Friday – We arrived at the archery range at 6:15 a.m. and started the day with a great pancake and biscuits, and gravy breakfast. not my normal fare, but it provided a good base for the days shooting. In our shooting group were :
- Roger Brown, a bow shop employee at Archery Only in Newark, California, shooting an Olympic style recurve.
- Chris Lollini, a sales executive from Livermore, originally from Ohio. As an ex-windsurfer, and motorcycle racer, he has calmed his hobbies down and started shooting freestyle compound class.
- Bill Morehead, a contractor from Healdsburg who shoots with us at the Sonoma County Bowmen regularly. He shot the Bowhunter Freestyle class.
- Dave Bengston, a retired owner of a countertop business, turned professional archer. Dave is a local sponsored Hoyt shooter who has been instrumental in helping me in archery. His sage advice and good examples in shooting form have helped me progress in archery beyond what I could have on my own. He shot the men’s senior pro division.
- Doug Moore, owner of a hardware store, shooting bowhunter freestyle.
- Myself, shooting Bowhunter Freestyle as well.
The shoot format was 25 targets Friday, 25 targets Saturday, and 20 targets on Sunday. Each archer shoots two arrows at each target station that score either 11, 10 or 8 points. that makes a total of 22 points available per target. The orange dot on the target scores 11 points per arrow.
We started out on target 40 and after 9 targets we were up against the famous 101 yard Bigfoot target. I managed to get foam on my shots and eke out a 16. Doug hit the orange with his second shot and scored a 21.
Near the end of our shooting day, We lined up to shoot the famous “elk herd scene”. it is an 88 yard shot at a 11 cm orange dot on the side of two battling bull elk. my first arrow hit the orange at 12 o’clock, and I over corrected on my second shot and shot a zero with my second arrow.
At the end of the day I had 499 points out of a possible 550. It was not my best performance, but the companionship made up for it.
