher, despite the heat. This left some questions as with the heat
you’d expect the bows to become a bit more floppy and lose some cast. It was
the first time I did a Short Windsor, so another personal first. To be honest
though the score was a lot lower than I was expecting, but means a chance to
improve. Though it is interesting, that these shoots often seem to spark some
interest in longbows in other members.
So despite my drop
in shooting ability at the longbow shoot, the next shoot I did of an evening
was a Long National, which I put over 100pts on my PB, making it just shy of my National PB. Which was shocking to
say the least so I put it down to fluke/luck. But yet the following Sunday was our
Club Championship shoot which is a York. Now I’ve always struggled on York
shoots and have never shot a 1stclass score on one, and I never have.....but I have now shot a Bowman score on one.
So on the run of
good luck/ shooting I managed another Bowman score the following Sunday
shooting a Long Metric, where I shot over double my last PB for a Long Metric.
Though with these
two Bowmen scores under my belt, with one more to get (till I can get a new
badge) I headed to the Yorkshire Championship Longbow shoot, which is a two way
shoot. Now I wasn’t expecting a Bowman score and I was right. This was due to
two things, it’s a two way shoot so I was expecting a lower score as you’ve got
to work with weather opposing each other. The other is the gusting strong
winds. But as always a wonderful day, added to by the fact I earned some coins
from the gold sweep achieving the best gold at 80 yards won a prize in the
raffle. According to the results I ranked 9th out of 23 shooting the double york, so quite pleased.
But I shall leave
you now as always with an archery poem, by an unknown author (if you know it
please comment below);
Now I sight my shaft
to shoot,
I pray thee Lord to
win me loot,And if I miss the target yellow,
Let me hit another fellow!
I nock my arrow and draw my bow,
Then loose my shaft and watch it go.
And it may hit the target with some luck,
But incase it don't, I suggest you duck.
