Now that hunting season has rolled into northern New York, I figured I better get this annual shooting update done before I become engrossed in my other full-time hobby. Although I enjoy competitive archery, it doesn’t light my candle like hunting. There’s something about being in the outdoors and watching animals do their thing that fascinates me. I’ve seen things that I wish others could see, and I’ve experienced things I know I could’ve never imagined. With those thoughts in mind, I’ll walk back in time to when hunting season closed last year, and I picked my bow up to begin getting ready for the indoor season.
Going into the indoor season, I got a late start. I usually get going in early December, but a nagging shoulder issue prevented me from doing so. As I gently increased my shooting schedule, I realized my sight picture was not going to cooperate to score well indoors. Although it wasn’t horrible, the pin did not sit in the 10-ring the majority of the time. Instead, I found it wandering around the yellow. I saw these results on the paper and began scoring as well as I was holding. If you can’t consistently hold it in the 10-ring until the shot fires, all the arrows will not find their way to the highest scoring ring.
I battled this for the entire winter. I did attempt a few indoor tournaments and the results were not good. I had one decent round the entire winter, and that was at Hall’s Arrow for the New England Indoor Championship when inner-10 scoring was in effect. It wasn’t a stellar round, but it was solid, and my shooting was better than my score.
I did break some of my old records along the way. I shot my lowest score ever at the NFAA Indoor State Championship. Although the score was embarrassing, I still handed my card in. Unlike some other people I know, I take the good with the bad and hand the card in. The next day at the State Classic, I had an experience I’d like to forget, but I somehow managed to get through it and shot a 50x round, I think. It wasn’t great for the confidence, but I knew my shot was solid, so I rode that into the outdoor season.
When the snow faded away and spring rolled in, I was caught in a battle between focusing on the National Senior Games in Florida and the First Leg of the IBO National Triple Crown in West Virginia. I attempted giving each game an ample amount of practice to be competitive at both.
After the first day at the National Senior Games, I was satisfied to see that I had withstood the blazing heat and the mercury of the thermometer climbing into the 90s to shoot the highest score of any archer in the tournament.
The second day didn’t treat me as well. I’d like to blame it on the heat or something else, but I have nothing to blame it on other than my hold. My hold wasn’t as good as it was the first day, and I shot as well as I held. The gusts of wind through the second half of the round didn’t help matters. However, after I fired my last arrow of the tournament, I knew I had broken the longstanding record. Unfortunately, the record lasted about seven minutes, as a guy on my bale beat me. I walked away with the second highest score ever shot, and I can live with that.
A few weeks later, I found myself at the First Leg of the National Triple Crown. My bow wasn’t cooperating with me, and I performed the best I could. I walked away with a 7th place finish. I didn’t feel much more confident going into the second leg, but I pulled off a 6th place finish and missed the shootdown round by two points… my last shot of the tournament.
The next month was a blur with all the traveling. I finished off the year well in the IBO, making the shootdown round in the 3rd leg and shooting well enough to be in the dance on the final day at the World Championship. Unfortunately, two ricochets kept me out of the shootdown round, but I did make the shots to get in. The ricochet luck hurt badly, but I realize it’s a part of the game, and I can’t change the rules as they’re written. It simply came down to bad luck.
I was able to travel to the last three ASAs of the year, and I feel like I made progress in relearning the game that I’ve been away from for so long. In every event, I was near the top of the leaderboard on Day 2. I believe the lack of rest after traveling to get there kept me from performing at my best on Day 1 of the events. I will be better suited and more prepared next year after learning this valuable lesson. I can succeed at the ASA game if I manage both days equally well.
As I look ahead to next year, I’m hoping for some of the shoulder and elbow issues to subside in the off-season. It was difficult to shoot this year, and there wasn’t one day where I felt above 80% physically. I approached the season like a surfer riding a wave. I rode the waves to the beach and picked my board up and walked away. I neve gave in, and some of the waves knocked me into the surf this year. I got mixed up in the turbulence below the air pocket and felt like every ounce of sand got rubbed all over my face and into my eyes. I’ll try my best to avoid falling off the board next year.
I’d like to thank all of the companies and people who supported me this year, including Eric Griggs (GAS Bowstrings), Shrewd Archery, TruBall Archery, PSE, Conquest Archery, and Bohning. If you’re looking to put new strings on your bow for next year’s tournament season, I’d highly recommend looking into the many types that GAS can supply. They’ve never let me down while hunting or on the tournament trail.
The new tournament season is only a few months away, and I will be headed in a different direction with some of the equipment I’ll be using. Some of my well-respected peers will be my new teammates, and I look forward to what the new year brings for all of us. I hope everyone out there who hunts has a great hunting season, and for those of you who don’t, I hope you continue working on your craft while others are sleeping.
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