Bywell Weekend 2022 – Practice Day 9/6/22
Here we are then, Bywell weekend 2022.
Today, as you can tell from the title, was Practice Day. A chance for everyone to reacquaint themselves with Bywell targets, and to get a feel for how they will be over the next few days.
One variable that makes a huge difference up here is the wind, depending on which direction it’s coming from. Most of the time it appears from over the left shoulder, doing its best to flatten all the targets and test our reaction time.
Today was no different. When I got to the ground this morning, the targets were looking quite good. There was a bit of a breeze, but nothing that was causing much of a problem. At least, that was the case to start with.
First round, I missed a few, but that’s hardly surprising after last weekend, and all the travelling etc. that I’ve done in the past week. Fauxdegla is a completely different animal to Bywell, so I wouldn’t expect to almost come straight here and be instantly at home.
Second round was much better, a nice 25/74, so no real problems there!
Then, we decided to go and have a look at the new layouts added on for the World DTL Championship that was supposed to be held here in 2020, before Covid arrived and stopped everything.
These are in a part of the ground that I haven’t been to before, and seem like they’re the other side of Morpeth when you walk to them! Fortunately, somebody thought about this, and there’s an access gate from the road with ample parking for everyone shooting on them this weekend.
This didn’t go quite so well, but the wind was getting stronger by this time. The natural shape of the ground was helping to funnel it right down through and make a nuisance of itself. Also, the layouts are on a very slight slope which makes the trap houses look like they’re on the twist, when in fact they aren’t.
It sounds like a very noticeable thing when written like that, but all there is is a slight sense that peg 5 is lower than peg 1. It doesn’t really make much of a difference. I had a few more misses here to add to my collection, and all on hard left hand targets. Hmm.
In the fourth round, I was on the layout that I’ll be starting on tomorrow morning, located back up nearer the clubhouse.
By this time the wind was really enjoying itself! We were waiting to shoot, and the squads before us had some real daisy cutters to deal with. Naturally, everyone was finding them tricky to shoot, with a decent amount of misses and second barrels in evidence.
As you can see, I had some more of my own until about half way through, when I figured it out.
I’d come slightly unstuck with the target setup here, and not for the first time. They are not as strong as those we shoot in the South West, and require a much more disciplined and controlled technique with minimal gun movement.
Ours back home are usually on maximum angles with a bit of power behind them. You have to attack them and swing the gun a bit to get in front of them. If you try that up here, then it’s very easy to power through and get ahead of where the target actually is, missing in front or over the top.
I get reminded of this every time I visit Bywell, but because I’m usually up here only once a year, there’s a lot of time for the grey matter to overwrite that information!
Using my newfound (or re-learned!) insight, my last 10 targets were the best I shot all day, and were absolutely blown apart.
However, there’s no guarantee that they will be the same in the morning as all the layouts will be re-hooped and set up again, and with the forecast showing a wind speed of about 20mph, it could be quite interesting!
My start time is 9:45am, so logic would suggest that I’ll have the best targets of the day, but we’ll have to wait and see if I’m right about that!
All in all, I’m feeling pretty good about this weekend, and eager to get started and do some damage. Yes, I’ve missed 8 targets today and put in a 92/270, but that’s the purpose of practice day, to figure things out and settle yourself before the main event.
Stay tuned, and let’s see what happens!