Yesterday was the Grand Opening of Archery Outpost in Los Alamitos, CA. This is a new archery shop in SoCal and it’s great because it’s close by, the people are fantastic and the place is just rockin. A group of us DIY guys showed up to offer support and to partake in the festivities. Laura Kelly and her crew put on a stellar opening. They pulled out all of the stops with a band, all the food you could eat, a bouncy house for the kids and the range was open all day. It was nice to see so many of the local youth out there shooting, too. What a great showing!

Fair warning to everyone – this blog is a bit long due to the many photos I am posting. That and I am feeling a bit long winded.

One of the things I was looking forward to was meeting up with Mike M. from the DIY Bowhunter website. It turned out great. Mike and I swapped hunting stories and even got to meet a couple of older traditional hunters who were a blast to talk to. They even had an interest in DIY and what it was all about. I had a great time talking about the site, but truly enjoyed hearing their hunting stories. I am looking forward to hitting the range with Mike and flinging a few carbon missiles. Turns out we both have a lot of experience, but on different animals and terrain. We already figured out we can help each other out and hopefully get some hunting in this year.

A few of us had the opportunity to shoot two of Martin’s new target bows. Now, I have no idea what bows they were because I was taking photos and was disoriented by the aroma of BBQ ribs coming from the grill. I was actually pretty cool with shooting the photos instead of the first bow because I got to see good shooting form. Eric and Eddy both said this bow was fun to shoot.

One of my biggest issues throughout the years has been my form. I used to have good form and then all of a sudden it stopped. I never knew why. Here is me shooting the second of the Martin’s. The peep was pretty low and I hung my head over the string. Not good, but I figured out my problem. Due to an old rugby injury to my shoulder I haven’t been lifting my bow high enough in the front. The photo shows the bow straight, but I need to lift it another 2-3 inches vertically and everything will line up. My back arm needs to come up, too. Now it’s going to take some work, but I’ll be getting my shooting form back in shape.

Eric and Eddy got involved with shooting the second Martin bow, too. Check out Eddy doing his best to hold back the extreme 38lb draw weight…

Look closely at these two shots of Eric. The first is just him lining up his shot. The second is at the point of release. It’s tough to see, but the arrow hasn’t even left the string yet!