Last Archery Tourney of the Year

A Is For Archer, and That Is Good Enough For Me

For the last archery practice of the year, we held our annual Cookie shoot. Bring cookies. Shoot at cookies. Eat Cookies. I am the master of cheap-ass archery targets. This was my contribution. An un-licensed, Chinese knock-off Cookie Monster. I found this on Amazon for $5. It's supposed to be a pin-the-cookie-on-the-blue-monster party game. But, in my world, it became an archery target.

The cookies were given random point values and the un-licensed, Chinese knock-off Cookie Monster was worth -5, if you hit it, with the archer getting the lower of the two points if they broke a line. Un-licensed, Chinese knock-off Cookie Monster got hit a lot. Even in the eyeball. 

Ouch. 

The average score on this target was -6. Fortunately, the other targets didn't have negative points associated with them. But, it did skew the tourney. 

The cookies, afterwards, were pretty good, as well. 

Shot Through the Heart

And You're To Blame.

Magnus, you give archers a bad name!

Tonight, at the Hael archery practice, I lost an arrow. Blam! A clean hit. I blame Baron Magnus. It appeared that Thalia Papillon shot the killing round; but I'm blaming Baron Magnus. Just 'cause.

You know, once in a while it is my pleasure, and my privilege, to shoot some of the great arrows of our time. And tonight, I had one such arrow. My Lords and Ladies, an arrow which I've always personally admired, perhaps more deeply, more strongly, more abjectly than ever before. An arrow, well more than an arrow, a weapon of the gods, a great god, whose personality is so totally and utterly wonderful my feeble words of praise sound wretchedly and pathetically inadequate. An arrow, had it feet, whose boot I would gladly lick clean until holes wore through my tongue, an arrow which was so totally and utterly wonderful, that I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth, than dare miss the target with it.

Anyways, it's done broken and dead. C'est la vie.

I think that this is the first time in like 30 years that I had an arrow from a dozen break before loosing a tip. 

A pretty good shot. Thalia split my arrow and Magnus dropped a round in between the halves.

Here's the thing about arrows: They will break. They will get lost. You will have to buy new ones at some point. Arrows, and crossbow bolts, are like potato chips: you break some and you buy another bag, possibly one of those new flavors, like Maui Onion or Spicy Cayenne and Cheese. And how come Lays offers Smokey Bacon flavored chips in Canada and not in the 'States? Huh? What's up with that? And have you seen some of the flavors they offer in England? Cheese and Onion, Prawn Cocktail, Beef and Onion, German Bratwurst Sausage, Italian Spaghetti Bolognese, French Garlic Baguette, English Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Dutch Edam Cheese, Australian BBQ Kangaroo, Welsh Rarebit and Marmite. Why does England get awesome flavors and we don't? Well, except for the Marmite flavored chips. They can keep them. And the Haggis flavored chips. Yes, they made haggis flavored potato chips in 2010. What the hell, England.....

Er, I feel that I got side tracked. My point is, don't get upset that you lost an arrow or two. Put money aside and buy more. If it's that troubling, don't spend a couple hundred bucks on arrows. Buy cheap arrows and let them fall where they may. If you are too hung up on your ammo, you won't go out on the fun ranges and you will subconsciously drop your arrows away from the bulls eye to keep them safe from other archers. 

I think that it held up

New archery target didn't disappoint. 

The dino-face target was brought out to Pax, this past weekend and was parked behind a handful of other pool-noodle targets. The head was worth a bonus 10 point for any hits; only the head, not the body. It was around 25 yards and, in the high winds we had, was swaying back and forth. But, it did catch the arrows that hit it: no blow-throughs. 

The only problem was that the glue that held the head to the body broke after the first couple of hits, so that the head spun when it was hit. I will need to pull out my hot glue gun and fix it. $10 well spent.

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While I call this a dino-face, it is marketed as a tiger shark, by BJ's. But, dino-face is more fun to say. To deploy, you will need a 1x1" wood stake from any nursery or home repair store. The dino-face  came with a little tail glued to the other end of the noodle. Twist it until it breaks free and pull it out of the noodle. Drive the 1x1" stake into the ground and slide the noodle over the stake. Just hot-glue the face in place so that it will not spin around when hit.

The shot of the shot, above, was made with a 29# recurve at around 25 years in high winds and the arrow did penetrate and stick without a problem.

I think I will keep my eyes open for any clearances on these guys and get a pack of them. I think that BJ's also had some green turtle faces. I think that it would make a nice shoot: take out the carnivores but don't hit the herbivores. Or. Or. Shot the tasty, tasty herbivores before they get eaten by the blue Velociraptors.

I got me a new archery target

That that you stupid, blue dinosaur.

I found this guy at BJs, today. Looks like I got me a cool, new archery target for Pax. If it holds up, I might go back and pick up a herd of them.

I'll get you and your little dog, too!

Another traveling archery range, back home and locked away. These killer lollipops, along with some other targets, made an appearance at Pax, this weekend. In spite of the poor weather, six archers marched out to the archery range and shot while being drenched in cold rain. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the range. Now that Pax is over, I can think about other events and things to do. I do have to replace one of my targets: one of the last of my cardboard targets. It got soaked in the downpour and could not be saved.

Ooooh! I had an idea! I still have some pool noodles left and I know they make snake skin duct tape. I can make snake targets. I just need to figure out a way of anchoring them to the ground so that they still look like rearing snakes and still be portable. Yeah, that'll be cool.