The Think Tank

Things started out very well. We shot Deer course first which is a real bitch with all the steep uphill shots, but I did very well, dropping only a couple on the way up. Oddly I struggled with the close shots more than the long ones.

I was in front of my group by 2-3 after the first seven targets. I went on a little spree of 19’s at intermediate distances which was a bummer, but I finished with a 272, making it my best field round of the year and on a very hard course.

I ate lunch with mom and debbie then we set out on Elk course, again climbing he hill. I dropped a point on the first target, a 20 yard shot, and then again on a 25 yarder. I went on to drop a point on almost every target under 45 yards, which was disappointing, but I figured I would just have to pick it up on the long shots.

In the end I did pretty well on the last half but was sitting on a 270 heading into the last target, a 55 yard flat shot. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I figured I would break 540, but as it turned out that wasn’t to be. I forgot to set my sight And the first arrow skipped off the dirt 20 yards in front of the target. I shot two x’s and a five, for a 15 and a 537. That was very disappointing.

We shot cougar and bear for the Animal round, my first animal round using the new little bonus spots. Those things were not kind to me. In the end I only wound up shooting 6 of those things today, which out me at a very severe disadvantage. I was only off out group leader by 9 points and I was still in front of one guy, but he animals killed me. I also shot the wrong target once, only the 2nd or 3rd spot I’d gotten all day. I did shoot another spot, but that was a 17.

In the end I finished with a 561 which is pretty poor. By contrast Darren shot a 579. It was really too bad.

I was vey frustrated by he animal round and I wound up losing track of my form and in particular my new anchor point. I shot on the practice range for 30-40 mins and it felt like I’d gotten my form back together so I calls it quits.

I’m disappointed by the score, I really wanted to shoot in the 540s and hopefully in the high end at that. Its especially disappointing because of the miss. But then, I’ve shot quite a bit worse than thus with all my arrows on the target, so I didnt do that bad I guess. It’s just a bummer.

On the good end, I never lost my cool today. I stayed pretty calm and never acted out or anything, even when I was pretty frustrated by he animal round.

I feel fairly confident for tomorrow. In many respects I think that hunter courses are easier, so there’s that. But mainly I just need to pay special attention to my anchor point, watch my level closely ( I have been tending to tip the top limb right) and stay Focussed on my ending form. I did a good job of that for much of the day, but I let that slip in the second half and it showed on the scores.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Jun 18, 2011 9:06 AM Target: NFAA/IFAA Field Total score: 537 59x

— Sent from my iPhone

Tonight was the first time I shot in the 50 yard outdoor league at Sylvan.  We shot the large FITA face at 50 yards, which makes it just like the second leg of a 900 round.

I am still using the new anchor point, with my middle knuckle on the point of my jawbone and my bow arm more bent.

Everything seemed to go pretty well tonight.  I felt mostly solid and it seemed like the bow shot pretty well, after having moved my rest farther in the last time I shot.  I did not notice any real trend in wide groups, although I did get some unexpectedly left arrows.  Could have been wind I suppose, I’m not sure.  Looking at the target you can see that every point I dropped was left, between 8-9 o’clock.  I dropped one on each of my first two ends, both at 8 o’clock just barely out, and then later on I dropped two more on one end where I had a group right at 9 o’clock: two were just out, and one was just in.

The only real thing of note tonight was that I had a very hard time aiming at the large FITA face.  I was using a 6x lens and with the gold being so big, and us being so close, I found it very difficult to keep the dot centered in that mass of yellow.  I shot much smoother and felt like I aimed better at the NFAA spots on the practice buts, where my dot fit more neatly inside the spots.

I actually tried to drop down to a 4x lens before we started scoring, but the lens that was marked “4” turned out to be another 6x, so that was pointless.  I definitely want to try a lower power scope for FITA/900’s next time.

295 isn’t that bad, but I do feel I could get into the 298-300 range without too much trouble.  The spot is very large for 50 yards, so that should be doable.  Also, my x’s were a little low at 12.  I would like to get that up to 15+.  Basically I think I should be about the same on this face at 50 yards as I shoot indoors at 20 yards, so 299-300 with 20-25 x’s would be very good.  Of course, wind will play a factor, but it was pretty still tonight.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Jun 13, 2011 6:49 PM Target: FITA Total score: 295 12x

— Sent from my iPhone

I shot for a long time today at Sylvan, probably about 6-7 hours. The good news is that my shoulder feels pretty good after all that, which is really good. Especially when you consider that I shot 3 hours on Thursday and Friday both.

The scoring wasn’t too bad either, although it was nothing to write home about.

I wound up walking a full 28 target field course although I did it in two sections: I fooled around on the practice range for a while, then I shot B15-28. I finished with a 265/19x which wasn’t horrible but quite a bit lower than I would have liked. It was one of the lowest scores I’ve shot so far, barely beating the 262 that I remember shooting my first time out.

On Friday I started experimenting with a new anchor point, moving my hand down under my chin instead putting my middle knuckle where my ear meets my face, and bringing the string more down the center of my face. This seemed to eliminate most of my left/right issues, though I did notice that the shots I struggled on still missed left instead of right, especially at distance. I wasn’t terribly comfortable with the new anchor because it felt floaty: i didn’t have a solid reference point for my hand, so I had trouble finding the same spot, and this was made more difficult because of my beard. It also meant that I raised my peep up about an inch, which felt much more comfortable and had the added benefit of raising my sight marks considerably, which was nice.

I shaved the beard down to a goatee (or a van dyke, there is some confusion over the difference) which helped some but in the end I just didn’t feel all that comfortable. I was having a harder time aiming solidly as well, probably due to the floaty nature of the anchor.

After the first 14 I decided to mess with my anchor a bit more. I had liked the feel of it higher on my face, so I moved it up some so that my middle knuckle was behind my jaw bone. That felt very good, much more solid and my aim settled down a lot. I had to lower the peep down a bit to compensate, but it only lowered my marks about 1 line, so no biggie there. I also tied in a kisser-like knot just above the serving to act as a second reference point, since I’m still a little unsure of the anchor.

With the string down the middle of my nose, the kisser goes between my lips just the right of the center as I recall. I will have to double check that he next time I shoot. My anchor is behind my jawbone, with the jawbone between the middle and ring finger knuckles. That puts my index finger sort of crammed into the back/side of my neck. My chin is touching the string as well, lightly on the point of the right side.

Because I’m anchoring further back now, behind my jawbone, my bow arm is bent a little bit more to make up for the extra length. This feels very comfortable and sort of allows me to pre-stress the muscles in my back. The explosion is a little more pronounced as well.

I also have been holding my release a little differently with the new anchor: I’ve been putting my forefinger into it a little more, tipping it in my hand so the thumbnut is up in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.

That is the setup I used on the second half.

Before I went out I shot for a while on the practice range and it felt like my sights were drifting a bit to the left at the longer distances: my last end at 80 had all 8 arrows grouped in a 5-ring circle but centered about two inches outside of the five. Only one arrow caught, at 9 o’clock. I shot four arrows at 20 after that, and they were center/right xring, so the deviation wasn’t as drastic as it had been when the longer distances missed to the right (before changing anchors).

Nevertheless I decide to see where we were at and Shannon and I went out on B1-14. Things definitely went better this time out. I was holding very well, especially in the beginning, the new-new anchor point feeling very solid. This allowed me to pay more attention to hauling back with my release arm and less on aiming, which really worked well. I definitely feel that the shots that drop out the right side at 3 o’clock when I’m still aiming well are caused by a little creeping. This new anchor really feels locked in and makes creeping a bit harder.

I had some rough ends, dropping a point in the middle on a 25 yarder (up hill, which I seem to struggle on), and then a 17 on the 80 walk-up that was a big bummer. All three misses were in a quarter-sized group at 9 o’clock, by the line in the four ring. The 60 yard shot was the only one that made it, an inside out X, but still on the left side.

Toward the end I started noticing that the 4th shot on ends where the first three were clean were more difficult, and a few times I actually had a voice in my head saying I was going to miss. Usually I did. I’m not sure if that was my old demons from before, or if it was my subconscious telling me something was wrong and I needed to let down and start over. I was positive and assumed the latter, and I did a better job of letting down when that happened the last few targets. (although it did happen again on 27: I shot 3 x’s and then a four by less than 1/4 inch at 9 o’clock.)

Looking at the target you can clearly see that most of the misses are out left. There are only two arrows outside the 5 ring to the right (a few others were low also, which caused them to miss, but they would have still caught had they been higher). The vertical variance is pretty good. Very few arrows missed the five ring high-low. Again a few shots were left-and-high so they missed, but had the windage been on only two or three would still have missed.

The horizontal variance is a bit troubling, especially on the first round, though it has been plaguing me all along. I did make a very minor adjustment to my rest before I left, moving it in towards the riser by 1/2 the width of the sharpie mark on the rest. I shot two ends after that, one at 50 and one at 20 and the left-right seemed pretty good though it is hard to tell with so few arrows to compare.

My x’s were also low, tallying only 44 for the whole round. That puts them at 39% of my total arrows. I would like to get that total up to 50% or higher. Hopefully that will come with figuring out this left-right issue.

The target below shows only the field courses, not the practice arrows.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Jun 5, 2011 1:38 PM Target: NFAA/IFAA Field Total score: 536

— Sent from my iPhone

As many of you know because you so generously donated on my behalf, Joel and I took part in Reach the Beach, an annual bike ride fundraiser for the American Lung Association.

This year’s ride caused a bit of a stir and earned some airtime on the local news stations because the police in Amity – the halfway point on the 104 mile ride from Portland – setup a sting operation for bikers who ran a stop sign.  I have definite opinions on that, but I will address those in a bit.

All in all the ride raised more than $600,000 dollars for the ALA, which is a great accomplishment and an event record.  The ride was limited to 3,000 riders and sold out more than two weeks before the deadline.

The ride itself proved to be very pretty and mostly enjoyable, but much more difficult than either Joel or I thought it would be, and I had anticipated it being pretty tough.

Everyone I spoke to about the ride insisted that it was very flat, and indeed there was a significant portion of dead flat land from Newberg to Grand Ronde, but that leaves about 75 miles of climbing.  It wasn’t always super steep, but it was pretty constant.  As is clearly evident in the picture above, I am not a pristine physical specimen, but even still, this was pretty tough.

In fact, it was so hard that neither Joel or I finished.  Joel made it 50 miles and I got as far as 82, but eventually the hills and killer headwind were too much for me.

Click through for the full details.

(continue reading…)

Arrow Shaft
A/C/C 3-39 @ 29.75″ – 100gr

Draw Length
30.5″

Draw Weight
56 lbs.

Axel-to-Axel
42″  –  Top of top pin to center of bottom pin

Peep Sight
14.625mm  –  Front of T-square resting on the center of the nock

Tiller
Top/Bottom: 23mm
Outside of string, measured from front of T-square

Rest
Horizontal: 29mm  –  Measured from end of T-square
Vertical: 28.9mm  –  Measured from end of T-square
From String: 18.5mm  –  Front of T-square to tips of Launcher

Nock Point
Top:  -3.25mm  –  Inside edge with T-square @ lowest point in V of rest
Bottom: -7.5mm  –  Inside edge with T-square @ lowest point in V of rest
D-Loop: 1/2 inch – from outside of string to inside of D-Loop

Cable Guard
Position: Flush to front of riser
Control Yoke: Outside slot on slider
Bus Cable: Inside slot on slider

Wheels:
Top At Rest

Bottom At Rest

Top At Full Draw

Bottom At Full Draw

Stabilizer
Kudalec 4-Rod

Stabilizer Weights:
All weights measured to center of set-screw

First: Small steel – 3 ^11/16 inches from front of stabilizer
Second: Large Aluminum – 13 ^3/16 inches from front of stabilizer
Third: Large Aluminum – 23 ^9/16 inches from front of stabilizer