Welsh Field Masters Tour Round 5 - the final!

Hi everybody!

The Welsh Field Masters Tour round 5 was this Sunday (23 Sep 2012) at Fonmon Castle Estates near Cardiff Airport. I was in first place on the leaderboard but this round was the Marked Forrester round which is a very high scorer, on some targets you can clean up 60 points so I was hoping for a good result to cement the victory.

The weather forecast was looking decidedly poor, and sure enough the Welsh weather didn't let us down. It started raining on my way down the motorway to the shoot, turned into a torrential downpour that stayed with us all day without mercy or let up. I have good boots and waterproods specifically for shooting in poor weather, and i'm used to it so didnt let it get me down or get in my way. We started on T10 so after 4 targets we were back at the refreshments tent, and one of our group of 3 made the decision to drop out because he'd had enough of the weather so there were only 2 of us and we had to wait for someone to team up with to go back out. By this time, the course had already gotten so treacharous underfoot and slippery that the organisers chopped the competition to a half round of 14 targets. We went back out with one of the retired archers who acted as a marshal for us so we could complete the run.

I've never shot the Forrester round before and it was a very interesting one. It is shot on animal faces, with the usual kill/wound scoring areas but there is a black or gold spot in the middle, the 'clean-kill' area which is worth extra points and gives a nice clear point to aim at. The weather made the course difficult enough as it was, but poor lighting and rain spattered sights made it a bit trickier, even so I had a good half and shot very well. I only took one photo as I didnt want to get my phone out of my pocket in those conditions, but I couldn't let this one go without getting a picture. Only 25 feet away, but could you ask for a better shot than this? :)

I got around the course and shot 420 points for the half which was fairly decent, and as it happened my only competiton on the day had quit early on so I was the only AMFU shooter that finished the day, winning the individual stage by default, i'll take that!

This stage's win with the points cemented first place by a large margin, making me the 2012 AMFU Welsh Field Master!! The weather was so atrocious that the decision was made unanimously to give the trophies and the formal awards at another time, which will probably be at the WFAA Indoor Championships so not until January now, but the results went out by email and on the website so it is all official :)

I am absolutely thrilled with the result! In my first year (almost to the week) from picking up my first compound bow, I have secured the Senior Bowmaster rank with only 2 points short of the highest ranking possible of Grand Bowmaster, I have won the Welsh Field Masters tour and I am in a strong position to hope for a shot at Welsh Squad for next year, fingers crossed!

EFAA National Championsips

This weekend, I went to the EFAA National Championships hosted by March Hare Archers in Throckmorton. While an English tournament, Welsh archers can still shoot for classification scores as guests so I went up with one of the guys from my club to see if I could raise the bar a bit.

We arrived nice and early on the Saturday for the Hunter round. The weather was on our side with a bit of mist in the morning, which soon lifted to a really nice clear day. The course was quite flat with no real challenging angles and I shot very strongly all day.  The only hiccup all day was on the bunny. I accidentally aimed at the wrong target (shot top target first instead of bottom, GNAS style) and nailed a perfect X on the wrong face so that was down as a miss but even with that, I came in on a new personal best for the Hunter round of 526.

We travelled to the local campsite we were staying at, The Cottage Of Content after the shoot and got the tent up, and chilled out in the local pub with a nice big gammon and chips and a few ales to wash it down with! There was a travelling fire performer group staying at the campsite and putting on a show, and I ended up jamming with them in the pit juggling and fire spinning for an hour! That was a nice unexpected treat J

We got up bright and early after sleeping like a log (the new sleeping bags are great!) and got the tent down, ready to head out for the Field round on day 2. I have been chasing 530 points to reach Grand Bowmaster rank and only narrowly missed it because of the bunny mistake on Saturday so really concentrated and made sure I took my time on the course. There were no mistakes or misses during the round, but a few 18's and a 17 in the middle meant I missed the 530 mark, but still raised my pb for the Field round by 7 points to 528 which is a career and season best – so still a winner in my eyes!

 I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t reach the 530 but there’s always another time and I know that it is within my reach if I concentrate and shoot well. One of the main things I have been struggling with is consistency in my grip. I absolutely love my new Insanity CPXL but I have had a bit of trouble with the rounded back of the grip, the same as I had with the Guardian so I have ordered a custom Torqueless grip for it. I shoot a Torqueless on my Guardian and it makes a great difference to the feel of the bow, so I am hoping this will go some way to addressing this and will smooth out the inconsistency... time will tell!

The next shoot now is a Marked Forrester round for the final of the Welsh Field Masters Tour in Fonmon on the 23rd, followed by the Welsh FITA at the end of the month so it is going to be about 6 weeks before the next IFAA round so I have a bit of time to prepare. It's a long shot, but i'm hoping to go from unclassified to Grand Bowmaster in my first season of picking up a compound so I have one, maybe two more opportunities to do it... efforts must be doubled!