Washington County archers take aim

Washington County is full of archers young and old. It was not until 2007 that a group was born to unit them all. The Washington County Archers began that year and have grown every year since. The club sports 30 members, who get together once a month for ?shoots? while the weather is warm.

The club was formed by a man named Pete Buckingham. A few years ago, John Seymour became the president and has been ever since. Seymour grew up in Michigan?s upper peninsula. He moved to Washington in 1984, and later started the local Pheasants Forever Chapter in 1991. He became interested in archery in his late 20s, and has maintained a burning passion for the sport to this day.

The archers shoot at the range at Clemmons Creek Wildlife and Recreation Area west of Washington. There have been a number of improvements to the range just in the past year. In 2010, the archers built a tower to practice from. The tower puts the bowmen 15 feet above the ground.

Two people are allowed on the tower at one time. They must wear a safety belt when up there, even though there is a railing around the tower.

Seymour said the tower is not meant to hunt out of. It?s just for practice. It simulates what it feels like to be on a tree stand, which is usually 15 to 18 feet in the air. Shooting at a target while standing on the ground is very different from shooting it while high in a tree. Seymour said an archer has to train himself to aim lower when in the air than he normally would on the ground.

The reason hunters climb trees is to be out of the deer?s field of vision and above its sense of smell.

?The deer don?t pick up your movement when you?re up in the tree,? said Seymour. ?At ground level, they see everything. You have to be pretty lucky to get a deer while on the ground, because it?s so hard to stay still.?

Seymour said the local archers love the tower. From the tower an archer can shoot at targets that are 10, 20 and 30 yards away. The targets are stuffed with plastic bags, which makes them light and waterproof. When the bags are packed in tightly, they provide enough resistance to stop the arrow without hurting the arrowhead. Arrowheads can be damaged if the archer misses and hits something hard in the background, such as a tree.

Over the past few years, the archery club has acquired over a dozen decoy targets that look just like real-life animals. The decoys run the gamut from deer to bear to antelope to rabbit to turkey. These target practice sessions are known as ?3D shoots,? and the club does a couple of them per year. Thus far, the club has only set up the decoys on the shooting range. In the future, it wants to set them up along the trail and throughout the wooded area to make the shoot even more life-like. Seymour said he will set up one of the targets 75 yards from the trail and across a pond. That will be a challenging shot.

The Washington County Archers held a 3D shoot at Clemmons Creek on Sunday, May 1. Dozens of people from around the area came to the shoot, including an archer named Matt Stutzman. Stutzman lives near Fairfield and has honed his skills at archery so much that he has a chance to be on the Olympic Team. Stutzman is in California this week at an Olympic-qualifying archery tournament. What separates Stutzman from the rest of the pack is that he?s able to do all this with no arms.

Stutzman was born without arms, but doesn?t let that stop him from living a normal life. He can drive a car, brush his teeth and write, all with his feet. He even played semi-professional football as a kicker. His friend Gene Goddard, of Fairfield, began shooting with him last year after the two met at an archery shop. Goddard has shot competitively since 1991 and has shot professionally for the past six years. Goddard said it is amazing all the things Stutzman can do, especially on the archery range.

Stutzman does not use a modified bow. Goddard explained that he simply has a unique way of releasing the arrow. Stutzman pulls the arrow back with his shoulder while keeping the bow steady with his feet. When he?s ready to fire the arrow, he trips a trigger with his chin.

?He only has to move his chin about an eighth of an inch,? said Goddard.

Goddard said Stutzman got into archery because he liked the outdoors and wanted something to do. He said Stutzman also hunts with his bow and shot about 17 or 18 deer last season.

When Seymour is out hunting with his bow, he waits for the deer to come to within 20 yards of him. He said he?s often tempted to shoot at deer at 30 yards but knows the chance for success is not high enough.

Seymour uses a range finder to judge distances. It is impractical to attempt to judge the distance of the deer while it?s moving, so what Seymour does is to find the distance between the tree he?s on and other trees in the forest. That way, when a deer approaches a particular tree, he knows approximately how far away it is.

?If you don?t have a range finder, you can step the distance between the trees,? said Seymour.

Knowing distances is critical because an archer normally gets one shot and one shot only to down a deer. If by chance Seymour fires an arrow and the animal doesn?t notice, he has a set of arrows hanging beside him he can pull off and get ready within 15 seconds.

When he began shooting, Seymour used a straight bow, which is a thin piece of wood with a string attached. He also used wooden arrows. Now he uses a compound bow and carbon arrows. Compound bows use cables and pulleys to bend the limbs on the bow. When drawn back all the way, they store more energy than other bows. Not only that, they require less force to maintain at full draw than other bows.

Seymour said the trouble with wooden arrows is that they warp, which is a problem he doesn?t have with carbon arrows.

Norm Thomas likes the challenge of using an old-fashioned ?stick bow.? Thomas is a member of the Washington County Archers and has been an archer for 60 archers. He said a compound bow is ?too easy,? and that he likes the challenge that the straight bow provides.

Thomas has a few compound bows as well. He said he prefers to use bows with a reed curve that are about 62 inches long. Some long bows can be as much as 72 inches long, and that is too big for Thomas?s liking.