Getting the Bull's eye

[Greenman]

I don'tknow the relevance of the cow on the AIUK logo,but it does remind me of an incidentinvolving my club. We used to shoot on a large field,most of which was hidden beyond a ridge,we shot on the top half.The farmer usually had sheep on the field so he told us to chase them over the ridge where as they couldn't see us they forgot about us and we didn't see them again. Occasionally however he put bullocks in the field and they presented more of a problem,basically what we had to do was set up the Archery equipment and then en masse we would charge them and they would disapear over the ridge. The problem was that after about half an hour they would remember us and come and have another look, so we would have to charge them again this usually went on 2 or 3 times during the evening, down bows and charge worked every time. However one evening we had chased the blighters away for 2 times when they came back again, it was always tempting to shoot round them but they tended to like chewing the straw targets so they had to go.So down bows again and charge, however this time was diferant and when we were in mid charge they parted into 2 groups and they had brought reenforcements , between them was the biggest bull you have ever seen who then stopped between the targets and stared at us( he did not look ameana'bull' or agreea'bull'). We all stopped mid charge and looked at each other, somebody said "Pub", so we reversed off the field , it wasn't a rout just a strategic withdrawl we would be back! In the pub we were quite happy and considered the Bulls eye ,but they were small and beady ,the bull's backside would have made a far better target but by this time we were happy in the pub so there we stayed.

[Furface]

Lovely story. Reminds me of a time shooting at Thirsk when the wandering sheep flocked up and strolled behind the targets. A "well respected" Yorkshire judge was sent over to impose his authority, which, as usual, was completely ignored. Sheep eventually just wandered off.

[Thunk]

Yes, well it's not archery but I can't not tell it...

I joined the Army at the age of 15 as a boy soldier. We got some additional education and basic military training prior to going into the 'mans' army at 17 and sa half. We did a lot of shooting on the ranges and on one occasion we were out in the middle of winter; it was cold and foggy. We could only see the targets intermittently, as the fog drifted across in front of the butts. Lying there, taking snap shots as the opportunity presented, I had one of our instructors, a corporal behind me and heard him say,

"Sarge...I can see a bunny, Sarge"

Our troop sergeant was very fond of a rabbit pie.

"Where? Where? I can't see the f******** thing!"

"It's there Sarge - on top of the butts above target 16! I can see his little ears sticking up above the mist!"

A bit more discussion, and the corporal reaches down and relieves me of my rifle.

600 metres is a good range on a clear day; in that visibility, I couldn't have seen a rabbit if it was wearing striped pyjamas and doing handstands. But after taking careful aim our intrepid hero fired, and as second or two later the guys in the trench below the targets, whose job it was to raise and lower them on a whistle, had to run for their lives as a full-grown hereford bull came rolling down the butts, hooves and horns flying in all directions!

Sarge never did get his rabbit pie...Oh how we laughed!

[gunmender]

I also remember any thing that 'strayed' on t the range was fair game! The Brecons were terrible for sheep straying into the line of fire was often heard as more often than not they fell over!

[morphymick]

The old "nobody aim at the sheep" trick. Often heard at Sennybridge.

Mick

[Andy1960]

As our range is next door to a football ground and the only thing separating us is a 5 foot high chain link fence, it's often tempting (especially in the middle of our annual 'open') to see how good we *really* are and see if we can hit a rolling football at to metres