Hanson Open Shoot

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Sabden Fold Open Shoot

Sabden Fold 31^st October 2010

Hmmm 6 o’clock in the morning alarm clock rings, forgot to put the thing back an hour. Reset the time and back to sleep for another hour. 6 o’clock again time to get up, washed, dressed, breakfast, packed car and off over the Pennines heading for Sabden Fold. 110 miles to go on a cold misty morning.

The journey was hindered by thick fog as we traversed through the moors between Yorkshire and Lancashire. We finally arrived at Sabden Fold at 9.50am, 10 minutes before the shoot was due to start, quick dash to registration and gearing up ready for the start. Thankfully the sky had cleared and the mist had lifted by the time we arrived giving us a bright clear day for the shoot.

The shoot was a 2 x 20 round, with big game scoring consisting of mainly 2D’s and paper faces. We were to start on target 20. The archers were led out onto the course, we were lucky target 20 was just below the tea cabin/registration point and shooting commenced at 10.15am.

We were paired up with father and son Glen and Joe Wood who were both shooting Hunting Tackle while we were both shooting Compound Limited. Our 1^st target was a downhill shot to a paper face of a duck on water on the edge of a babbling brook, a nice picturesque start to the day. After retrieving our arrows we had to cross the brook using a small steel mesh bridge this is where the only incident of the day occurred when Joe suddenly fell through the bridge. Luckily Joe was uninjured by this and able to continue; the incident was reported to a shoot marshal and the following group. We continued on to target 1 and target 2 without incident. The route to target 3 was along a narrow path at the top of a steep bank above the babbling brook 20 feet below us.

We followed the course around with some very interestingly placed shots where it helped if you were part mountain goat with lots of ups and downs on a loose hillside until we arrived at target 10 where there was a hold up with 2 groups in front of us still waiting to shoot this target when we arrived. This was a lovely long shot around 60 yards along the ravine which had to be crossed twice to retrieve arrows and then once more to continue to the next target luckily we didn’t get wet feet but the ground was very boggy around the edge of the stream that meandered along the bottom of the ravine. It was on this target that Paul had his only loss of the day when his 2^nd arrow hit and split a rock bending his arrow in the process, nothing that can’t be straightened, Joe was very surprised the arrow had split a rock in two. Then up the hill to the highest target of the course then back down to target 12.

Target 12, what can we say, it was a horrible shot, 30 feet downhill over the 2^nd stream on the course shooting from the edge of a ledge with only the shooting pegs to stop you falling off and down into the bottom of the ravine, most archers had to twist themselves as the shot a little too much to the left for comfort. Targets 13 and 14 were both shot from the edge of the stream over to the far bank then it was over the stream and up the hill to 15 and 16.

Target 16 was about 40 yards and slightly downhill to where the two streams merged and became the brook we had to cross the stream to collect arrows then through a small plantation of fir trees and across the brook and up the hill to target 17 which was a short shot then along the top of the hill to our last two targets and then back down the hill and over the brook for lunch. Round one finished at 12.45pm.

Lunch break was about 45 minutes and there was a good range of hot food available along with tea, coffee and cold drinks and even Apple Pie and Cream!

1.30 came and we went out again for the start of round two starting at target 20 again, happily the bridge had been repaired. We were incident free until target 9 where Glen managed to hit a tree and break an arrow on his first shot. Target 10 had been altered slightly where the red peg had been moved forward alongside the white peg, reducing the initial shot by about 8 yards shortening the queue considerably.

Thing were fairly uneventful until we reached target 16 again where Glen overshot the boss and disappeared through the trees and shattered on rocks in the brook by the bridge used to get over to target 17. The remainder of the shoot was straightforward until we finished about 4pm, where we adjourned for a much welcome cup of tea and handed in our score cards (shocked to find that we had managed to finish on exactly the same score) and awaited the results.

Prize giving over and a 1^st place medal in Cath’s pocket, it was back to the car for the long journey home before the roads were closed around Pendle Hill for the Halloween celebrations.

Cath & Paul