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Wales May bank holiday meet 2022

A last minute decision by Matt and Dick was to leave today rather than tomorrow. The weather had turned against us which meant we'd have spend the late afternoon and evening sheltering from the rain in our individual tents and tarps. I was only too pleased to agree, so by 18:15 I was loaded up and driving away after fond farewells all round.
It was an excellent few days, and for the most part the weather was kind to us. Nice to see Matt and Dick again, meet Adam, and make the acquaintance of Mike and his lovely wife. Mike and I hit it off, with similar views and opinions on almost everything, I very much look forward to seeing and working with him again.
The journey home took 3 hours 15 minutes, so now I have a house full of wet tent, smelly clothes and a large pile of things to put away. Good thing I don't have a wife! ;)
How did the Bowyer session go Paul?
 
How did the Bowyer session go Paul?
Not as I expected, Joe. I lost two of my potential bowyers, Bill and Ark79, before the meet started. The no-show Scottish contingent was not a surprise to anyone apparantly. That just left Adam, who cut his bowstave to length and then gave up. At the last minute Dick stepped into the breach, thankfully. I'd taken a lot of bowmaking stuff with me and to not use it would have been a disappointment. Luckily Dick is shorter than Adam so he re-cut it to length, debarked it, marked it up, and then he pitched in on the axework. At that point he realised just how much damned hard work it is! With some assistance from Matt and me he got through it and started on the drawknife work. That was as far as he got with it in the time available. I've told him the next steps, so that he can continue at home, but much of it is a skill learned from hands-on experience so it will probably be better for him to continue the next time we meet. Matt is talking about me doing bowmaking at the next meet, which I am very happy to do, IF the 'victims' are showing some enthusiasm! We may have to charge, in advance, for the bowstaves. To go on a bowmaking course would cost about £250 so a small charge for the bowstave seemed reasonable to us.
 
Not as I expected, Joe. I lost two of my potential bowyers, Bill and Ark79, before the meet started. The no-show Scottish contingent was not a surprise to anyone apparantly. That just left Adam, who cut his bowstave to length and then gave up. At the last minute Dick stepped into the breach, thankfully. I'd taken a lot of bowmaking stuff with me and to not use it would have been a disappointment. Luckily Dick is shorter than Adam so he re-cut it to length, debarked it, marked it up, and then he pitched in on the axework. At that point he realised just how much damned hard work it is! With some assistance from Matt and me he got through it and started on the drawknife work. That was as far as he got with it in the time available. I've told him the next steps, so that he can continue at home, but much of it is a skill learned from hands-on experience so it will probably be better for him to continue the next time we meet. Matt is talking about me doing bowmaking at the next meet, which I am very happy to do, IF the 'victims' are showing some enthusiasm! We may have to charge, in advance, for the bowstaves. To go on a bowmaking course would cost about £250 so a small charge for the bowstave seemed reasonable to us.
Slightly disappointing then, I remember your fire making demos were very well received and can be a lot less time consuming than making a bow
 
Slightly disappointing then, I remember your fire making demos were very well received and can be a lot less time consuming than making a bow
Indeed! I had my friction firelighting kit, flint and steel, etc, with me but Matt and Dick had seen it before. It's the sort of thing that only preppers, survivalists and bushcrafters would be interested in I think, rather than the shootists.
 
Indeed! I had my friction firelighting kit, flint and steel, etc, with me but Matt and Dick had seen it before. It's the sort of thing that only preppers, survivalists and bushcrafters would be interested in I think, rather than the shootists.
True
 
So the time had come to load up the landrover and head to Dicks house to collect him and his kit :cool:

We were soon on the road to mikes place . 4hrs drive and we arrived :thumbsup:

mike was soon on hand with his trusty tractor to ferry the kit to the proposed camp area where i set to setting up the bell tent :cool:

Dick wandered of to his normal spot in the trees ... next to arrive was Paul he set his bell tent up next to mine and we were all busy getting kit squared away :thumbsup:

Adam was next to arrive and my self and Paul gave him a hand to get his tent set up and the site was buzzing with activity as we all were setting up our homes from home :)

when we were all done we wandered over to the fire pit and sat and yapped and drank mikes cider and my dark matter till the early hours of the morning :thumbsup:


Next morning we awoke to a glorious morning and we set about having breakfast :cool: Mike then took me on a walk of the boundary so when the need took me i could go out for a wander with my rifle ...

Dick and my self set to setting up the HFT course and the guys started plinking away at the targets :cool:

Paul and dick made a start on the long bow stave Paul had brought progress was hard going so we each took in turns hacking at it to get a ruff shape :)

I went for a wander with Paul who showed me many items for flora that you could eat and promptly started handing me bits of this and that to taste :cool:

As is normal on the meets all the days started to blend into one (with the help of mikes cider ) :rofl:

We had some great evenings around the fire where we all got a few sheets to the wind and had some real belly laughs ...

I wandered down to the HFT course with Dick and he spent some time with me trying to sort my rifle out as i wasnt happy with it or its performance anyways after a few hrs we had deduced that the pellets id been using we crap for the rifle so i had to scratch around to try and find some that would do for the meet :( managed to find a tin in my shooting bag that were fairly ok but not brilliant (inch group at 30 yrds )

Myself and mike did a round on the course and Mike came out on top by 5 points :thumbsup::thumbsup: i think he really enjoyed his first experience of A HFT shooting course :cool:

Paul brought his long bow down for us to try and to tell you the truth i think ive been bitten by the bug so ill be ordering a bow and some arrows when i get paid :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Im sure ive missed out many things that happened at the meet but the days all drift into one and its hard to remember what happed and when :)


I would like to thank the guys who made the effort to attended the forum fund raiser :thumbsup: Between us we raised £220 for the forum coffers a good effort by all :cool::cool::cool:


A special thank you to @Ystranc and wife for letting us stay on his land and for being the perfect host

@Paul N for taking the time to teach the bow making and for the foraging wander (im sure the uptake will be bigger at the next event )

@divebuddy for the HFT course and traveling partner and the yapps around the fire ...

All in all i had a great time with good company at an excellent location :):) ps cant wait for the next one guys

pps will remember dog treats next time :rofl:
 
Indeed! I had my friction firelighting kit, flint and steel, etc, with me but Matt and Dick had seen it before. It's the sort of thing that only preppers, survivalists and bushcrafters would be interested in I think, rather than the shootists.
I already do flint and steel, I should have asked about friction fire lighting while we were sat on our backsides discussing life, the universe and everything while drinking “Golden Oblivion “™️
 
‘Kin ell Mark, they didn’t even bother getting up to watch 😂 ;)
I could smell the smoke from my hammock?
IMG_20220501_185924.jpg
 
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