Before I left on my week long trail ride, I was able to squeeze in a day of archery at the Nevada County Sportsmen’s Club to shoot the State Championship for field archery.  Nevada City was one of six locales in California where any member of California Bowhunters could compete to win the title of State Champion in their respective age and style divisions.

I left directly from work on Friday and arrived at the range shortly before dark.  I fired up my Jetboil stove and heated water to enjoy a hot (freeze dried) BBQ beef and mashed potato dinner, as the sun dropped below the horizon.  Then under the towering fir trees I spread my sleeping pad, bag and bivy sack and slept only as you can under the stars.

When I awoke at daylight to the bird calls reverberating through the campground, I instantly had the feeling I was being watched.  As I rolled over to my right I came eye to eye with a Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus), ready to pounce.  Due to my alertness and quick reflexes I was able to roll out of it’s path and save myself from being mauled.  (attempt at humor).

After a cup of hot chocolate, and a packet of instant oatmeal, I signed up in the Bowhunter Freestyle A class, and headed to the range to shoot some practice arrows.  I discoverered that the fiber optic on my 20 yard pin had broken off and I had no illuminated dot to sight by.  I would have to make do with only a metal pin and cross wire. 

At the end of the day, I had set a Personal Best.  On each of the field and hunter rounds a perfect score is 280 with 56 x’s.  The Animal round perfect score is 280 plus 14 bonus points for a “spot” hit.  The total possible points is 854 with 112 x’s

I posted the following scores:

Field- 255 with 13 x’s  Hunter – 246 with 16 x’s  Animal - 280 (plus 5 bonus points) =285

Total score = 786 with 29x’s

While not good enough to place high in the state championship ranks, it was still a personal best.  Not bad for a year long hiatus from a field course!

I had the pleasure of meeting up with three outstanding archers from Sonoma County Bowmen.  In the picture below I’m joined on my left by (from L to R) Rich McClintock (Master Senior Freestyle), Dave Bengston (Senior Pro Freestyle), and Bill Morehead (Men’s Adult Freestyle)

As I headed home I had a sense of accomplishment that I was able to fit in an archery competition before I left for the week long Trek with my buddies from the Sonoma County Trailblazers.