The 100 Mile House Bighorn Archery Club’s Traditional 3-D Archery shoot hit the bullseye this past weekend.
Archers from Burns Lake all the way down to Gabriola Island came for the two-day event of friendly competition.
Bighorn Archery Club president Al Pickering said in a traditional shoot only a recurve, longbow or a self-bow are allowed. Pickering, who was using a long bow, said a self-bow is one that is made from a single piece of wood without fibreglass.
Compound bows have cams on the end of the bow giving a mechanical advantage so the bows are much faster in arrow speed and have a much flatter trajectory.
“We have people in our club who shoot both. Traditional for more of a fun shoot and compound bows typically for a very competitive shoot, because they are very accurate it’s almost like going to some sort of rifle shoot.”
The shoot itself is divided into classes according to bow type so people are shooting against like people.
Pickering said there are 20 targets on the main course and each person shoots the course twice from two different spots. “It changes the way you would shoot at it. Some are farther, some are closer, Uphill, downhill - that sort of thing.
In the traditional shoot, the scoring is 8/10/11 depending on how close the arrow is to the center of the target area.
On the optional hunter challenge, it is closer to what it would be like hunting for real. If the arrow lands on the eight-inch ring or inside it then a person scored 10 points. Anything outside the ring is considered a wound and 10 points are deducted from the score.
A competitor can decide it is too difficult and take a zero for that target. Similarly, if a shot misses the animal completely there is a zero score.
In order to help replicate what it would be like out hunting, a stake is driven into the ground at a specified distance from the target. One foot must touch the peg at all times preventing competitors from moving to an easy shot. Branches, twigs and even leaves can send an arrow skittering off into the brush.
“Some people just shoot it for fun to see how they do. It’s a measure of how much more practice you need, I guess,” laughed Pickering.
Steven Pavich came up from Vancouver Island with his mom, Nicole Achterberg, for the weekend.
“We didn’t do so good, find somebody else,” he laughed when asked if he would be willing to talk to the Free Press.
Achterberg has been doing archery since 1990 and got her son started when he was little. “Tracked him around on the course with us.” Back in those days, he used those “little orange arrows” but has graduated to a recurve bow now.
“They’re easy to shoot,” said Achterberg.
Her son got his own bow at the last shoot he attended. “I really liked how it looked and then I tried shooting it and I got three tens in a row and I’m like - ok, I’m sold.”
Archery is about more than just making the shot, however.
Ron Ewing came up from Gabriola Island as it is an exceptionally good traditional shoot. “And for me, it’s a road trip too. It’s two days shooting and I’ll take a week.” Ewing has been coming up for around five years now and said if it weren’t for archery he wouldn’t know Al. “You get to know a group of people from all over the province,” he said.
He said that for most of the people who go to shoots, it’s 50 per cent archery and 50 per cent social.
fiona.grisswell@100milefreepress.net
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