Archery

[Leonard Caillouet]

My gig is archery, specifically Olympic style target archery. Yeah, I'm a paper puncher, looked upon with derision by hunter types. I did some hunting in my younger years and found that I could hit it if it was in front of me, but getting it there was far too much trouble and took too much dedication and patience. My prey is that yellow spot in the middle of the target, and I can always get that in front of me. Now to hit it every time...I've been away from it for a couple of decades so I am still not as steady as I should be. It is coming back, though.
https://worldarchery.org/
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[mechman]

Paper puncher! The beauty of bow hunting is getting that animal to come within range. It rarely happens.

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

That is the heart of the matter. I just don't have the patience to put in the time to get it in front of me. I also don't feel the need to hunt, but I do enjoy eating the meat. Paper just is not as tasty, but I can go buy a good steak cheaper than hunting.

 

[mechman]

but I can go buy a good steak cheaper than hunting.

So true!!

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

I also like shooting the longer distances, and shooting more arrows. The distance in the clip above is 60 meters, which is what they have the Masters (i.e. old guys) shooting. The real competition is at 70 meters these days. When I was competing in the 70's and 80's we shot out to 90 meters.

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

I am playing with my new camera that shoots up to 960 frames per second, which is fast enough to see the arrow behavior when it leaves the bow. As soon as I get some good shots I will post them. It is pretty cool to see how much the arrow oscillates under the stress of the energy transferred from the bow.

 

[Todd Anderson]

My father-in-law is a big gun collector and also had some bows... he had bow hand made for one of my kids. I need to dig it up and photo it... maybe you'll recognize the craftsman. It looks like a work of art!

 

[tesseract]

This takes some serious practicing.

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

And how many times do you guess he misses to get those shots? It is impressive, but no more so than the precision of the top Olympic style archers.