Ahhh.one of those days

[Ralph]

#138281

One of those days guys that to me is what traditional archery is all about.  It’s not just about hunting with trad equipment or target shooting or 3D shooting, it’s a about the friendships and camaraderie of a group of people with the same likes.

It seems anymore that when we gather at places to shoot, it’s competition, scores, prizes. Stress.

Our little group here in Amarillo, we meet monthly during the summer, we call it a play day.

I’m sure a lot of folks in the surrounding area don’t attend because we don’t offer winner prizes, high dollar raffle items and such but that’s how it is. We just wanna let our hair down and relax and enjoy.

By the way, any children attending do get medallions. It’s a proud thing for them.

Like today for example, I had plenty of help this morning (hasn’t always been so) at 8:00 to set up 15 3D targets so that we could start shooting by 10ish.

We charge $10 a head, except setup crew, $5 for us ($5 gets me help 🙂 ) and it’s an all you can shoot deal til we shut it down.

About a dozen of us spent the day shooting bows, one can keep score if one wants but it’s just for personal satisfaction, shooting the bull and telling ‘war’ stories.

No stress, lots of fun and go home tired but relaxed.

I for one don’t have much of a competitive drive or desire anymore.  Been there, done that. I kinda like the calmer things in life and shooting my longbow is one of them. Not a stress to win factor. Only to shoot good enough for my satisfaction. Folks “I’m calling the 12 ring”.

Me, if it’s a kill shot behind the shoulder I’m happy. Cain’t see them damn rings anymore anyway if I’m very far away.  :-))

T’was a fine, relaxing day, I’m tired but happy.

Ralph, aka R2  ;-))

 

 

[Raymond Coffman]

#138287

Ralph

Sounds like a great time with good folks. Rare to find a club with that kind of camaraderie these days. Although I think it is still fairly common among the trad bow crowd. What you describe is the kind of ” competition ” I prefer nowadays — I guess I am getting ” long in the tooth* ” ” feels like far” haha

Scout aka Ray

* always amused by this saying since most critters ( myself included )get worn- shorter teeth with age ! Haha

[David Coulter]

#138288

Ralph, sounds like my kind of shoot. Glad you had a good time. Best, dwc

[richard roop]

#138296

We had a somewhat similar event at Apache Bowhunters in Globe Az.  last Sunday.

It started out with a refrigerator magnet of a Scorpion.  Did the shadow-graph thing with a flashlight and made a couple of templates out of cardboard, one large & one smaller.  Put the template on fresh cardboard and hit the edges with a black rattle can.  Viola ………. quick scorpion target.  The fun part is the scoring; a large circle in the ‘kill’  for 15 points, smaller circles in the claws for 25 points and a really small circle in the tail stinger for 50 points. Anywhere in the body scored 5 points.  Scoring circles were marked with small ‘dots’ .  Distances were 5 to about 15 yards for the smaller targets and 15 or so yards out to 30ish yards for the larger ones.  Twenty targets, two arrows per each.

Now for the fun stuff; a handful of us old farts headed out wading thru the B.S. all the way.  At the shooting positions one had to decide, go for the larger / lower score circles or the smaller / higher score circles.  There were a lot of ‘no score’ areas around the high score circles.  More than once I shot a couple of really good arrows that were not quite good enough for a zero / zero.   The guys were brutal, too. “Hey, that would have been a good shot if you hadn’t missed.”

All in all, we had a GREAT time and are looking forward to doing it again.

[Matt B]

#138303

Our Amarillo “PDBH” trad play day is always fun. The great weather we had Saturday made it even better. I encourage any of y’all withing driving distance of Amarillo come join us. It is a very relaxed,  very fun shoot.

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