Top_Heavy's World

The Waltonian Archery Club held the annual "Cabin Fever" 3-D shoot this past weekend. Jody, Clint, Craig and I shot about 10:30 on Sunday. The weather was decent, cloudy with scattered showers, it never rained hard enough to soak us, but the timber was pretty mushy. The shoot was 28 targets, 2 arrows at each from differing distances and from a predetermined location. The farthest shot was 40 yards, and most of them were 28 or less. I will make my case right off the bat. I don't shoot unless I know the range, to the yard. I am addicted to a range finder, so blind shooting isn't a strength of mine anymore. I haven't shot this series of targets before, so I was a having a tough time with the perfect yardage. I will also admit, I put the sight onto the bow, shot less than 20 times and called it good enough. I had a new string put on, the cable was let out 3 twists, the yoke wasn't adjusted and the rest and knock height were lowered. I was lucky to shoot a 2" circle at 20 yards, and I was shooting against 3 guys who shoot league every Tuesday! I was playing follower to say the least. We all shot pretty well, I dropped 41 points, a large amount for a 560 point shoot, but I was happy considering my recent changes. Jody made some incredible shots, including a super vital on the antelope, but the next shot from Craig one upped him, as Craig pinwheeled Jody's arrow and shot the first Robin Hood I have ever seen outdoors! Jody's arrow was pushed through the target and it split about 8" down the shaft. The shoot was great, I took second in my flight behind Jody, but I can assure you, I will be on my game this coming weekend when we hit our second shoot of the spring season!

Craig showed his shooting skills as he crushed another one of Jody's arrows!

The Gang, Clint, Jody and Craig, at the Raptor target, a steep down hill 30 yard shot that we all took advantage of.

The Cedar Rapids chapter of the National Wild Turkey Foundation held their annual banquet this past Saturday night. It was a great banquet, the body count was a little down, but the spirit and fun was up. The Jakes sign up was over 50 this year, so the inclusion of young people is going great. Dave Reisner was the MC and did a great job. Dave is one of those take charge types that keeps the room moving, laughing and rolling in thier seats. My group took up a long table of over 30 people, it was great recognizing almost 75 people, many of whom I only see a couple of times per year. All of my friends won something, our table sort of cleaned up! Adam Boysen won a Bowtech General bow, I won the loaded turkey vest, the Reisner's won several things including a turkey fryer... even a couple that claims to never have won before, was drawn a couple of times. The excitement was electric! There was a great turnout, the sponsors and donors chose incredible guns and major prizes and the food was great. If you haven't been to a NWTF banquet, you owe it to yourself to find one, it is a super cause and banquet!

I am sorry, this month has been so busy that I am not able to be here everyday as I have been for a long time. Work has been overwhelming with my crews working 24 hours perday for several weeks straight. I have written a couple of stories, one was published in April and one is set for May. Shed hunting has gotten some of my daylight free time and my family has gotten the rest. I will catch up, so stick with me, it should be a great weekend. I am getting a couple of Bowtech bows, I will be doing some shed hunting and I have a National Wild Turkey Foundation banquet on Saturday night. My weekend should be fun and there should be lots to write about!

I spent a couple of hours with a PSE Bowmadness bow tonight and I am very disappointed. The draw was smooth, but that is required from a single cam bow anymore. The energy transfer was decent, a 27" draw, 336 grain arrow, set at 63 lbs, it shot 274 fps, no wait, 276 fps, no... 278.9 fps wait again... 280.2 fps. To me nothing matters if the bow doesn't have a dead solid wall at the end of the draw. When I took great care to draw to the turn of the cams and hold right there, I shot about 274 fps. When I just drew the bow and shot, the chrono bounced all over. After 25 shots at 63 lbs I was able to max the bow at 281 fps and minimum it at 274. I cranked the bow upwards one pound at a time and found that I could shoot the bow between 281 and 283 fps all the way up to 67 lb draw! The care needed to draw to that point each time isn't practicle and the thought of shooting a bow that varies this badly from shot to shot isn't either. Accuracy comes from consistancy... there is none with the Bowmadness bow. I had a much better time with the X Force, it has the best wall of all the PSE bows so far, but I wouldn't own this one and hunt with it if you gave it to me. Sorry Mr Shepley, this bow sucks.

I just got back from a trip, not just any trip, a MAN'S trip. I loaded some great friends into a big van and we took a road trip. Being a nonconsumer of adult beverages, I was the designated driver. I had organized, gathered and picked up 5 friends of mine, but they barely knew each other. I sat and watched the band of fools as they opened up and became friends amongst themselves. We finally got tired of driving around and stopped for the night. "Rat Bag Motel" was quickly my name for the cheapest motel in town... the old world block building still sported shag carpet, mini blinds, shower heads that were hung for people under 5' tall and the guy behind the counter smiled constantly but couldn't speak english. Who cares, for $44 bucks, I could sleep almost anywhere. The gang of 6 had to investigate each room, we were a train of laughing, stumbling and LOUD guys as we talked eachother into staying. I will admit, it doesn't get much worse. A couple of the guys tried to negotiate the price, which is much harder when the other half of the transaction doesn't understand drunken redneck. The small man was able to say "honey buns and coffee" when someone asked what breakfast was. That set the entire gang to laughing again as we rolled eachother back into the parking lot. The night passed quickly and we were again on a mission. We soon added another pair of wonderful individuals to the foray. The host and his friend, another local, were generous enough to allow us to walk several acres of timber and ag fields in an attempt to find cast deer antlers. The day was awesome, everyone got involved and as the 12 hour death march ended, I was tired. We managed to watch one of the gang pick up 2 very redneck horse loving chicks, did I tell you one had a tin of skoal in her overly tight blue jeans... he was a master and the pair asked the entire group out for drinks and an ameteaur band. Flattered, but out of my element I quickly turned down the offer (the others really weren't interested either) and the entire group met for steak and a slower pace.
Morning came too quickly Sunday, the much better motel and very tired feet left me wanting to stay in bed. The guys drug me down to breakfast and we added another 5 hours to the death march total. In the end, we found 25 sheds antlers and 1 dead buck skull with both antlers attached. The trip home was incredable and went by way too quickly. I feel really good being in such company for a couple of days, these guys were worth the time! It turned out to be one of those trips that you want to sort of hold onto, a treasure actually. It was so good I just can't put it into words.