Woodlife

While Sam and the American Bushman talk about muzzle loading rifles, unbelievably at the same time, my attention has also switched to all things missile-firing, but in a more primitive way. Must be a winter thing when the ground is too soggy to camp. I have renewed my interest in archery and in particular field archery (as opposed to target shooting). I started up archery about this time last year and got caught up in the wave of excitement of seeing the arrow thud satisfactorily into the target.

After a while, I was pretty consistently getting close to the ‘gold’ at 25 yards. I instantly upgraded the bow and started hanging stuff off it in the form of sights and stabilisers. Not exactly what I planned when I first took it up, which was to use the bow as a means of recreating a traditional hunting method. I soon regretted the decision as it became a bit of a chore travelling to the archery club every week and once there, queuing for your turn to shoot at the target. I lost more interest as the fascination with bushcraft grew during the summer months.

I’ve now rekindled this interest and bought a Korean traditional hunter bow, a Samick SKB, which is light enough to carry around on field shoots and practice in the woods (errr…not the public woods obviously). I’ll be shooting strictly in the ‘bare-bow’ category on the next field shoot on 26th. Last autumn’s shoot was my first and I enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately, I missed the spring and summer ones. These particular field shoots are made more interesting by the inclusion of 35 x 3D animal targets. The fact that actual hunting with a bow is illegal in Britain makes these shoots the nearest thing to it, even if the animal doesn’t move around! (I don’t believe there’s many crocodiles in Essex either).