Sunday, September 25, 2011

Sunday Morning Archery

 I got out this morning to complete some archery practice. I had decided last winter that it would be kind of neat to teach myself how to shoot a traditional longbow so I picked up a Modoc style hickery bow on Ebay. All of my practice (till recently) have been in my basement with a shooting lane of 10 yards. Since my initial objectives were to work on the basics and form it was the perfect setup. I was itching to get out and add some distance so I scouted out an isolated spot in the woods while doing some trail running this summer. Built myself a backdrop from the abundance of deadwood in the area and made myself a target out of three egg flats wrapped in a plastic bag.

  The bow is a shelfless style and my shooting is all instinctual- I measured off 16 yards for my first several attempts. At a modest 45 pounds@ 28 the bow is surprisingly powerful using 100 gram target point cedar arrows.


My initial shots were low but I quickly adjusted to the additional distance which is what instinctual archery is all about. Works on the same principle of a quarterback throwing a football to the hands of the receiver or an outfielder throwing the baseball into the glove of the second baseman. My form felt ok but I really need to lock in my anchor point as sometimes I get lazy.


I ended my practice by pushing up the distance to 25 yards just for the challenge of it. My egg flat target looked pretty darn tiny against the 4X4 deadfall backstop from my new vantage point.First arrow was low of the target by a foot. Second arrow missed the backstop high by a few inches. Third arrow missed the target by an inch - high right. At least I hit the backstop twice....(wink)Work in progress.





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