Starting from Saturday June 2nd we will prioritise coaching, tuning, practice and other forms of archer development on our afternoon club sessions. On some of these Saturdays we may have visiting coaches from other clubs or from Archery GB. We’re doing this because we’ve heard from a number of members that they would appreciate such weekend sessions targeted at improving their shooting. You can still shoot a scoring round but will have to fit in with the rhythm and range requirements of the other archers present. The Saturday “archer development” sessions this outdoor season will be on June 2nd and 16th, July 7th and 21st, August 4th and 18th, and September 1st and 15th.

On Sunday June 3rd the annual SCAS/BCAA Clout archery championships will take place again at Manshead school in Caddington, near Dunstable. Last year four of us participated, with both Mary Louca and Marc Bax snatching the county barebow clout champion title.

In clout archery you don’t shoot at a paper face on a vertical straw boss; instead the target is a flag in the ground at a considerable distance (140yds for ladies, 180yds for gents), and your score is measured by how close your arrow lands to the flag. At our range in Offord we sometimes do a mini-clout using the very light jelly bows, as our field is not large enough to shoot a regular clout (NEVER try this with anything but the jelly bows).

The clout shoot is usually a good day of fun with most archers not being that serious (but you can be if you want to). If you’re interested please let Sunil Kalra or Marc Bax know – or put your name on the form on the notice board in the hut.

On Sunday June 24th our club will host the annual BCAA “Presidents & Pairs” shoot at our field. This is an informal shoot organised on behalf of the Bedfordshire County Archery Association, of which St. Neots Bowmen is a member. The round shot is a Western round (4 dozen arrows at 60yds followed by 4 dozen arrows at 50yds) – with shorter distances for juniors or novice archers who can’t reach 60yds. The main “pair” awards are decided on handicap-adjusted scores, so novice archers have a good chance of doing well! read more…

Over a number of Thursdays between now and December 7th will be holding open club coaching sessions. These will be opportunities to improve your shooting under the guidance of our coaches and experienced archers without the pressure of keeping score. You’ll have the freedom to experiment a bit, work on your form, and sort out tuning of your equipment.

Coaching is available for all members.

On Sunday August 27th we’ll be shooting our outdoor club championships. This will be shot over a Windsor round (3 dozen each at 60yds, 50yds and 40yds). As last year we make it a bit more of an event by arranging for some nibbles and drinks to make a picnic out of it in the breaks when moving distances.

The toilets in the church rooms across the street will be accessible for comfort breaks.

What is a jelly bow? A small, simple and low-poundage bow—we’ve bought 12 for our club. The blue ones we have are 36 inch long (compared to 68 inch for an average recurve), and have a draw weight of a maximum of 12 pounds when drawn to their full 20 inches (by which time they stack like hell). They are not toys though: we’ve shot club arrows to 80 yards with them! So all safety precautions you take for regular recurve bows must also be taken when shooting jelly bows!

How do you shoot them? Up to you. Because of their short draw length you can’t anchor them on your face the same way as a regular bow. And because of the very steep string angle it is best to only use one finger above and one finger below the arrow. You can adjust the grip up and down to set nocking point height, or to change from right to left-handed use. They shoot best if you don’t draw them to maximum, just to the point where they begin to seriously stack (giving a usable draw length of maybe 17-18 inches).

Jelly bows are great equalisers. When we have jelly bow events, everybody shoots with a club jelly bow. You can use your own arrows or club arrows but you cannot modify the bow other than moving the grip up/down. You might have to share your jelly bow with others.

What is a clout shoot? In clout shooting the target is a flag in the ground, and archers try to get their arrows in the ground close to the flag. A regular clout is shot at distances of 140yds or 180yds, so most arrows have to be shot with a fairly high trajectory and land quite steeply—they won’t be hidden in the grass. Regular clout shoots require a field of at least 300yds long to get a safe overshoot (and even then it is entirely possible to reach much further with a high-poundage recurve or compound bow).

How do we shoot a Mini Jelly Bow Clout?
A (St. Neots flavoured) Mini Jelly Bow Clout (MJBC) is shot with the clout (a target flag) at 60yds from the shooting line. The target area itself is half the size of a regular imperial clout target and is 24 feet in diameter, with 5 scoring zones (scoring 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). I’ve made two mini clout measuring tapes, their use will be demonstrated at our first MJBC.

As the target distance is not that far of the maximum distance that can be reached with the jelly bows you’ll need to shoot with the bows pointing quite high (see the picture). Remember that aiming too high will actually reduce the distance you’ll reach. Like longbows they do not have centre-shot so you’ll be aiming off left/right as well.

We’ve done a test, and concluded that the MJBC is great fun (especially Felicity as she beat us all by a wide margin)! We will announce one on a Saturday shortly (once I’ve finished re-serving the strings on the other 7 jelly bows).

This coming Sunday we will be shooting a somewhat different round: an informal “Big Game” shoot, inspired by the field shoot that our club organises on behalf of BCAA every year (second Sunday in November). We will be shooting at target faces with (somewhat) realistic depictions of game animals—from a rabbit to a moose—at distances between 10yds and 60yds.

Moving from the woods to our field means we’re making a few changes to the round format, which will be explained during assembly—the most important concession is that each archers will get all three chances from the same peg on the shooting line. The round is still shot over 28 targets (actually 7 targets, each shot 4 times), and groups move from target to target after each end. Scoring is the same as for the field shoot (which again will be explained during assembly).

For those who shoot sighted bows: You’ll be adjusting your sight on every end (of a maximum of 3 arrows). For those with unsighted bows: You will not get a chance to “get your eye in”…

This is a St. Neots Bowmen club shoot, however we welcome archers from other clubs to join us on this occasion. Just show up at our field around 9:30am on the day. We would expect to finish before 1pm. Send an email to “[email protected]” if you plan to come so we get an idea how many archers to expect. This event is free.