Brandon: Hey guys, welcome back to the archers path. Today we're going to go over ⁓ some preparation and how we have been practicing inside. ⁓ how that led us to our first 3D shoot together up at Brushy Mountain. What kind of motivated me and Brandon to get to that shoot and push it together so quick, because it was kind of unexpected last minute kind of thing. was. Weren't quite ready, but we made it work. And we can talk about some of the things that went good and some of the things that didn't go so good. So I'll start us off by saying ⁓ Brushy Mountain Archery Club ⁓ up towards Taylor'sville. believe it's Alexander County. I believe so, Great range, great people. Frank Lawsey up there. ⁓ I've known Frank for a long time. Caleb, you know, those guys are good people. They put on a good ⁓ core, super friendly. ⁓ If you're up in that area and you're looking for a home range, they've got an awesome indoor. They're all the time doing shoots throughout the week, through the summer, through the winter. They always got something going on. Didn't they just do a 2D felt competition thing up Yeah, always doing something. Yeah, that was cool because it wasn't even like animal targets. It was like 2D beer cans. Yeah, it was cool. That was cool. So they're all the time doing something fun up there. Go check those guys out on Facebook. If you're not following them already, Brush them out in Autry Club. So they had put on their Facebook that they were going to be auctioning off some targets, some 3D targets. And me and Brandon had talked about putting ⁓ our couple targets that we had together and building us a small range back here. And ⁓ I decided that I was going to try and buy some from this auction. Well, I ended up buying four targets. ⁓ kind of worked out good, have to spend a whole lot of money, got some pretty good quality targets. So it worked out good, Brushy was happy with their outcome, they made some money, and ironically, it's some of the targets that I had previously owned at Foothills Archery Club. So all the targets that I bought were some that I had put out a hundred times before. So I knew the quality, knew what I was getting, and was happy to buy them. So that's what kind of pushed us to go to that shoot to make that be our first 3D outing together is because I had to pick up the targets. They said that they had to be picked up at that shoot. ⁓ So I don't think I was really ready. My scale wasn't even quite right. Brandon didn't even have a scale on his until the night before. It was a mad dash man. But yeah, we're gonna go over some of that. So ⁓ Brandon, do you wanna talk about some of our indoor stuff and kind of what what you thought about that introduction. Yeah, as you guys heard in the last episode, ⁓ like how we started shooting together. You know, Jacob had kind of mentioned the whole coaching thing and I was all for it and still am to this day. So he had mentioned, you know, doing some indoor shooting and stuff. And I had never done any kind of indoor shooting. So this whole realm of tournament shooting, albeit indoor spots or 3D like ASA style is all new to me, you know. But yeah, so we started prep, like the preparation process for it and we kind of went about it a little backwards. And I say that because of what we found out was going on with my bow. What was it? four days before the shoot, something like that, a week maybe. And granted, to be fair, at the time, Brandon showed up with his bow looking about like this, and I didn't know, ⁓ I didn't want to be too pushy and be like, hey man, is your bow properly set up? Let me go through it with a fine-toothed comb and critique everything. Is your bow tuned? Yeah. I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be that guy. It wasn't at all. And what was crazy about it though, like I'd be in here one day, like I said in the last episode, was one day I'd be in here chasing tins. And I was like, man, I get really confident behind the boat. And the very next day I'd be like, I can't hit the broadside of a barn. And man, it wouldn't until. I don't know. Week three? Maybe week three. You were like, man, is this thing, have you had this bad thing paper tuned? Yeah. I was like, nope. It was probably like the end of day three, of week three. Yeah. And I said, no. He's like, all right, let's do this thing through a paper tuner. So we shot it and lo and behold, this thing was not shooting a bullet hole. It was tearing high right. Yeah. And fortunately, you know, we were able to get that straightened up and get it shooting really well, get it paper tuned. And I think all you had to do was just rotate some top hats. Yep, had to shift them top hats. Cam was out of time a little bit. That's right. That's right. Pulled it back in time. Got it in time because it was actually out of time quite a bit. yeah. yeah, so I mean, got the bow back in time. And you guys need to understand that this was all the last week before the shoot. It's like we knew we were going to the shoot and we just didn't know that we would end up having to make this Matt Dash to get my bow a bass tune, you know? So. All through that, was shooting indoor spots, indoor spots, indoor spots, indoor spots. And this entire time that I've been shooting indoor spots, and I say that loosely because it's only been a couple months worth, ⁓ I've had people telling me time and time again, ⁓ just people I know who shoot, things of that nature, they've said like, shooting indoor spots is one of those things that'll make or break you. ⁓ And I never truly understood what that meant. until a couple weeks into it when I recognized like, this is difficult. Because I think everybody has this common misconception about spots being, ⁓ it's only 20 yards. It's only 20 yards. And they're like, ⁓ you can't hit 20 yards. You got a magnifier. But I don't think what people truly understand is that magnifier actually kind of hurts you in some regard because now you can see every little movement on that pin. I mean, you take a 6X magnifier at 20 yards, man, you can see everything. And that's where target stabilization comes into play. And we also tweak your stabilization. Yeah, the entire time. Yeah, I we're still working on it. We're still working on my state on my bars being like perfectly tuned. And then in the midst of us, trying to tune the bars, you know, it was this everyday occurrence of trying to modify my release. and I'm not using a hinge, you know, I'm using a button, a thumb button. to try... came in you were punching. Yeah. It's like we had to punch him like Mike Eisen. That was first thing to get. So yeah, so now we've got the release set up to a degree where I can actually somewhat treat it like a hinge and shoot it like such. once we get that, once we got that figured out and I can actually, I have like a shot process to go through now. Whereas prior to I was more of a get the bow draw back, get the pin in the center of the peep. and let the people fall on target and punch the snot out of it. And on my hunting rigs it worked. It really did. I never had a complaint, never had an issue with it. But you can't do that in target archery. You're not trying to shoot a dime anymore or a nickel. So that whole setup process for getting this bow. I won't even say it's done. You're never done though. It's what we've talked about. Exactly. If you ever consider yourself done, then what are you doing? But ⁓ I mean it was, so like on Thursday, the Thursday before the brushy shoot. And it was a Saturday shoot. Yeah, and it was a Saturday shoot. So the Thursday before the shoot, it was... come over here, get the bow and a draw board, make sure everything was timed. Also to find out, I shoot a Q80 follow-away on it, which will more than likely not be a thing at some point, I would imagine. I would make the transition to lizard tongue, but that's down the road. ⁓ My follow-away was extremely out of time. that thing was pulling so tight. Like a banjo string. Yeah, mean you could have tuned it. So we had to get that in time. We paper tuned the bow, got the bow in time. Let's see, what else was it? We hadn't had the time change yet either. so we couldn't shoot outside. That's right. So we were still shooting all indoor stuff because of our work schedules. It didn't allow us to really do any kind of outdoor shooting. And for you guys too, how we're kind of doing this is ⁓ my wife works night shift and Brandon's wife is nice enough to let him come over when my wife is away. And ⁓ we can, after our kids go to bed, because I've got two kids, Brandon's got two kids, so we them to bed. And about 8.30, ⁓ at least twice a week we're working on our stuff together from about 8.30 till 10, 10.30. ⁓ So it's not really a whole lot of time. It's not ideal for ⁓ 3D archers. We don't have a whole lot of time to shoot outside together, but now that the time changes come, we'll get somewhere outside shooting. That's the beauty of it too, is that that kind of plays into. the thought process and the idea behind this. Like we had mentioned in the channel or in the episode prior, know, this is, we're not playing to be professional. Yeah. This is blue collar archery. You know, this is your backyard guys who have competition rigs, hunting rigs, yet we want to be able to express that everyone can get into it. ⁓ yeah. And you don't need to be professional to go competition shoot. Yeah, and believe me, I'm no professional. All right. My like I said, I think either I think you've shot at a high level though. Yeah, you know, professional and ⁓ I think I mentioned it in the last episode, you know, shooting the 181 that is not a score to be proud of. But to kind of get the nerves and the jitters out of the way, I can't be too upset with it. All things considered. ⁓ We spent that Friday. the Friday before the shoot on Saturday. I had told my wife, I was like, hey, I'm not coming home after work. I said, I'm going to Jacob's house. She's like, for what? She's like, I was like, I need to go over there and shoot my bow. She's like, you've been shooting all week. I said, no, it's not that. I said, the bow is only worth a crap at 20 yards right now. And she's like, okay. I need you guys to understand, my wife, not archery savvy at all. So she didn't quite grasp that concept of me needing to shoot my bow at 40 and things of that nature, but she's super nice to let me do it. And so yeah, I showed up, I get off work at four o'clock and I get back to Jacob's house like 430 that afternoon. And we were racing daylight, because like you said, we hadn't had the time change yet. Yeah, mean, six o'clock, was like, it was dark. dark. Yeah. So we mad dash. to the backyard and we only have two targets up set up right now for that. So we had a deer, what was that, deer at 30, turkey at 40. So it was really just shoot a few arrows, get it close, shoot a few arrows, get it close at 40 and be like, all right. Yep, good enough for Friday. Or good enough for Saturday. We're gonna find a tape that's gonna get you close, you know? So we did. And I'll be honest, for as fast as we made it, it didn't do bad. I mean, arguably you could see the nerves in a few of the targets on Brushy. ⁓ I think I dropped what, five, five, three fives? I had three fives that day. Whoa, four eights, five eights maybe. Had to have been more than that. I can't remember. but I know there was definitely some targets in that shoot that got the better of me. For sure. So my setup at the time, I was running 60 pound limbs, shooting X cutters. My speed was 242 or 246 and that's super slow. Not forgiving at all. It was great for shooting spots. You know, it pounded shooting spots, but you make a mistake at 40 yards and buddy, shows. So we go in, go into the first, you know, we get to the practice bells and we start shooting and we're shooting fine at the practice bells. You know, I mean everything, you know, 20, 30, 40, everything was fine. We get to the first couple of targets and I was with how I was shooting. think Brandon was getting the nerves out of him. I remember correctly, for the first like three, I knocked 10s down. Yeah. I was like, man, this is gonna be a good day. And then the way that we went around at Brushy, we started shooting some uphill shots. it's kind of some side hills and stuff and you know, very IBO. If you guys know anything about IBO. It was a true IBO style shoot and my back bar on my bow, if you can tell, runs kind of below my cam. So when I would set my bow down, my back bar hits the ground. It kind of just, you know, instead of two points of contact, the back bar and the cam hit it about the same time. Well, I guess over the weeks of that happening or maybe traveling in the truck on the way up to the shoot because I didn't take it apart or anything it come loose and I just start falling to pieces I'm shooting arrows all over the place and I could not figure I was fighting the bow and I thought because it been so long since I'd shot any heels anything other than flat 20 30 40 that I was just torquing the bow funny and it was being unforgiven Well, then we got to a flat spot and I was like, okay, this is on like target 10. I ⁓ was like, okay, I'll know if it's me or not, you know, what's going on. And I draw that bow back and it just, I mean, just falls hard to the left. I was like, something is wrong, something's changed. And sure enough, I grabbed a hold of my back bar, let down, and I could just move that back bar in and out. and it had come loose and so it had started falling. And I was fighting that, trying to torque that bow back level from about target five all the way through about 14 or 15 before I got it straightened out. You know, so that was, that was a experience for me because my first couple of shots, I was really confident and you know, I felt like I was on the path, on a good path. Still ended up finishing four up ⁓ But not not at all what I'd expected for the way the bow had been shooting. Yeah Didn't we figure out that your back bar was loose because you was trying to take weights off of your back bar That's right. I forgot about that to add weights to my front bars. We were because The Friday before the shoot. Yeah, that's right. I think that's what it was. I needed to add weights to my front bar. Yeah, because No, your back bar. were trying to add weights to the Add weights to the back bar. Because you were dipping out. I was dipping out. And sure enough, I think we figured out that's why. Yeah, I forgot about that because my bar had kind of got stuck because I left it on for so long. It been on that for four years. I didn't mess with it. And so I'm torquing on it. Cranking down on it, trying to break these weights loose. I forgot about that. I tried to put the bad thoughts out of my head. But you know, mean things like that's what makes it, I mean in the moment it's not fun, but looking back at it now we can laugh and. Yeah, it's frustrating though. It's frustrating, it was such a relief to go back after 70 years and see so many people that, you know, were happy to see me and I was happy to see them and meeting new people. mean the guy that we shot with Zach wasn't it? Zach, yeah. Great guy. That dude can sling some arrows too. Yeah, he was sharp. And he was, we were shooting known 40, he was shooting known 50. Yep. Even at known 50, the dude could sling. Yeah, so he was, it was great. He shot good and it was fun. Always fun meeting new people. Yeah. And I'd been in archery as long as I have and I'd never met him. It was funny talking to him because we had mutual. people that we knew and had been around but just never crossed paths. And here we are now and crossed paths at a local shoot that I'd shot. I've shot Brushy Mountain. If I've shot it once, I've shot it 100 times. ⁓ So, and then we shot with that youth shooter that burned it down too. Man, that youth shooter. Yeah. That kid, he's going places. Yeah. Yeah. And his dad was the, I think his dad was. VP. Is he the VP? Yeah. So he's a VP at Brushy, so he was proud. I love seeing dads and sons and family, just family and archery. I grew up with my grandpa going and shooting, so it's good to see that. I like that aspect. It was cool too, because him and his dad had cross paths about halfway through the course. He was like, how are you doing? He's like, I'm all right. I was like, don't lie to you. His kid's smoking this course. It was his first shooting open too, wasn't it? He had never shot an open setup. He was shooting like a fixed pins or something before. So to go from that and to burn it down, I mean think he ended up shooting like 18. Yeah, it was 18 because I was the last target I wanted him to catch it so he could be 20 up. And he ended up shooting 18 up. Yeah, the kid burned it down, He had a baller setup too. He did. And you know, they're shooting, I think it was probably a 25 yard max, but at the end of the day, you still got to hit those rings. You still got to hit it. Yeah. You know, his 25 yard max. We're shooting lowers. Yeah. I was all ASA school. mean, his 25 yard max is arguably very similar to mine and your known 40. Yeah. You know, so for him at 13 years old to be smoking the course like that, dude, is, is gnarly. I was glad to get to shoot with him. Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. I think he was shooting a title 36. Is it a 36 or a 34? Yeah, one of the two. Don't they have a 34? I think they do. Yeah, I can't remember. Nice bow. Yeah. Cherry red. It was pretty. It was so pretty. Zach's, wasn't his like lime green? Yeah. Yeah. The elite victory. Yeah. Yeah. That was a sharp rig too. Yep. Green apple or something. It was nice. Yeah. Everybody had nice bows, man. Yeah. Heck dude. We had a, we had a group behind us shoot through. Yeah. Shooting recurves. Yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, them recurve shooters, they don't mess around. Yeah, it was, it's crazy. Cause like to me, like, you know, I've never seen, never been on a course before with them shooters. And even then going into the course, I'm thinking everybody here is going to shoot the compounds. Nobody's going to be shooting trad bows, man. Nobody shoots trad anymore. Right? Unless it's in your backyard. No, man. You had hardcore archery dudes out here slinging arrows through a dog on recurve. Like that is crazy. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And some of those guys are good. are. Yeah, there was a guy that used to shoot. I don't know if he stood in his machine. was Clay Eichard. And man, he was just like a good old mountain man is what he seemed like. had a big gray beard and I mean, just down to earth. Nicest guy. Yeah. And he could shoot that recurve. I mean, it was like, it was just insane watching him. You know, he loved it. My dad shoots a recurve just for fun though. He just pulls it out of the backyard once in a while when he's not feeling really shooting a compound. I got you. But it's crazy, man, to see these guys out here competing with recurves. I just never thought that that was a thing. And then Brandon couldn't make it. So last week I went and shot Foothill Shooting Complex. Yeah, it was last weekend. My wife was out of town, so I couldn't make that shot. So I had to stay home. Yeah, Brandon couldn't make it. ⁓ I'll kind of go through that a little bit. Jack Elliott runs that place over there, the Archery Range. Jack's a great guy. I've known Jack for a long time. The Foothill Shooting Complex was insane. I mean, it was awesome. The range was awesome. It reminded me a lot of the ASA because you had to walk through the woods. You parked and you walked through the woods to get to like your sign up in your range and stuff. So that was cool. Different aspect across a little bridge and a creek. At these ASA shoots, kind of have to travel to get to your range before you start shooting. So that was really cool. I like that aspect of it. ⁓ Really good range. Great targets. All new targets. All Mackenzie's. Jack put on a really good shoot. I did not shoot great. I shot known 50 because the guys that I was shooting with. we're all judging fifty so i just kind of jumped in there with them and shot the norm fifty ⁓ had a little bit i'd just didn't have time during the week to get my scale corrected when i set my scale up i hadn't miss mark my forty by two yards i had my forty was actually forty two yards cost stepped it off of city using a rangefinder like a doofus and It was fun though, had a good time, great place to shoot, great company, shot with my buddy Dave Tietrich, Michael Shor, Glenn Meadows, seen a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in a long time, ran into Keith Ostrom, Steve Randall, talking to those guys, seeing some familiar faces, talked to Jack, it was good to see Jack. Yep, good, just good, good guys, great time, good course. ⁓ And if you guys around in this area that they're out of ⁓ Shelby, Cherriville, I think it's actually Cherriville address, but it's kind of between Cherriville and Shelby. Yeah, so it's like, and I'm probably gonna be crucified for how I say this, Cherryville. ⁓ God, it's terrible. So between Seville and Shelby, you have this little town called Waco. Yep, Waco. It's right outside of Waco. So that's the best thing I can do to describe it outside of Google and the address. But I mean, I had never been there and man, the ranges that they've got set up, because you have to drive through all these different pistol ranges and rifle it's phenomenal. ⁓ man. It's phenomenal. I've gone there numerous times for the rifle ranges. Yeah, it's super cool. I've even gone there a few times before you and I started shooting together to do their archery practice range. Really? So. Their practice range is pretty legit. Yeah. Yeah. I think. I've only, every time I've gone, I've only been the only one there. Which is nice. Because they've got bells set up at 20, 30, 40, 50. And if you really wanted to, can step back. You can step back 10 and get a 60 yard shot at the 50 yard bell. So that's nice. Being the only one there, you have that option. I love it up there. I've never shot there at 3D range, but I've always wanted to go and just shoot it for fun. We're going to fix that. We're going to walk you guys through, so just kind of touch on this. Our plan is to shoot a bunch of locals together and kind of talk you guys through each one of those. We're going to do a little bit of traveling to some of these, you know, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, you know, maybe some of the outer city if we can get away for that long and. shoot around, go up towards the mountains maybe a time or two and shoot. Just kind of talk you guys through, like we said in the first episode, we just want to promote local archery. We'll talk about, ⁓ luckily with my job I'm able to kind of freelance to a little bit of travel and I like going to local archery shops and just stopping in. So we'll talk about some archery shops in those areas and things and stuff that we like to do and places we go, people we meet and stuff like that. So. I that's, I think we pretty much got this one wrapped up. Thanks for sticking through to the end. Yeah, we appreciate you guys. And if you guys are watching this and have made it this far, if you guys have any recommendations for future episodes, please drop them down in the comments and let us know what you guys want to hear, what you guys want to talk about. ⁓ Any questions you may have. drop them, be more than happy to siphon through them and answer them the best we can. If you guys haven't already, like and subscribe to our page. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram. We'll have some pages up. I don't think we have Instagram yet, but I think we do have Facebook, YouTube. Another thing we forgot to mention in last episode. These podcast episodes will be video podcast on YouTube, but the audio will be on Apple and Spotify as well. head on over to Apple, Spotify, whatever your streaming preference is and give us a listen, follow along and ⁓ drop some comments down below and let us know what you guys want to talk about next. All right. Thanks guys. We'll see you next time. We'll see you on the next one.