Archery Season begins on a good note...

Archery season is starting up...

Our family signed up for an indoor competition archery shoot, to get warmed up for the upcoming season. Shooting indoors at these close ranges is not as challenging as it is trying to figure longer yardages. So that is why I would say it was a good "warm up".

I hadn't picked up my bow since last July or so... I was pretty rusty.

It has been such a fun sport for us to do as a family... the teenager is very competitive, so it is fun to mess with his head.

Not to say my strong silent mysterious Man is not super competitive... don't mess with him, when he is in his "zone".

This shoot was different for me because they had some moving targets, like this turkey that moved in a circle... one shot was to his chest in the front and the next shot was on one of his sides and you had to pull, set and shoot both arrows before he made a complete circle.

I take lots of time lining up and getting set and focusing before I release an arrow, so this proved to be very challenging for me. But I hit him!

At the indoor range, all 30 targets are very very close together with trees and bushes and other targets to shoot through. For some reason shooting around and through things doesn't intimidate me as much as shooting at something moving, so I was okay with this aspect... bring it on!
The Hubbs offered to shoot next to me, so that he could help me figure out yardages, or confirm where the kill zone was on certain animals (since he had some binaculars). But when we got ready to shoot at our first target, I looked over and he was half way across the range... in his "zone" and not even going to help me. I panicked at first and didn't want to have to think for myself. But when I realized I was on my own, I just had to step up to the plate and figure it out by myself.

I was irritated at first, kind of miffed actually, and then decided I could actually do this and I didn't have anything to lose. And this helped build my confidence to a much higher level. It was really good for me.

At the end of the day, I took 1st place in the women's division WAHOO!! (well don't be too impressed, there were only 4 women all day)... it didn't' matter, I would have been just as thrilled with 1st if I was the only one! I was really happy to get past some of my nerves to get a good score. I only missed one target all day... not sure how, it was a big black bear standing on his hind legs (I have a thing about bears... maybe subconsciously I just couldn't kill him :)

Something funny, at the beginning we made a deal together that the loser would buy dinner... but at the end of the day when they found out I got first prize winnings, they made me buy dinner.... somehow we are going to have to get things in writing next time. Boys!

In the end a good time was had by all!