Recent Travels & Competitions

March 30, 2008

These past few weeks have been exceptionally busy for me shooting as many archery competitions as I could.  Besides shooting competitions every weekend in March so far I have also shot twice a week in an indoor Paper League and indoor 3-D league at Prestley’s Outdoors.  The first weekend of March started out with an Indoor 3-D competition at Kishwaukee Archers.  They put on an excellent indoor shoot.  While the max yardage is only around 34 yards the target and obstacle placement can make for challenging shots.  Kishwaukee has three weekends of qualifications in order for the top 64 archers to shoot for money in April. 

For the weekend of March 8th and 9th the Illinois Archery Association had the Illinois State shoot.  It was a two-day event and each day archers shot 60 arrows from 20 yards.  A total of 600 points and 120 Xs were possible.  I finished fourth in the Bowhunter Freestyle Class.  For those interested in shooting competition this event is great to start out at and you get to meet many archers from around the state.

This past weekend I competed down in Louisville, KY at the NFAA Indoor Nationals.  I saw close to 1000 people preregistered for the event and many competitors walked into the competition.  The Indoor Nationals is a very big competition but the format is the same as the state shoot above.  The main competition is a two-day event with 60 arrows shot from 20 yards.  I competed in the Bowhunter Freestyle Competition and did not finish as well as I would have liked due to some recent equipment changes.  During this weekend an Indoor 3-D can also be shot as well as a Pro/Am shoot.  In the Pro/Am two or three people are paired with pros and shoot a round with a pro.  This is a great time to ask pros how they got to where they are and what steps you could do to improve.  Regardless if you shoot with a pro though you will meet many great people from around the US.

While I have not finalized my plans for this weekend I hope the weather is nice enough to shoot a local outdoor 3-D course.  I hope to see you there.

-Jason