That's the guy who introduced me to archery when I was a kid. Since that time, archery has brought me places I never could have imagined. I've been able to travel the country participating in archery tournaments and hunting. It has been one heck of a journey, too. While archery does get on my nerves from time to time, I find that I can a lot of peace when I shoot arrows. It quiets my mind and allows me to focus on nothing else while I'm launching arrows at the target.
Dad spent the weekend in New Mexico at the National Senior Games with my mom. He has put a lot of pressure on himself to have a peak performance. It has brought about a few issues along the way this spring, but it hasn't been anything he couldn't handle.
On Saturday, the first day of shooting, the wind was horrendous. The scores were low across the board. Three of the four guys on dad's bale shot the wrong target in the first end. The targets weren't lined up the best, which caused some problems. It's a horrible way to drop 10 points, 10 points that proved to be costly. Sometimes it's easy to lose your focus when you have a lot of things going on at once: the first end at 60 yards, the targets not lining up with the shooting station, and a lot of people on edge due to the first scoring end of the tournament.
Dad has medaled a few different times at the National Senior Games, and he really wanted to go for the gold at this one, thinking he had it in himself. When he saw some of the names on the list of competitors, he knew he would have to be at his best to find a place on the podium.
Well, the rest of the first day didn't go well as far as the weather was concerned. They had to take a break due to bad weather. The second day brought better shooting conditions, and Dad held his own by shooting the third highest score. He ended up missing the podium by a few points, but he was happy with his fourth place finish. Considering the field, he did really well to finish where he did. There were some really good shooters, and Dad had struggled a little bit leading up to the event. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I know you wanted more, but you should still be proud of finishing where you did. I'm sure there were a lot of guys shooting who wished they could have finished where you did. There's never more than one winner, and we must always remember that. A lot more people go home as losers than they do as winners. If we have a winning performance and don't win, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
My Week
My week didn't go well with bows. After changing some things when I got home from New Hampshire last week, I just can't get the bow to hold or shoot like it had been prior to that. The pin had been sitting down really well, allowing me to execute great shots. I was stacking groups of arrows on top of each other at every distance, and my shots were breaking were relative ease.
As the week progressed, I tried a lot of things. I changed the letoff a few times, and I messed with the draw length, too. I haven't been able to get the bow to sit down, which is beginning to get on my nerves. Now, I know I've shot too much and my shoulders are tired and sore.
I stood in the rain for a long time today trying to get the bow to feel like I wanted it to feel. I never accomplished my goal. The weather forecast for the week looks to have rain in it every day. I'm sure I'll keep at it. I'm crossing my fingers that I can figure out how to get it to feel good again and to aim like it was aiming before I made the few minor changes. I seem to be that guy who changes something and can never get the bow back to where it had been before the changes. It's almost like shooting two different models of the same bow. Even though they are the same, one will always feel better than the other. I can't wait to get a bow to feel good again. It has been a while since I've had one that felt good for an extended period of time. Maybe I'll get lucky and everything will fall into place when I need it to. I'd like to have it ready to roll by July 4 weekend.
I went to visit Jeff Frasier on Saturday to return a release that he let me borrow. While there, he helped me with the bow. I was having a hard time getting a bullet hole. I know I'm on the edge of arrow spine, but the arrow I'm shooting has never given me a problem. No matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of the bad tear. He had some of Jeff Wagoner's arrows in the shop and told me to shoot one. I picked one up and shot it. Amazingly, it shot a perfect bullet hole, and the arrow was a tad stiffer than the arrow I've been shooting.
After seeing the great hole, Jeff had one last idea. We changed nocks on my arrows and shot them. We instantly saw the problem. The problem revolved around my nocks. With new nocks, all of my arrows shot bullet holes. Moral of the story: pay attention to your nocks and change them regularly. While these nocks weren't that old, they were headed toward their final days.
I don't have many plans today for the rest of the week. I did spend a little time today walking around with an umbrella over my head and a rangefinder in my hand. I haven't been able to spend much time rangefinding, so I took advantage of some down time today and did that to keep my mind sharp. Now that my bow isn't shooting the best, I know I can't afford to miss any numbers. My yardage will be the only thing that can save me right now.
I had the pleasure of doing an extended interview today with a great guy from Minnesota. He was a writer for Field & Stream magazine and was doing a story about the rut. Whenever I'm interviewed, I feel like I'm spewing stuff that everyone knows. When we finished, he complimented me and said he got some great information. I'm looking forward to seeing what he uses from our hour and 20 minute talk. It was awesome to talk about deer hunting and made me want to get right out there and start today. I'll try to enjoy the summer, after all, we only get so many hunting seasons... and summers in our lifetimes. There's no sense in rushing time away.
Until next week............practice hard and practice right. Enjoy the journey and have a good time doing it.
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