Hindsight Revelation-
GREEN LANE STAFFORD 15th March 2020In future, I'll treat the Stafford not as a long-range indoor event, but rather as easy preparation for the start of the outdoor season - using skinny arrows & heavier poundage limbs etc. The X-Busters, even at 41#, just don't do it at 30 m like they do at 20 yds. Like driving a black taxi on the motorway
"The one that got away"
So, I had to guess at the vertical for the first sighter end, based on last years' outdoor marks. BOY was I off! Had to go an extra 15 turns for the 2nd end, was still low left.
First scoring end was a very disappointing 12.
But that was as bad as it got, as the ends passed I got the vertical nailed down pretty quickly. However the horizontal soon ran into end-stop issues & I spent a few ends aiming off before taking the plunge, whipping out my Allen key & screwing the pin out an extra 5mm or so.
I made it to the half-time break on 241, not feeling I was consistent enough on release - by the time my brain said 'shoot', the sights had already floated off to blue or even the odd black. Not great, really.
The second half felt much better, groups were getting tighter & scores improving. Then came the first shot of the 20th end...
I have absolutely ZERO idea of the why, it felt like a perfectly good shot to me but by the time the arrow reached the boss it was 2" right & at floor level. It slammed into the 'master' junction box for the target lights & plunged the whole range into darkness
I thought it best not to show how much I saw the funny side of it, as time ticked on & the amateur sparkies struggled to perform a fix. Took a full 15 minutes, and a re-route of the power feed down the left edge of the range, before the lights came on again & the end continued.
It didn't get to me though, and I finished the round pretty strongly 28-26-24 for a 257 and a total of 498. No errors this time, all properly checked.
- DAMN that unexplained miss!
Seems the archery godz have decreed that I won't get that coveted 1st compo 500 this indoor season. BarStewards!
But I did win what I hope will be an excellent bottle of wine in the raffle (for some weird reason I just don't fancy any alky-hol tonight)
Oh yeah - and they gave me this too...
Which is my second gold of the season, and a really nice way to end it
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