Westcott Field Shoot - 13th July 2008
If you would like to submit a comment about our Field Shoot, please contact Webby and I will add it to our report.
Absolutely brilliant course. We all had a really good day out. We will be back next year. Janice Blades
Thanks very much for a brilliant shoot. The course was outstanding (and the free tea was very welcome!!). Sue Matthews
Thanks Westcott Archers for putting on another smashing shoot.Geoff Baxter
Just thought i'd drop you a short email to say how much we enjoyed the shoot on sunday.The Bees proved to be a firm favourite with everybody but the skinny turkey and the long lion caused more than a few groans.Thanks again and we will see you in January. Andy and Lorraine Miles
To read Andrew Hopkinson's report, please click the link to go to his blog. Please note this takes you away from the Westcott Website.
The Bees (Hugh Stalkers target)
Only competing in my third outdoor field shoot in two years, I and my two NFAS "cubs" got a place at our own home shoot at Westcott Archers. Hopefully this won't seem too biased as I don't get to see many other shoots so I really don't have anything to compare to! One thing that was plainly obvious was the huge amount of effort that had gone into planning and setting this course to make it easy to navigate, for novices like me but not so easy to shoot that it wasn't a testing day.
The crocs in the woods
Its not often you get to shoot a swarm of bees low to the ground with colourful flowers as a background. Westcott had recently aquired a few more 3D's and made a few as well to great effect, where does Hugh Stalker get his ideas from? The most magnificent target - a Male lion, was placed high up on bales so you could just see him over the tall grass. It was a shot of 50 yds or so that I missed the "kill" by about 1 cm on my first round. So I was a bit baffled when it took 3 arrows to hit the thing the 2nd time around. Being a predominantly target archer I was going to struggle with the distances as they were unmarked and I also struggled with a few targets that were in the shade as well, especially if we were shooting from out in the bright sunshine into the gloom. I just couldn't pick up the target in my target adapted sight and in the end had to guess where to aim, much to the detriment of my scorecard. I hadn't even been allowed to go into the woods for the last few weeks while the preperation had been done because I had announced that I was going to shoot competatively this year as I was also shoot guardian to my two kids. They thoroughly enjoyed the shoot especially the younger one who was shooting field for the first time and managed to put over 100 points on his first round score to finish behind his older brother who really should now be shooting an age group higher as his score was 20 points higher than the winning mens freestyle score.
The Swine herd
I have to say thank you to all of the Westcott members who helped out and made the day run smoothly with no problems, the food was good and the organisation as always was brilliant. Helpers included people who had only just joined the club and were seeing their first field shoot in action. Its nice when this happens and new members feel inclined to help after only being at the club for a short time.
There's a wolf hiding in the trees
Its nice to try field again and it always makes me want to do more! I'll see what the diary says and see if I can squeeze a few more in soon. Jock Murray, Westcott Archers Records Officer
Photos courtesy of Shel Cowles