This past Sunday (Jan. 21) there was a 3D shoot up in Nanoose Bay - just north of Nanaimo. The shoot was held at the Nanoose Pentecostal Church Summer Camp grounds inside a huge Quonset-style building. It was very good for us that the event was an indoor one as the weather was cold, windy, and rainy.

For those that haven't had the opportunity to take this shoot in - it is a novel way in which to recycle Christmas trees. There must have been over 100 trees set up in nine shooting lanes of about 20 yards long, with the tenth shot being from a scaffold tree stand, shooting diagonally across the floor space at a Caribou. The smell in the place was great!

The people were very friendly and accommodating. The shoot was well organized and well run, with a very large turn out for the morning portion - half of them stayed for the afternoon portion. The "prize" table was well stocked and had a bit of a different way of doing things. Each prize had its own bucket for draw tickets. You buy the tickets and you choose which prize you want, then drop half of the ticket(s) into that bucket.

The actual shoot was organized into two groups of about 60 shooters each. There were sets of three for every target in both of the A and B lines. Two Tweets on the whistle and the A line advanced to the mark, with one shooter stepping up and nocking a shaft. One tweet on the whistle and the range was "live". When all three people had shot in all the sets, the "range master" verified the all clear from his helper(s) and three tweets were blown - signalling the all clear to retrieve arrows and score the points. Any other way of doing the shoot would have most likely resulted in chaos with a capital K. Well organized guys - thanks.

The shooting was not a cut-and-dried affair either. The lanes were not overly wide and the spacing of the trees made for some very realistic shots. Plus the scoring was not a slam dunk. The compound guys had to hit the 10-ring or the 10X-ring to score 10 points - any other hit was scored as a 0. The Traditional/Recurve shooters were given the 8-ring as their target. Not as easy as it sounds.

Thanks again for one heck-ova way to spend a rainy, crappy Sunday.