We weren’t exactly sure if we’d make it on to this shoot or not. When we booked in in October we were originally numbers 20 and 21 on the reserve list. We were planning on going to Doverdale with a couple of other members of Artemis if we didn’t mangage to get booked on to the Liberty shoot.The Tuesday evening before the shoot I decided to call Dawn at Liberty and find out how far up the list we were, we were 4th and 5th. After a chat with Dawn, it was suggested that we should turn up on the Sunday as they knew there would be cancellations and they would get us in somehow.
RAF Lakenheath is about 2 hours drive for us, so we aimed to set off at about 6:30am to try and give us time to stop for some coffee on the way. We actually got away at about 6:50 and when I put the address into the sat nav it gave me an arrival time of 9:30am, yeah right!
We arrived at 8:45 and headed down to get booked in. The shoot was quite busy and when we looked at the list most pegs had 6 people. Due to the lack of daylight available, it was only two arrows per target and the shoot would be stopped at 3:30pm regardless. As to be expected from Liberty, a lot of the targets were around the 40 yard mark with not much given between red and white pegs. The cub pegs were also very stretched and the cub in our group struggled a lot, although it was his first time out with a new flat bow.
The weather held out for us until roughly lunch time, at which point the heavens opened and for about 30 minutes we got absolutely soaked. Luckily we were close enough to the cars as the rain started so I swapped out my soft shell for a waterproof.
We got finished quite early and were ready for the presentations at about 3pm. As usual Kay came first in her class and I have no idea where I came. I was over 100 points off first place which I expected as I hadn’t shot particularly well for whatever reason, Kay seems to think I have a problem with my arrows but it could have been down to the cold or the clothing I was waering. I’m not used to shooting in that many layers of clothing. First thing I guess to try would be a new set of arrows then just more practice in more layers of clothing.
I enjoyed the Liberty shoot the first time I shot the course but now it seems to be the same distances all the time. We are booked back on to the spring shoot in April along with some other members of Artemis so I guess we’ll see what they have to offer for that shoot.
Right time to go get started on making some new arrows!
no comment untill now