Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Daughter and archery - 3D league night

Took my 7 year old daughter out to shoot in the 3D League night tonight at the archery range. She's been shooting JOAD (Junior Olympic Archer Development) since January and doing extremely well. First time she's ever shot in a 3D league; 20 different targets at different ranges. She shot the entire course. The one problem is the sight on her bow will only adjust up to 25 yards, almost half the targets are further than 25 yards and some are even out at 45 yards. She shot the entire match and at the end when everyone was done, she got to move up 25 yards and re-shoot the long range targets. I really was amazed at how much encouragement she got from all of the other shooters there, she was the only kid. Most of the shooters were grizzled middle aged and older hard core hunters and they absolutely loved having my daughter out on the range with them offering encouragement and coaching whenever they could.

The course is challenging, the shots are not straight down range a lot of them are diagonal across the range which makes estimating distance even more difficult. It's a lot of fun, too much fun for daddy not to play and I may have to go shoot the next one. I'm just really proud of my daughter, she had a lot of fun, never got discouraged at her long range misses, and actually had the best shot out of her squad of 3 shooters on 2 of the targets on the course. Of course what I'm most proud of is that the big elk in the middle of the range, she can consistently make a heart shot on it!

The range setup



The Elk

That brought a big smile to my face.

I think it's just awesome to watch kids enjoy the shooting sports. It's different somehow than any other pursuit. Maybe that's because it's an issue of personal skill and discipline.

Thats really neat! Im trying to get my 9 yr old into shooting but the coordination and focus just isnt there yet. Maybe one day.

I used to do this stuff with my kids and a few of other people�s kids.

I miss it.