About 125 traditional shooters showed up for the 1st ever Traditional IBO World's this past weekend. We set up camp at a nearby campground on Friday, and headed over to check out the site at the Gem City Outdoorsman's club.
The club was fantastic, with an indoor range, a cafeteria, and a few large pole barns on the premises, one of which housed the vendors.
I noticed a crowd gathered for the eagle-eye qualifier (I think they dubbed it the annual 'dot-shot' at the end of the weekend). The first thing that struck me was how well everyone was shooting! Quite a few hit the dime-sized spot 10 yards away. A larger spot at 30 yards was proving slightly more difficult. But I knew the competition was going to be tough from what I saw.
Some of the great names in today's archery were there, including Jim Powell (who shot an amazing 402 on 40 targets), Dave Wallace, Ken Redding, Rick Welch, etc.
Another thing I made note of...on the practice range, everyone was holding at full draw, and shooting tight groups. Most shot three-under. A far cry from your typical arrow-flinging you see at local shoots, and rendezvous.
It was a very enjoyable atmosphere, and the courses were well-designed and fun to shoot. Targets were a bit closer than expected, with none being over 25 yards. Most were less than 20. Probably a good strategy to encourage archers to return next year.
I ended up 5th in modern longbow, tying with Steve Snider exactly. Exact same score, with exact same number of x's. At the regular IBO world's, Steve was the one who beat me by 1 point. LOL.
I would have placed 3rd, had I not completely missed 2 targets...but everyone there had their own 'what if's', I'm sure.
I was proud to have shot the second best arrow at the long-distance eagle eye. I know it was second best because no arrows were pulled until all were shot. And I shot against the likes of Rick Welch, and Jim Powell. As I've said before, I'm a proud loser
I'm proud to say, my 7-year old, Kyler, is the World Champion in the Cub class. Although he had only to beat an adorable 5 year old girl, he still shot extremely well.
Here is a pic of the eagle eye winner, Preston Roberts, and my second-best arrow (black fletching) LOL:
