© Companions of the Longbow

Saturday 6th June Shoot Report - Challenge by Mark

News Update

This weeks update covers the Wednesday shoot activities by Pa TB and Saturdays Companions challenge from Mark.  The Retinue League Game 2 also was completed which produced the shot of the day, sending an arrow through the tree...

Any comments etc., please -mail me!  If you don’t want the chairman to know who you are, e-mail le Chat! :-)

Andrew (AKA Le Chat)

COTL - Chairman

Le_Chat@companionsofthelongbow.com

Chairman@companionsofthelongbow.com

Retinue Challenge - Douglas’ Neck!

This week’s Challenge was inspired by a shot from an old stalwart, the 1938 film the Adventures of Robin Hood.  It’s another Howard Hill trick shot (Howard Hill was the archer who did all the shooting for real in the film for those who don’t yet know) that featured Bazil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisborne getting ready to bash Much (played by Herbert Mundin) with a mace.  Sir Guy and his men had just caught Much poaching deer and while his back was turned Sir Guy raises his mace to do the deed when Robin Hood shoots an arrow that knocks the weapon from Sir Guy’s hand.  Again this was no CGI trick but done for real!

The Challenge this week therefore comes from shooting various weapons, of various sizes, out of an enemy’s hand without actually shooting the hand!

The list of weapons in size and increasing difficulty are;

A buckler

A mace

A sword

A knife

The archers were divided into two impromptu teams again (Welsh and the English) and a shooting line was set at 25 paces from the target.  The game was played over four rounds with each round consisting of one specific weapon to shoot at.  Each archer had three arrows per round to shoot at the target and every time a weapon was successfully shot out of the hand points were awarded along the lines of 1 point for the buckler, 2 for the mace, 3 for the sword and 4 for the knife.  Every time the hand or arm was shot a point was deducted.  

For the game the team with the most points at the end of the last round would be the winner.  For the Challenge to be a success each weapon per round must be shot out of the hand at least once.

Wednesday 10th June Shoot Report

Beneath the gathering storm clouds, nine die-hard toxophilites assembled to participate in a mini competition for top archer-of-the-day.

Under the watchful eye of Pa TB, the games began with a target race. The archers had to shoot three arrows per round at one of three targets. Once a score of 20 or more had been accumulated, they then moved on to the second target and began again. The winner was the first archer to get 20 or more on the third target. This became a two horse race between Fred and Gary W, Fred being the first past the post.

Next was 6 holes of archery golf which was set up in the adjoining field. To make it more challenging, the course included bunkers that had an uncanny attraction to Mark’s arrows! Towards the end of the course the heavens opened and we all got absolutely soaked. But being made of sterner stuff, we ignored the wind and the rain and battled on regardless. The “Tiger Woods” of the golf was Deadly Dave who pipped Jenni G to first place as she unfortunately bunkered herself at the final hole.

The last game was called “strip target” which got the participants a bit worried, especially Jenni, she being the only female archer present. To everyone’s relief they discovered it was similar to a wand shoot except the target was a six inch strip of vinyl plastic running horizontally across the hay bale. Arrows scored a point a hit and were forfeited if they landed above a length of cord running 2 feet above the strip. Another two horse race, this time between Le Chat and Mark. At one point Le Chat was in the lead and wanted the game to end there and then but Mark overtook him over the last two rounds.

The climax of the evening was the final shoot off between the three game winners after which Fred emerged victorious – well done!

So how did we do?

First up for round 1 and for 1 point per successful hit (i.e. out of the hand) was the buckler.  Due to the nature of the dummy hand … and budget … an old saucepan stood in for the buckler as this enabled the dummy hand to actually grip the thing.  Several hits were scored on the buckler during the first round however the only successful hit that resulted in a drop was by Mark V.  As Mark was shooting for the English team the score at the end of the first round was one point to nil.

Second round was the mace.  Being quite a fairly large target it was a bit of a surprise to find that no one managed to hit this target at all.  This meant that the Challenge overall was a failure!  Boo!  But we still had a game to play so the shooting continued…

The third round was the sword.  This target was longer but slimmer and so there was only one hit this time as well, by Nigel who was shooting for the English and so racked up another 3 points for his team.  End of the third round this meant the English team were winning four points to zero.

Final round and the target was a knife.  Unlike the other targets this was a real knife and there was a temptation to offer it to the shooting line edge on just to make it even harder…  However it was angled slightly and was by far the hardest target.  So with another hit (the only one in this last round too) from Nigel for the English it was he who won this week’s Prize of Dubious Worth (a telephone computer thingy) and the final points for the English team.  The English team ended up whopping the Welsh team with 8 points to their 0.  Well shot everyone, even if the Challenge was a failure.  No one hit the hand or the arm so you can take some solace in that.

The next Challenge hasn’t been decided yet, but find out how we do next week!

Douglas Retinue league

Good news, I remembered the piece of paper.....

The challenge was to decapitate William Douglas with 3 arrows, the first representing a cut (5pts), the second arrow representing a cleaving (10pts) and the third arrow represents the decapitation of the head (20pts).  That being the case, the maximum score can only be 35 points.  Points are lost for any arrow hitting the normal scoring zone on the bear.  See the results in the retinue pages, click here.

This coming Saturday we will see round 3 of the Douglas retinue.  The details will be posted on the retinue league pages during this week.

Click here to go to the Douglas Retinue pages.

The Buckler

The Sword

The Knife

The Mechanics

Nigel, Winner of the prize of dubious worth

Left is the challenge successfully complete.

Below, our thanks to Mr Bear for volunteering his services for the challenge

During the shooting at the Bear, Mark C managed to pass his arrow through the tree.  The first picture show what remains showing of the arrow after it penetrated the tree, the second picture show the arrow in the tree, and the third picture show the arrow stuck in the inside of the tree.

See more picture from this weeks shoot by clicking here.