The Think Tank

A good weekend for me and Deb!

This weekend Debbie and I shot in the first two legs of the Northwest Shoot Up Tour, a series of ten shoots at different shops all around Oregon and Washington.  In order to qualify for the Finals at the end of January in Camas, you have to shoot in at least three of the qualifying legs. Its the first time that either of us have shot in this tour, but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite events of the year.

Here is the format:  Each of the qualifying legs are one day shoots, consisting of a 300 Vegas round followed by a shoot off.  After the 300, everyone is grouped into Flights.  The two lowest ranking people in the Flight shoot a 6 arrow head-to-head shoot-off against each other, and the winner of that match moves on to shoot against the next highest person, and so on until you get all the way up to first place.  The top three spots in each Flight win money.

For the Final, they will count the three best scores from the preceding legs, then resort everyone into Flights using those numbers and proceed through the Shoot-Off in the same format.

I will go into more detail after the bump, but for those of you who want the skinny without having to read all the way through, here is the Condensed Version:  On Saturday, Debbie won the Third Flight, and I came in 5th in the First Flight; On Sunday, Debbie moved up about ten places to finish 4th in the Second Flight, and I won the First Flight, marking my first Indoor victory since I started shooting again.

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I don’t really have a much time to go into details here, but I finished up a little bit  better on the second day, scoring 580 on the day.  That is in line with the 290 average I wanted to maintain, even if it is on the bottom end.  All in all I felt I shot very well.  I was actually on track for about a 585, but I got into a little jag where I couldn’t get my poop in a group, and I dropped seven points in just nine arrows (accounting for all but one of the misses in the outer yellow that you see at left).  Aside from that stretch I felt very solid.

I am unsure of placement because I shot Friday-Saturday and there were still guys shooting on Sunday who weren’t done yet.  I will post an update when I hear from WSAA.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Nov 19, 2011 11:33 AM Target: FITA Inner Ten Total score: 580

Tens: 40  Nines: 20  Shots with proper execution: 57/66

Two Day Total:  1156

— Sent from my iPhone

We started this line at 7pm and did not finish until after 11pm, so at this point it is is after midnight.  As such I am going to keep this brief.

I shot 288 on both rounds today, for a total of 576.  (600 is possible). My general rule is that I shouldn’t drop below a 290, so I was a bit off of that but not so far as to be really disappointed.  (FITA tournaments score this target differently than most.  For FITA, only the very small dime-sized X-Ring counts as a ten.  Everything else in the yellow is a nine.  The X-Ring is not really visible in the image at left, because it is underneath a pile of hit indicators.  For comparison, using normal Vegas scoring, I would have shot 596/36X  out of a possible 600/60X.)

I felt that I shot pretty well most of the night. I stayed pretty calm and focused on my form and usually when I missed I could identify why. I got shakier as the night wore on and my shoulder got sore, but that is par for the course right now.  I really need to into the shop to shoot 3-4 times a week (instead of once a week like I have been), and I also need to get into the gym as well and build up my shoulder strength.

I don’t know my placement so far because a lot of people did not shoot tonight: you have to shoot two of the three days (Fri-Sun), and only a few adults shot the Friday line. I’m guessing that score should put me in the top 5-6, but I find it doubtful I would be higher than that.

All in all I feel OK with today. I messed some up, but I shot pretty well overall. Tomorrow is the next day, as the man says.

The rest of the post will be my self critique and shooting notes. Read on if you like, but it will prolly be boring. 😉

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One of our better ends

The Sherwood-Nottingham shoot has always been one of my favorites.  It started in 1956 when the Mayor of Sherwood, Oregon, wrote to the Lord Mayor of Nottinghamshire, England, and proposed an archery challenge.  The Lord Mayor agreed, and the tournament was started.

We shoot 90 arrows a day (30 arrows at each of three distances: 60, 50 & 40 yards), two days in a row.  The top 8 archers form the team for their respective city, the scores are sent over in a secret envelope, and when everything is done the scores are compared and a winner is crowned.  The wining team gets to keep an intricately engraved silver bowl (recently appraised at more than $8,000) for the year.

Our shoot is held in conjunction with the Sherwood Robin Hood Festival , always held on the third weekend of July.  The local schools elect Maid Marion and her Court – selected primarily for civic achievements and activities in her community – and she starts our tournament every year. This year I had the honor of helping Keith Kemmerer instruct Maid Marion on how to shoot her bow (she’d never shot archery before).

This years shoot took place on one of the rainiest July weekends that Oregon has ever seen, and it marked only the second time since 1989 that the shoot was rained on.

Saturday started out with some drizzles, but quickly changed to dry and windy.  The wind picked up the throughout the day, keeping things challenging as distances got shorter, but it wasn’t anything too terrible.

I shot alright at 60 and 40, but 50 was sort of disappointing.  I ended with an 877 out of a possible 900.  I haven’t been able to find a list of previous results, but I seem to remember shooting in the mid 880’s the last time I shot in this tournament, nine or ten years ago.  877 wasn’t bad, but I dind’t think it was anything to shout about.  Still, it was good enough to put me in first place by 10 points after the first day.

Sunday was a different matter.  The wind was gone, which was fortunate, but in its stead was an impressive rainstorm.  It was raining so hard at 60 yards that I had to add 2-3 yards to my sight marks to compensate for the rain pounding the arrows out of the air.

My first 12 arrows were very rough.  I was shooting a clarifier in my peep site (a device that makes the image in my scope appear more clear), but the rainy weather and warm temperatures caused the piece of glass in the clarifier to fog up, which meant I could see absolutely nothing.  Its hard to shoot when you can’t see anything.  I tried several things to correct the problem, but nothing worked very well.  This did not reflect well on my score card: after 12 arrows, I was down 10 points.  (That equaled the total that I missed at that distance on Saturday).  I finally just used a small allen wrench to pop the glass out of the clarifier.

After that I could actually see, although the scope was still pretty covered in rain drops which made it hard to see at times as well.  But even when it was bad, I could at least see some part of the target, which wasn’t the case when the clarifier was foggy.

I finished 6 points worse after 60 yards than I had been the day before, but aside from the first two ends, I was shooting pretty well.  We moved up to 50 yards and I shot much better, beating Saturdays score by 4 at that distance.  We moved up to 40 yards to finish the day, and the rains started again in earnest.  I took a little bit of a guess at the site mark, attempting to offset the drop that would be caused by the rain.  As it turned out, I gave it a little too much, and my first arrow missed out the bottom by abut 1/4 inch.  I adjusted my site and the next arrow pinwheeled the X.  I went on to finish the round with a 299 out of 300.  I would have liked to clean it, but I was happy with that performance in the end.

When I added everything up, I finished with 877 again, for a total of 1754.  As I mentioned earlier 877 is not a bad score, but it isn’t anything that I felt was particularly special, although given the weather conditions it was more respectable.  So I was very surprised to learn that the 10 point lead I had to start the day had ballooned into a 43 point victory.

As the rest of the scores were revealed, it was determined that all of the Sherwood teams – Compond, Recurve, Longbow and Juniors – beat our cousins across the pond. It was a total US sweep.  The Bowl is ours for another year.

The Sherwood Compound Team managed another victory, but it was by one of the narrowest margins ever: 270 points.  (By contrast, in 1994 we whooped them Brits by  more than 2,000 points).  I guess we will need to pick it up for next year!

I will post a link to the final results when they become available.

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