Reflections of the range
• Mark Eschbach
We ventured out for about two horus today at the Yolo Bowmen range with my better half’s parents. The weather conditions were cold, begining in the low fourties and ending in the mid forties. I only noticed wind on the south range once, which I’m totally blaming on arrow hitting a bail to the left. Both of the older generation had shot previously, however we did provide a short refresher to ensure they were comfortable.
As most of the south range is heavily shaded mixed with a low general ambient temperature all five of us were very cold. As I had learned in the past and confirmed by the youngest generation we confirmed a heavy winter jacket impedes shots an accurecy. The youngest chose to forgo the outer shell of his jacket and shoot with just the warming liner. I should really find what that is called. Of course REI has a good article on this. Since we aren’t shooting in watery conditions of any kind we really need to maximize the insulation layer. As we continue shooting through the winter I hope to find a good insulator which is very compact.
I was wearing a lightwieght sweatshirt and Tiffany was wearing a normal sweatshirt. Tiffany was still cold however to be honest she is alaways cold. I was fairly cold the entire time though. It was definitely a wet cold with plently of water everywhere. The oldest generation mentioned in Indiana they have a dry cold. Kind of an interesting thought since they have a very wet heat back there. Given the layering the littlest one wore his armguard below his jacket. The remainder of us forwent the armguards.
The problem of cold additionally extended out to our hands. With the temperature difference there was no way our hands would retain the warmth from our arms. We shot with the hands holding the bows with gloves. This did effect our aim and since our gloves are designed for grip they did prevent the bow from moving as much in our hands. I felt more accurate in general while Tiffany felt less. In general we shot with our hands ungloved but with our standard finger tabs. My highest score out of the 8 or so lanes was 21.
Many of the lanes we ventured across had targets which need to be tacted back up on the bail. It was overall fun and a nice walk.