A Spot of Field Shooting

I had a bit of a break from the warbow yesterday and drove down to Blackwater in Hampshire with JT to see our mate Rob, who then drove us about 20 mins to Fleet Ibex Field Archery Club.

We had shoot round in glorious weather and a beautiful setting, plenty of butterflies and some deer too. We had the place to ourselves, it was very peaceful. I was shooting twister my fave Yew primitive and did ok, though some of the log shots were baffling!
Rob was pretty steady, but we weren't being competitive or scoring, just having a stroll and shooting a few arrows as the fancy took us.

JT rarely shoots field and normally shoots a heavy warbow... he went round with an old Quick's takedown recurve that he'd given someone £20 for rather than see it binned. It was interesting seeing it shot from what looked like a 30" draw! It was pretty quick, but with less draw weight to provide resistance it felt a bit like waving a feather in a breeze. His shooting was a bit like the curate's egg. With matched arrows and a bit of practice it looked like it would be a fun field bow. I had one shot with it using a fat arrow that had no point! (Yes of course I hit the kill ;-) ).

We stopped at a pub (The Fox) for a bite to eat. I had a grilled pork wrap with tzatziki ... yum, and a beer, perfect way to spend a day...
Pics courtesy of JT... including him pondering the eternal question of half empty or half full. This was eventually resolved with a refill !

The drive back round the M25 was a bit of a chore, but it's not so bad when there's 2 of you in the car and you can have a chat, and be fed extra strong mints.
Back at JTs we loaded a big Yew log onto the Micra so that we can run it through the bandsaw on Thursday. Nice log, but one side is all branches at one end, so we will prob make a series of saw cuts across the knotty side and chop it away with an axe. Removing some of the bulk will make it more manage able for the bandsaw.
I'm almost tempted to buy an electric chainsaw for such trimming work, but it would be just one more seldom used tool to clutter up the garage, anyhow, a bit of hand sawing is good for the general fitness level... and I certainly need it.

The combination of shooting, being stuck in a car driving and heaving a bleedin' great log of the car (with some help from my better half) made my shoulder ache something chronic... then I remembered we have on of those cloth bags full of rice or beans or something that you warm up in the microwave... absolute bliss wrapped over the shoulder, loosened it off a treat :-)