The arrow hit the mark, at least for Al Campsall from Williams Lake. Campsall and his compound bow had the highest score of the night with 157 of a possible 176 during the Big Horn Archery Club’s indoor shoot on March 17.
“It was good, I think we broke last year’s attendance records,” said Allen Pickering, the club’s president. “We had probably more youth attend this one than we had in the previous one.”
Campsall was in the open class, allowing for moveable sites, release aids and any stabilizers to be added to a participant’s bow.
Fred Streleoff, also from Williams Lake, had the highest for the traditional bow class, which doesn’t allow any of the modifications mentioned above.
In total, there were 109 shooters coming as far away as Haida Gwaii and were of various ages, 30 of them were under 17 and nine of those were seven or younger.
The club has been trying to get more youth involved, as it is important to the club’s future.
“The youth are key because as they get interested and under that age group their parents have to be involved with them so they become interested as well,” said Pickering. “You have new blood, new ideas coming in and that’s what helps the club grow. Our target is always to get youth interested from the point of the club continuing and also for youth to be off the street. It gives them something to do that’s worthwhile.”
Pickering said the current club’s membership sits at about mid-range compared to previous years but expects the member base might go up after the shoot, with a few families already interested in joining after participating in the introduction class the club hosted on March 13 or after dropping in during the shoot to watch and see what it’s all about.
He also expects that the cancellation of last year’s July shoot because of the Wildfires might have an effect on club membership or at the very least, this year’s shoot.
“I think it will affect it positively. We had people from the states, everywhere call to come to that shoot and then it was cancelled. I think we will have a big resurgence of numbers, it won’t directly effect membership but as far as the shoot popularity we may see a bigger increase because they missed that shoot that year,” he said.
Despite a Williams Lake resident getting the big score, several local residents got a piece of the cake. Dori Dickerson and denise swift came first in the Master Ladies Longbow and Recurve. Elizabeth Duits and Stephen Pigeon took first in the Junior (11-13) Female and Male Longbow and Case Duits won the Male Recurve. Josephine and Dallas Duits were also on the winners’ list, grabbing first in the Cub’s (8-10) Female and Male Longbow. Lily Graham and Lincoln Graham came in first for Tot’s (0-7) division in recurve. Closing out the traditional section of the shoot was Ted Swift who grabbed first in the Master’s Men’s Primitive.
In the compound section of the shoot, the South Cariboo wasn’t as lucky when it came to winning. Bruce Findlay won the Men’s Unlimited Master’s compound, while Danny McDonald won the Barebow competition and Memphis Clark winning the Cub group of Barebow. Dora Sprecher was the only woman to come in first place in one of the compound bow sections, taking the Open Master’s female.
The club has two more shooting competition this year. A mixed shoot will be on June 2 and 3 and the traditional shoot will be on July 22 and 23. Both will be outdoors and at the 99 Mile Trails.