Kettering Archers’ Easter Charity Clout Shoot photographs are now online for viewing here.
Yesterday, I headed over to Kettering to photograph their annual Easter Clout Shoot, an annual charity event and this year the beneficiary would be Cransley Hospice. Although the weather forecast did not look promising, around 40 archers attended the charity event and both Eddie Clarke and Neil Case from Archers of Raunds took part.
The sky was very overcast with moisture in the air from the off. However, the rain would stay away until the last but one end of shooting and this enabled me to get a fairly decent amount of photographs from the event. Those images are now posted to my website for those of you who are interested in viewing them. Permission was obtained from the parents of the kids and the gallery is therefore an open one for the moment.
As always the team at Kettering Archers had the field in perfect order for the shoot. When we got there, three specially made straw bunnies had been placed at three different distances. The closest for the juniors, an intermediate for the ladies and the gents would be shooting at a bunny set at 180 paces from the shooting line. Around the bunnies were five concentric circles for scoring (1 to 5) with the bunny itself scoring 6 points, and yes, even at hose distances the bunnies did get hit several times, one of the juniors with a perfect head shot – checkout the photographs online for a picture of that one.
The weather held until the last but one end but a great time was had by everyone shooting. It was a great sight to see the 40’ish archers all raising their bows into the air and arrows flying at a most unusual angle – well this was my first clout shoot and I’m used to target archery where the arc is much less obvious. With a lot of Longbows and Barebows, (sights are pretty useless for a clout), it was unusual for me to see a shooting line without all of the usual Recurve sticky out bits.
After shooting, everyone made their way down to the scoring zones and I was amazed to see how many arrows were falling around and within the circles from the off. No lost arrows and metal detectors needed today because the arrows did in and sit up nicely.
With the rain beginning to fall more heavily, I put the camera away for the last couple of ends and once the archers had finished shooting everyone hurriedly packed away and we all met at the club house for the raffle and award presentations.
This event was a real surprise for me. As always at Kettering Archers, it was extremely well run and great fun for everyone. Owing to the safety precautions and area needed, there are not many archery fields where a clout shoot can take place and I would definitely recommend the Kettering Easter Clout shoot to any target archer who wants to try something different.