Chicago Bow Hunters NEWS & EVENTS

by Cindy Lavender
I started shooting the bow about 2 years ago. The thought of competing never entered my mind, until I met someone that encouraged me to try it. All I wanted to do was harvest a deer with my bow. When field archery came into the picture, I was challenged to shoot as best as I could. It’s been a roller coaster ride; and that’s the best way I can describe it. I’ve shot well, very well, not so well, horrible, and back to OK, and then, all of a sudden, it came together and I was on top of the world… and then I fell apart again. This may make sense to those archers who pursue the competitive side of shooting a bow. What a challenging, intricate sport with so many variables! What can effect the flight of an arrow can be as obvious as faulty equipment, or as mysterious as lack of focus on aiming, and every little thing in between. Do any of you relate to that? Even if you don’t compete, and are strictly a bow hunter, you still remember the days when your shooting just isn’t right and you can’t figure out what’s causing it.

What I’m trying to get at is I won the IAA-NFAA Field Archery State Championship in the Women’s Bowhunter class. I won because there was no one else in my class to compete with. So, I had it made before I even I got to shoot. No pressure, no challenge, no problem! Before the tournament started Wally Erickson (JAC) even said, “Hey Champion!”, while we were all joking around about it. Do I wish I had someone to compete against? Yes. Did I shoot well? Not even close. The field range at Panther Creek Bow Hunters, in Chatham, Illinois was as rough a course as can be. It never occurred to me to practice on angled terrain. 90% of the targets were on a side angle, and most of the targets were not even facing the shooter; paper targets were quartered away (on accident), or so I was told. We would walk to pull our arrows, and were all in on an angle.

In order to score well on this 2 day shoot, you had to rely on your level, and trust it like you’ve never trusted anything before. Canting the bow with almost every shot made me feel unsure about everything that felt okay before this tournament. It showed in my scores, once I lost the main focus on aiming, I could not get it back. After the event was over, I told everyone that yes, I am State Champion, but it’s kind of hard to talk about it under the circumstances. Pam said, “No, Cindy, do what the guys do, just walk around telling everyone how good you are!”