We just had a trad shoot at our club. It drew 100 shooters. It was so successful that we got the green light to hold another thread only. We want to mix up the experience anc develop some new targets for the next shot.

Im looking for some ideas for the coolest targets and shots you have seen at various shoots. Please post descriptions and photos if possible.

Thx guys.

Guess I can’t offer you much!

Actually, I did talk to Mike about a Wand shot; he’s got an idea to make it a precision shot using lath strips - sort of the opposite of a vertical obstruction- and I was thinking in terms of something about 6”-8” wide and as tall as we could make it and still get it to stand up - maybe 8 feet?

It’d be fun to tee off on that from around point-on distance - maybe a door prize for the longest confirmed hit? And/or maybe a 3D turkey on the top.... if nothing else, to have that bright red head to aim for....

Done some years ago and had a ground hog with nothing exposed but it's head in a hole, bears with heads in bait barrels. Had a standing bear on a line that charged directly at you and stopped at about 8 yards from the shooting stake. Made a barrel rigged with cables to simulate shooting off a horse, lion in a tree. Had a hog surrounded by coyotes to simulate as if they had bayed the hog. Turkeys from blinds, Antelopes from blinds on a water tank, frogs on the edge of a creek...., Just use your imagination, the sets can be endless. We set our shoots up for fun challenge and safety but so as not to destroy or lose arrows and folks had a ball. Sadly we lost the range when the land owner found more proffit from logging than shooting. But for a number of years it was a great place to shoot.

At one place we shoot they usually have some kind of a cat mounted up in a tree on a beam that can pivot down to remove arrows. This year they replaced one with a wild boar and another with a goat.

I have seen pictures of a flying owl or turkey target suspended from a cable in a tree

Shawn, You know Mikey. He can't stop!!!!! I told him we should only change up a couple targets.

Good input all. Thx.

Baltimore Bowmen has a bedded elk at 30 yards. The position used to be a bedded deer at 20 yards. Can't tell you how many people under shot the elk since visually it looked the same as the deer.

I'm with Shawn. You said you had a great turnout, and a great shoot. I wouldn't mess much with it. You could set up a 100 yard shot at a groundhog. )

We do have a couple of targets where you can really air one out from 80 or more, so any recommendations you guys may have for those long shots would be great. I was thinking about those rigs for pressurizing a 2-liter bottle could be fun, because everybody on the course would know when anyone scored a hit. Have to figure out how to keep that at a minimum distance, though, because there are some houses near enough that they might get tired of the noise if too many people were to connect....

Maybe balloons instead? Not quite the same effect, but....

Had one shoot with the alligator half in the water, three antelope and you shot from a pit and had to shoot the one marked. The group in front of you could change which antelope was shot. String walks are always fun.

OK, I’ll bite.

What’s a string walk?

Skunk head-on (not angled/sideways), maybe 30degree uphill at 30 yds. Uphill against rocks..any miss at all meant destruction or launch to outer space. The only arrow I've ever lost at a 3D.

Craig, those shots will get you tuned up in a big hurry, LOL............Jim

Newark sportsman’s club in Illinois really utilizes the club’s terrain. Great shoot

A string walk is a course with targets on it. The targets will be marked with ribbon on the string, and once you past the first ribbon, you can shoot the target or continue and maybe get a better clearer or closer shot. But once you go forward, you can't go back. When you reach the second ribbon, you're done with the target and you follow the string to the next ribbon and the next target. Sometimes you pass hoping for a better shot and end up with no shot on the target. It's fun, and at times you end up kicking yourself.

AHHH yes monkeyball, I know that power line shot well. Think I know the fella that set it.

For a long shot/novelty. Our club has an 8' polar bear out of insulation foam sheets. (2.5D?) You can't see it from the distance but there is a slit under the heart. Behind it at the heart position is a little cradle where you can drop in a red water filled, water balloon. Heart shots bleed immediately.

One thing I know is, People don't like to loose arrows and need a good back ground so arrows can be found without slowing the flow.

jk....do you remember the 100+ yard groundhog shot that they had at the 1999 GORH? Not one person hit it, but Larry Yien came the closest. I shot over the dang thing with my old lemonwood bow. That was a blast.

Shots over water, when you can, adds to the adventure level of any shoot.

Best one I remember is the Steel Deer. It was a life size deer made out of 1/4" plate steel with a 4" hole in the vitals. It was worth 50 points to get an arrow through the hole. Shot was only 10 yards. There would be a pile of busted arrows laying under it by the close of the day. It would really make you focus on the spot for sure! Grown men would cry about that target! Everyone on the course would get excited when they would hear the "BING" of a failed shot. I went home and made one out of plywood and shot it until I could make it almost every time. Psychological warfare at its best!

Compton shoot a couple years ago

we had a cougar on a limb ready to pounce on a coon had to shoot both targets. the coon was down a bit of decline couldn't see bottom of target.

Coon Rapids Tradition Shoot in Minnesota has a 3-D target with big piece of plate steel in front of it that has a hole cut out to shoot through. See lots of guys pass that one up! Great shoot, btw, for anybody interested...fathers day weekend every year.

Mike set up the Iron Bear right down the hill from the clubhouse, so every destroyed arrow was heard loud and clear - a source of great merriment for all.... save those few shooters who were lacking a sense of humor about it.

And there was an RIP box for the casualties, lest anyone feel alone...

It was pretty full by the end of the day...

The uphill shot of the two rams in the rocks at Baltimore. Pucker, pucker.

I recognize the power line buck, too, along with the ariels from Greencastle and some Baltimore pics. All good shoots.

Steve

Here are few from the TN state shoot log ago in Athens Tn.

The Gator had a jug of water on a pulley that would pull it in front of you, fun shot.

Across the lake;

Outhouse bear, open the door with a string, drop the string and try to get an arrow in the bear before the door slammed closed.

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