Woodland Archery: Accuracy Is The Best Policy

The woods have seen some action since we were last there. At this time of year the Fallow are gathering into groups and had passed though our little world, flattening the Bluebells and chowing down on the bark of Beech trees.

On Friday as the skies darkened, then burst, we achieved escape velocity and were on the road. By making lateness part of the plan we set off within half an our for the allotted time and made the most rapid pace across and out of town. In all the trips we've made The Northern Monkey and myself have always failed to leave early enough and have sat in traffic most of the way across the south of England. By leaving later we arrived at the same time we usually do, but drama-lessa nd with the serenity of the intentionally late.

Our archery practice sessions are starting to bear fruit.

Things I learned about archery the time around:

1. Archery is seriously dependent on Natural Point of Aim; seeing as arrows are traveling a lot slower than bullets this should have been the bleeding' obvious, but  I guess its taken us a while to get to the bleeding' obvious.

2. On the subject of which, it turns out the shot starts before you draw the bow; by aiming with my left heel before I start to draw the bow is on target as soon as I draw it back. Consistently the pins were over the target, just had to use my hips to adjust vertically and its time to squeeze the release's trigger.

3. Arrows that are so bent they have names come into their own at longer ranges; The Northern Monkey  shoots aluminium arrows with varying degrees of bent-ness They are called things like; The Wanderer, Hook Nose, Curvy Lady and The X-Files [its out there. Somewhere]. At 10 and 20 meters they won't group for toffee, more often than not sailing into the bushes, but at the furthest extreme of our shooting lane, where we can shoot at 50 and then 60 meters, he sunk not one, but two bulls.

It was my turn to feel the pain and dismay. I started the year with 12 arrows, broke one on day one, [pallets are not as good as foam targets], lost two a couple of archery camps back. This time I went from 9 to 4 alarmingly quickly, breaking one trying to get it out of a tree,  'hiding'  3 under the leaf mould and the last a catastrophic failure.

The words of Hodgeman keep ringing in my ears “It's like rifle hunting...only more expensive, and less effective.”

More soon
your pal
SBW

Unboxing Review: Scott Mongoose XT Bow Release

Posts on the SBW blog are like London buses you wait for ages then two come along back to back.

Sometimes the kit does make a difference, all the most accurate shots I've ever taken have been with rifles with triggers that have that sweet, crisp break, the break that's not a hair trigger and isn't scratchy either, my Parker Hale Phoenix, and the Blaser's (R93 and R8) spring to mind. 

When I bought my bow it came as a Ready To Hunt package from Hunter's Friend [who I can't recommend enough] with a Truball release [I think it's the cyclone]. It's OK, in fact it was perfect while I was getting my form together shooting in the backyard and at fifteen meters. At 25 meters I started to notice the long travel and scratchy feel which seemed to amplify with every wobble and waver I made.  

Bored with the sheer divisiveness of Archerytalk I posted to reddit.com/r/Archery/ asking for opinions on releases, only got two responses, both shouting out for Scott Releases. 

During a visit to an Archery shop I got to try out one of their thumb releases, so beloved by the target shooting crowd. Wow, so crisp, so sudden, so WOW! I was tempted, not by the price, but by the mechanics of the thing, then I had a disturbing vision of a repeat performance of the time when I dropped a round from a high-seat and it clattered off every effing rung of the effing ladder on the way down, it would also be fair to say that I don't tend to lose things that are tied-on, so that was a factor too. 

Looking online for reviews of Scott's  Mongoose XT certainly has its fans, I can see the thinking behind the single calliper concept. Don't know if it works, but I like the idea, so I pressed Buy Now. 

Fresh out of the box its in a different league to the other releases I've seen, so far I've only done the shoelace test (I'm at work) but it seems crisp, like R8 crisp.

Have I managed to spend my way to accuracy? I'll let you know after the weekend.

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Archery Is Like...

just sayin'
SBW

A Tale Of Two Bowtech's And Three Archery Shops

A lot has been happening while I've not been posting and we're long over due a catch up.

Regular readers will know that I gave up smoking and spent the saving on a new compound bow, choosing the Bowtech Carbon Knight. Most of my archery has been with a very old PSE that was way to big for me, both in poundage and draw length. I gave it to The Northern Monkey who stands head and shoulders taller than me. I choose Bowtech as Chad had told me that he has one he's still happy with after quite a few years and several of his pals also have good things to say about the company. I chose the Carbon Knight as its the lightest bow they make, the old PSE was very heavy so I was obsessing about something lighter although of course any modern bow would be a lot lighter.

The Carbon Knight has so far proved to be everything I hoped it would be. It quickly convinced me of its accuracy, which left me free to focus on reducing user error. I'm not a member of an archery club at the moment so coach-less, I watched a few videos on youtube, found my anchor point, and the rest is history. Its not a bow, it's a machine for launching arrows.

As you'll know when you look on the back of your 'man-card' you'll see that one of the rules is that it's not a hobby until you've managed to get at least two of your pals involved so you can have 'play days'. This is why at some companies everyone has the same hobby be it; lap dancing bars, charity fun runs, playing five-a-side football, archery, or collecting Morgan sports cars. Whatever it is you must gather a tribe around you. It's in the rules.

To get my hand in as an Archery-Mephistopheles  I chose CHJ for the first play-date as he already has a rig and had emailed in some impressive results. CHJ had recently sent his bow away for a new string and some tuning which had made his older bow very tight. We had a good day of it, shot some improving groups and only lost a few arrows. turns out its called 'field archery' for a reason - in a field you might even get your arrows back.

One hobby-buddy an archery club don't make, so the next available weekend I took The Northern Monkey with me to the woods. Planning to re-light his enthusiasm for all things toxophilic. It turned out to be pretty easy. By the end of the weekend he'd convinced himself that a new rig was essential. By the end of the following week a Bowtech Assassin RAK and some arrows were paid for and in the post to him.

I'd bought my rig from Dana of Hunter's Friend Europe which is based in Finland, The prices were good as the Euro is down against the GBP. Dana is a witty guy to email with and did everything he could to ship me my rig so I could spend the christmas break practicing - the Spanish postal service let us down, but I suspect they let everyone down. Having never bought a new bow before I didn't realise just how good at setting up archery gear he is. Right out of the box my rig has been accurate, if and when I've done my bit. The drop away rest is flawless, its all tight.
The Northern Monkey has a well deserved reputation for um, er 'fiscal propriety', it's a little known fact that copper wire was invented one afternoon when neither he or a game keeper of this parish had change of a penny.
He ordered his rig from a UK company called Aim Archery. It has not been a good experience. While Dana builds and shoots the bow you've ordered so when you pay for a Ready To Hunt package that is exactly what you get. At the other end of the performance curve; Aim Archery. It would seem they loosely assemble whatever they've got lying around. For instance the cheapo Arrow rest was over half an inch out of alignment, there is nothing 'Ready, Aim, Kill' about that. If they'd gone for Ready-Aim-Loose Arrow it would have been a fairer description.

Shooting my bow, which is dramatically too short a draw length for him, TNM could comfortably have arrows kissing each other, with his Assassin, set to his correct draw, the best he could manage was a loose coalition rather than an actual group. With the spread getting larger and more and more arrows disappearing into the woods TNM dismay was growing.
We started looking for an archery shop online. It turns out that while they are like hen's teeth in london, we were only about a half hour drive from the UK's most famous archery store.
Quicks have gained their reputation by using a strategy almost unknown in modern British retail. They are friendly AND know what they're talking about. I know! Colour me shocked too!! The chap behind the counter took a quick look at TNM's bow and sighed. The peep sight isn't attached to the bowstring, but what's losing an eye between friends? The supplied arrows got another sigh, "these are for a recurve". Quicks dude could not have been more helpful; once he'd got the bow to safe to use, he took TNM upstairs to their range and helped him to start the tuning process. Buoyed with new found confidence he bought some more arrows and we headed back to the wood.
Groups were much improved for the first hour but substandard parts soon come loose and the arrow rest lost its grip on itself and lost its position. T'was not the only loss we were to endure that afternoon. At our woodland range we hang a Delta target from a tree. We don't have an archery net, so you need to be accurate. It's fine when the difference between on-target and a miss is less than a handspan, any further deviation either results in a clean miss where the arrow disappears beneath the leaf litter on the forrest floor, or strikes the tree where the aluminium shaft absorbs the force, warping horribly before flying off at a right angle and then disappearing beneath the leaf litter on the forrest floor. Gutted.

We sack it off in favour of lunch, well I I sack it off to make lunch and TNM starts getting serious about getting his arrows back. After a while he reappears, ever the sage, taking the whole debacle in surprisingly good humour he rocks up. "Do these look familiar?" he hands me two of my arrows from the first trip a few weeks back. "I've realised, there is one very important piece of kit we didn't bring, metal detector"

More news and reviews as soon as I get the chance to write 'em up
Your pal
SBW

It's Here! SBW 2.0 Can Commence!!

I wanted you to be the first to know. This morning, just as we were having our morning warm-up argument, the door bell rang the post and I had a confusing conversation with the Postie, my guess is that my pronunciation has improved, as people seem disappointed when my understanding hits the brickwall, in retrospect I think he was complaining that the floor number hadn't been included in the address.

Hostility's ceased for the grand opening, and a box full of new toys were revealed. Woo Hooo!!!

More news and the Unboxing review to follow, my breakfast is getting cold.
Festive wishes from your much happier pal
SBW

Arrow Flight High Speed Video

                          

This ,as they say, is where the magic happens

No really, that's all. Watch it again.

SBW

3D Archery with Stickman

Ages ago I got an invite to spend the afternoon shooting recurve bows in an Essex woodland, and when diary's and childcare and work all worked out: what an afternoon it was. I journeyed to Romford; an easterly commuter town in Essex, where the girls are bright orange, and the Louis Vuitton handbags are made in China, to meet with my new friend Stickman from the British Bowhunters forum for a lesson in instinctive archery. And what a revelation it was. My previous efforts at target archery were less than distinguished. All that squinting at a pin wasn't making things easy and the lesssons were on a one-shot-and-get-to-the-back-of-the-line basis which didn't help either. I knew I wanted to learn to shoot 'instinctive', I just wasn't sure how I was going to. 

Stickman hails from the Kimberly - the diamond fields of South Africa - and has hunted most things since he was a lad, like many of the more experienced hunters I've met, his passion for the process of hunting itself had led him to traditional bowhunting; where the chance to take a shot is 
hard won, without the surgical strike at 100+ yards of a hunting rifle, field-craft and even dumb-luck become big parts of the contest. At these distances the chance to even draw the bow in the presence of an animal a major achievement. This is hunting at 15 yards or less. Hunting on an unlevelled playing field.

Note: really neat wrist guard with sheath for his field scalpel

One tale that he regaled me with illustrates just how much skill (and luck) is involved in hunting bare-bow. Stickman had been hiding in a blind near a water-hole when a 'Big Impala Ram' in fact the big-impala-ram-of-a-lifetime, had approached the water-hole coming within 15 yards (i.e 45 feet) of the blind Stickman was hiding in. Having been practising to the tune of 500 arrows a day in preparation for the hunt, he drew back and loosed an arrow. Only to be String Jumped. 

The arrow was travelling at approx. 200 feet per second, lets call the distance 50 feet to make it easier, so in a QUATER of a second the Big Impala Ram was able to sense the movement of the arrow and spring into the air letting the arrow pass harmlessly underneath him.  It gets better - if we call the speed of sound 1200 feet per second that means that the sound of the bowstring got to the Big Impala Ram in a twelfth of a second. When the sound of the string arrived at the Big Impala Ram in the next sixth of a second the  Big Impala Ram had taken flight. literally.

Stickman had invited me to the woods his archery club use for 3D archery - instead of the circles on an straw board the targets are various prey animals, there is a tradition of throwing in a couple of humorous examples.


My first shot was a master stroke of beginners luck, Stickbow was impressed, I was double impressed!! Obviously once I started thinking about what I was doing I was back to my usual lummox self. Where I would have remained if it hadn't been for the light touch of Stickman's coaching. In between the banter and storytelling he paitently coached me to - actually hitting the target! Both eyes open, none of that squinting and aiming malarky, just launching arrows that either grazed the target or pounded into it! Yea instinctive archery!

"Call for Mr O'Shay, a Mr Rick O'Shay?"

Ok There were a few that went astray. Although sometimes the arrow, seemingly by magic. regains its trajectory, usually it's found embedded in a tree. If you're lucky. 

A large part of the sport is the time spent searching for lost arrows, not always successfully. Opps! Sorry Stickman.

Any prey animal taken with a stick bow is a trophy - even this plastic fella

I was defiantly well taken with Bare Bow and even felt the first throbbing certainty, that tickle of obsession yet to come, archery is a lot like casting when fishing. The first time you cast perfectly you're hooked, the simple elegance of the motion, the economy of movement and the cybernetic connection between spring and soul. Launched by love and magic the arrow seems to fly on the wings of intention. Once.

By which time you've started to think about how you did it and the next arrow goes at a right angle to you, before burying itself in a pile of leaves.When fishing: the line is now tightly bound around the reel so you cant even turn the handle. But despite the set back, you've been tantalised, you've seen the magic, by then you know, you must, you will. If you could just send another few hours, if I could just spent another few pounds, stay up for just one more hour surfing for infomation. Whoa...

...whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah it’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough, you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to [Insert latest obsession here]

might as well face it, you’re addicted to [fishing, archery, deer, blogging, the american girl - delete as appropriate]

So many hobbies, so few pounds to spend on them. Such is suburban life dear reader.

Big shout to Stickman - for a great afternoon - One of the Good Guys

Your pal

SBW

Note to self: my victory over The Northern Monkey in last years archery competion needs mentioning again

European Bowhunting

As the about me section for this blog says I'm going to turn myself into a bow weilding elk hunter I can't blame any of you who are tapping your fingers and demanding "enough of the kit collecting and distractions, get with the hunting already".

So in the interests of getting on with it I thought a review of the european options for the hunting toxophile would be in order. As you can see from the map, bowhunting is really starting to gain popularity in southern Europe, the summer before last the French hunting magazines all had bowhunting sections and CHJ has found severl Italian bowhunting sites. The European Bowhunting Association has some useful information, if you're thinking of making the trip.

I'm off to Italy in a few days to do some outdoor plumbing and some scouting for big pigs in a chestnut forest.

Frankly any pointers would be much appreciated

Your Pal

SBW

S'now Its time For Archery

Snow had closed my course down for two days. so we had an afternoon free. we put the time to good use. Archery! Posture,upper body strength, breathing, aim, release and the bow all need some work.

The Northern Monkey had scouted out some land and on the walk in we found a dumped black plastic air vent. Target!

TNM shot ever tighter groups, while I couldn't even manage a loose association.
Luckily a sudden fart of wind was sent by the coyote god, and one of my arrows smashed the target!

TNM retorted with a 'tree splitter'.But still NIL POINT!

Showing another great example of th sheer dumb luck that has sustained me so far, another field point juddered home. Here you see me explaining to The Northern Monkey the traditional 'salute' used to remind the french that our archery skills are superior to theirs.

The bow is way too big for me,[I cant remember my draw from my days at the archery class'].

It's much more TNM's size so I shan't morn leaving it with him. After all, he needs the practice!!

Keep Warm
SBW

Two New Blogs - Well New To Me

Hiya

The feedback from my OBS interview has exposed me to a couple of blogs that are well worth a mention.

First Rabid Outdoorsman's The Maine Outdoorsman
"Greetings fellow outdoor fanatics and welcome to the Maine Outdoorsman Blog. I started this blog as a way to share some of my favorite hunting, fishing and outdoor experiences with the general public. My goal for this endeavor, is to work to improve my writing skills so positive comments and suggestions are much appreciated. With that said please sit back, make yourselves comfortable and join me in conversing about a few of my favorite outdoor memories."

And Fish Hunter's Hunting Knive
"When you are in a position to indulge in it, hunting is one of the activities that can provide both a great deal of physical activity and bragging rights, not to mention an impressive amount meat and a truly epic trophy at the end."

Both struck a chord with me, hope you'll enjoy them too

Thanks for reading - leave a comment or two
SBW

Guns,Bows,Trebuchet and Pumpkins

flyingpumpkinsthemovie.com

C'mon what's not to like?
SBW

Happy Blogday To Me! Bushwackin’ 365

Suddenly it’s time to do one of those ‘that was the year that was’ reviews that TV stations use as cheap programming on new years eve. A whole year has passed since I formalised my journey and started telling all of you about it. I’ve not been deluged with animal rights nutters telling me I’m a cheerleader for the forces of darkness, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have told me that they couldn’t do it themselves but understand why the wild food journey is so important to me. First things first, I’m always a bit amazed that you are actually reading this, and enduringly grateful to those of you who could be bothered to chip in with the odd comment, it’s made keeping the blog going a lot easier. The year has been full of soaring highs and crushing lows in my other life, the one I lead outside of the adventure in this blog, and the blog has helped. It’s given me a focus outside of work, a perspective, a purpose. The other positive output has been a new found confidence in my writing. Like it or loathe it, mock my spelling and poor grasp of grammar, but there’s no one else writing anything quite like it, it’s mine and, there are a growing number of posts that I’ve started to feel quite pleased with.
I’ve done errhm ‘some’ work on the skill set that my hunt will require, re awakened the kit fetishist within, took a bit more exercise (ok babe a very little bit – but I have dug the vegetable patch over!), expanded the range of my reading, learned the basics of bare bow archery, hunted rabbits with ferrets, used a shotgun to turn flying ashtrays to dust, and cast my first fly at a wild trout. My compound bow still languishes in the garage, certainly not unloved, but unused. I’ve found an archery club I could attend but they are stickbow only as their secretary told me her butt wasn’t big enough. I was confused too until I remembered that a butt is the traditional name for an archery practice ground!

Lessons in feral failure?
When I stared fishing I learned three knots, and for some reason my brain has only assigned enough memory to its knots database to remember those three, I can tie them in the dark, in the rain, wherever. Regular readers will have noticed that while I confidently announced that I would be making my own set of purse nets for rabbiting, so far all I have to show for my efforts are some tangled pieces of string – described in the word[s] of one observer as ‘shocking’.

Tanning Hides?
Firstly I’d like to try to shift the blame onto Mrs SBW – she found my rabbit brains in the freezer and chucked them out. So that was brain tanning out the window. Sadly the rest of the failings are mine. Tanning hides is harder than it looks, one rabbit skin is now hard enough to make a knife sheath from and the other two are still hiding from Mrs SBW in the freezer.

Fitness and Mass Reduction?
I’m too embarrassed to talk about it; there is only one worthwhile prescription.
Eat less and do more

The wild food highlights were;
Bunnies ferreted out by James’s little helpers. The legs cooked with tomato, paprika, and black olives. The loins rolled into spirals, poached, browned and served on top of large slices of black pudding (traditional English blood sausage).
A haunch of Muntjac; which turns out to be the perfect size of eating deer for suburban dads on portion control, skinny bints and picky city kids. I casseroled mine in a gravy of shallots, plonk red and Hoisin sauce. Yummy.
GMT Chestnuts (harvested in Greenwich park) eaten with pancetta and leeks in a cream sauce.
Road kill Pheasant – Although I haven’t had the opportunity to either attend a traditional English pheasant shoot (which looks from the outside like a sort of real life video game shoot ‘em up - for £1000 ($2000) a day!!) or join a walked up woodland hunt. I have been keeping my eyes open and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of daft birds who made the mistake of playing in the traffic. With delicious consequences!

As with every ‘that was the year that was’ round up there are of course some awards to dish out.

On the kit collecting front the Best in Test award is shared by the
Fallkniven F1, covered in scratches, sharpened, blunted and sharpened again, a genuinely bombproof confidence inspiring tool.
The Bahco Laplander Saw: which has proved itself to be thoroughly deserving of its ‘bushcraft’ reputation - lightweight, cheap and a very, very efficient cutting tool. [Apparently there are; hardwood, softwood, and greenwood blades available, but the card mine came attached to made no mention of which blade it’s equipped with. It has happily cut all three.

If there were a category for best gadget (ok there is) it would have to go the spyderco Sharpmaker. It does what it says on the tin.

The Bushwacker Style Award
Rogue for their great hats – described by one observer as ‘Like and outdoor Bez hat, way cool’

Services To Bushwacking – furthering the cause.

In the afield category
James Marchington – for teaching me to hunt with ferrets

In the a-stream category
Jeremiah Quinn – for his inspirational fly fishing lesson

In the best blog comment category
Mungo – Butcher, Bushcrafter, Project manager and Surrealist.

Thanks for reading, stick with it – it gets better!
Your pal
SBW

The Farce Is Strong In This One

Hit the target?
I can do it with my eyes shut mate!
Though, sadly it would seem, not with them open.
[sound of chortling elk in the distance]
Ho Hum.
Thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Sundays Are For Archery

It’s Sunday so its round two of archery lessons or The Bushwacker versus The Paper Targets.

In England Sunday archery practice is a tradition that nearly 800 years old. In the 12th century the longbow was the black rifle of its day, a military technology that’s use was strictly prescribed by law.

As standing armies are notoriously expensive to maintain, in 1252 the 'Assize of Arms' became the first Medieval Archery Law requiring all able-bodied men, from 15 to 60, equip themselves with a bow and sufficient arrows. The law also "forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training especially archery practise".
With King Henry the first, later proclaiming that an archer would be not be tried for murder, if he killed a man during his weekly archery practice. The Plantagenet (literally the planting of cover to create hunting grounds) King Edward III took this further and decreed the Archery Law in 1363 which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and holidays!

The longbow really was the super gun of its day, launching arrows faster than any previous bow. It’s said that a skilled bowman could shoot between 10 - 12 arrows a minute. The bodkin (a sort of longer sharper fieldpoint) tipped arrows could pierce a knight’s armour at ranges of more than 250 yards. Such was the value placed on this cutting-edge military technology that in 1365 archers were forbidden to leave the shores of England without a royal licence.

There are still quite a few place names in England that include the word Butts (Newington Butts in South London) meaning that they were traditional archery grounds with targets to aim at and embankments to keep the death toll to a respectable minimum.

Sadly practice in our local parks is no longer permitted, and on the other side of the pond, things aren’t any better. News has reached me that in the city of Eau Claire, in Wisconsin a public practice ground called Archery Park has just banned archery practice after a local resident complained of finding an arrow in his back yard.

Things, as they say, are tough all over.
Wish me luck
Bushwacker.

Bird Hunting From The Sofa

Bowman 2

"You will discover that to be a good shot is not the half of what it takes to make a tolerable bird slayer."
Maurice Thompson, The Witchery of Archery, 1879

Playing this game's lot like the guilty pleasure of buying delicious junk food, the 'twofers' can really make your day!
Bushwacker
PS on the site where I found the game a fella gave one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard in a while.
'Don't take life so seriously mate, no one gets out alive anyway'

Something For The Weekend Sir?

If I can sort out my child care problems I’m going away on Saturday to wave bon voyage to a friend who is starting his yacht master qualification. First stop Hawaii. Arragghh!

On Sunday Archery class is FINALLY in session! There is an historic precedent to archery class’s being held on a Sunday. Apparently a medieval law is still on the statue books which insists that every able bodied man should be practicing his archery skills in his local park every Sunday afternoon. The looks you’d get wouldn’t be the half of it!

In the meantime I thought I’d do a round up of some of the blogs I’ve been reading.

Othmar Vohringer of Outdoors with Othmar Vohringer
There’s a well worn saying ‘The more you know the less you carry’ and the bushcraft and hunting communities are full of people (yours truly emphatically included) who talk a good fight about simplicity, but somehow lose those good intentions when the latest gadget is dangled in front of their eyes. Here Othmar takes a wry look at the fads of today and the traditions of yesterday.

Rex BKA (Bloggingly Known As) The Editor of the Deer Camp Blog
Rex was one of the first people to write to me offing encouragement for my blog and he has dine a great deal to encourage other bloggers.
Well known in american deer hunting circles, his blog started as the newsletter for a hunting club (with its own land!!) and has grown to cover his interest in Hunting deer and squirrel, adventure pursuits, archaeology, habitat management, ghost stories, interviews with mythical beasts and collecting tall tales for use around the campfire. Legend.

Jeremiah Quinn
I’ve recently given Jeremiah Quinn a mention for his writing about urban fly fishing but since then I’ve been reading a little more of his site. He has a house near lake Como in Italy and has written this piece as an introduction to the area for visitors.
‘Porcocania’ starts as a letter about how to work the heating and where the shops are, written to a friend or family member he’s lent his house to. It becomes a brilliant travel guide to the region with lots of hilarious anecdotes about the people, food and culture he encountered during a year living in Italy. If you’ve ever lived in a small community you’ll recognize the characters and customs that give an area its ‘local colour’. Here he explains the Italian concept of Furbo.

‘Furbo implies styling something out that could be disastrous if you didn’t present it the right way. This has something to do with the Italian notion of keeping up appearances. My ultimate example of this is Columbus, the man the Italians like to call Cristoforo Colombo. Many people assume that Columbus’ mission was to prove the world was spherical. Obviously, there is no money in that, and it was already in any case generally accepted by navigators and traders to be so. Also, America was known to be there as the Vikings had documented its discovery 500 years earlier. No, Columbus was looking for a shortcut to India, so that he could get pepper more quickly back to Spain, so that they could set up a new and undisputed trade route and get rich. OK, so the key words are India and pepper. Columbus goes off on his long voyage, doesn’t find India and can’t find pepper. Goes back to Spain, terrible voyage, bad weather, scurvy, lands in Spain. What does he say? Couldn’t find India, didn’t get any pepper? No, this:
‘Found the West Indies, here’s a chilli pepper’. Now that, my friends, is the definition of furbo.’ By Jeremiah Quinn

Bound to be a much better use of your valuable reading time than the Sunday papers or my ramblings.
Bushwacker

Deer Hunter Ed

The Buck Hunter Blog have just posted a link to Fresh Tracts an outdoors school with a deer hunting course. There are a few people doing a deer stalking certificate in the UK. The way UK law works there are only certain weapons considered suitable for deer hunting and the bow isn’t one of them. I’m not sure if I’ll take the course here or fly out to take their course. Either way one of them’s going to get my money sooner or later!
Bushwacker.

Edging Closer

You must be wondering: when’s he going to get on with it?
Where are the pictures of smashed targets and gleaming broadheads?
Today saw a couple of significant steps in the right direction...

Today was one of those days, not those days, those days.
After yesterdays run I felt, well, well, not just well, well good!
I could actually walk without wincing. I was almost invigorated. Unbelievable I know.
Then I got the email I’d almost given up hope of receiving; I finally have a place on the program, only a month to go until my archery lessons begin! Really you’d think in a city of 6,000,000 there’d be the odd archery coach going spare. It’s been a long search.
I bet it wasn’t like this the year we won at Agincourt!

I felt so inspired by the morning’s events I went back to the park for a bit more of the living hell that is British Military Fitness. Where BMF beats the gym is in it’s sheer relentlessness, you can’t kid yourself. There’s nowhere to hide.
Let’s hope it’s the same for Mr Elk.

Bushwacker.
PS Pablo - thank you for your kind offer - see the comments on the last post.