When I woke up on the morning of the 26th October 2008 and looked out of the window I knew I was in for a wet days shooting (not my favorite type of shoots) and the drive down to Chippenham Archers only increased my certainty that I was going to get very wet. Not that I would let it spoil the day. On arrival we need to park the car in a rather muddy field, not being early enough for the hard standing, with the hope we could get it out at the end of the day especially as we did not have my 4-Motion available (some oik nicked it and trashed the electrics).  Given the weather when I awoke I decided this was not a day for the camera and I forgot my phone so their are no snappy photos in this report.

On arrival at the Chippenham ground the rain had abated slightly but full waterproofs were considered wise. So having setup for the day it was off for the traditional "Bacon Butty" and a cup of tea. The shoot commenced on time and consisted of 2 x 20 3d / Paper faces, many of which had the Halloween theme, layed out in a mixture of long and short shots with the odd medium length thrown in. Real Archers were to use the normal Read, White and Blue whilst out techno colleagues were to start on the striped peg. Shooting in my usual Free Style, Longbow and Cub (Longbow) group I got to see the targets from a number of pegs and it often seemed as if the course layers were having a laugh with the red peg because although the stripped peg was further away the shot was ofter easier (especially with a sight).

We started the day on a rather small and close spider but we all kicked off with a first arrow shot and then proceeded on through the woods shooting the long bear with the, well painted, skeleton on it and a kill zone but how you kill a dead animal I do not know. The targets continued with a variety of goblin and devil faces until we came to the skull painted on the back end of a turkey. Very ingenious use for a turkeys bum and allowed us all to do the classic Westcott bot shot. The organisers had obviously been browsing the hallowing collection at Woolworths and we proceeded to shoot a Wraiths, Zombie Deer and Death. The Death shot was particularly difficult because you needed to places you back against a tree to try and touch the peg and then miss the other trees that suddenly appeared in your line of sight. Having shot our first 13 targets it was a quick stop for a cup of tea and another "Bacon Butty" for my son then of to finish the last 7. These included a rather interesting shot on a close small face but with the pegs in the middle of low hanging branches. This was obviously designed for a short (< 5 foot) compound archer and those of you that know me I am slightly larger than that and shoot the longbow. Needless to say I got rather tangled in the branches.

On returning to our first target it was time to change the face, all archers on a paper target swapped faces, this time to a rather small snake that proved rather more difficult for  our Free Styler than the longbows. So it was off round the course again with a new set of paper faces shooting goblins and a rather well camouflaged wolf. Then we were at one of the targets where the pegs remained the same but we were to shoot the B target. This was not a problem for the senior archers but when my son (a cub) came to the yellow peg the target was all but hidden making it a rather interesting shot for him. This time Death had been replaced by a witch that proved just a difficult (damn tree) and then of for another tea and "Bacon Butty" my son having his third. After that it was another seven and we had finished the course.

Although the day started out wet and looked like it would be a washout the fickle nature of the elements chose to grant us with a cool dry (apart for a 5 minute shower at lunch) sunny day. In the end this was a thoroughly enjoyable day out. I must congratulate Chippenham Archers and the course layers for putting on an excellent shoot.

For me it was a very good day with no blanks and out shooting my Free Style partner on the first 20 although I did let myself down in the afternoon I still achieved the silver medal but as usual I was out shot by my son.