Friday May 1st around 3pm Pacific time, my 9 year old son and I finished packing the jeep full of not enough camping gear and left Sandpoint Idaho enroute to Libby Montana for the annual traditional 3D shoot at Fawn Creek campground. Excited and a tad under prepared in the creature comfort camping department, we arrived in just over two hours.
We rolled onto the grounds finding quite a large audience of campers already rooted down and enjoying the spenders of perfect weather with overhead cover provided by large fir and pine trees in a perfectly parked out setting.
There were tents, RV's, truck campers and pull behinds all lined down the grassy parts on the side of the one lane twisty drive, leaving my thoughts filled with a bit of dismay thinking that arriving a day ahead of time, spots would have been ripe for the picking.
After spending a short time in line behind a couple of cars and a truck backing a pull behind in what was looking to be the last good spot, we made it down to the end of the drive where a "Vendor Only Camping" sign was halting us from the beautiful flat grassy area perfect for us tenters.
"What could I sell," I quickly pondered and "was it too late to sign up as a vendor?" Not much in the back of the jeep worth its weight in coin for that matter. Near the sign, I pulled into a tight spot right off of the drive and next to a truck camper. The gentleman said that he was reserving a spot next to him for his buddy but thought we could squeeze in right next to them both, then he mentioned the group on the other side were quite the partiers.
"Hmmm, well my boy and I will leave the jeep here and backtrack on foot to look again," I said, and we were off!
We ended up finding a decent clearing large enough for the tent about halfway back to the entrance but the ground was peppered with short brush and had its share of lumpy spots. Owen and I surveyed the ground from a few different angles and decided to walk back to the jeep and bring her back down here.
We managed to squeeze the jeep between a truck and willow brush which scraped the sides, right up to the tent spot. Relief! Now it was time to assemble a 6 man tent I haven't messed with in 10 years!
We were right next to a fella in a small dome tent who brought a nice wooden chair to lounge in along with a tiny wood burning stove to cook on, he was doing it right. He came over and talked a bit and we introduced ourselves. His name was Charlie, the same name as our youngest son who stayed at home with mama on this outing.
We managed to get the tent up without any major hiccups which included coaching a 9yo through the patient process of running corded fiberglass poles though long sleeves of tent cloth channels.
Pretty much all set, we walked down to the sponsor area. We saw Rod the arrow guy with his pull behind camper featuring his fold out displays holding hundreds of arrows for sale. The Robertsons had a booth set up and there were a couple of other vendors I didnt make it over to.
I saw Dan Toelke and chatted with him for a bit. He brought a prototype Super D longbow with him for me to shoot, where he and son Jared made some changes to the limb design. They wanted to take out as much reverberation as they could in a D bow design, just tweak the old design slightly as it is pretty easy on the wrists anyways. I gladly accepted the task of taking her out and slinging some arrows through it, comparing it side by side with my current Super D.
Not too long after talking to Dan, my buddy Geof arrived and we headed back to camp.
Here are some pics from the shoot Saturday. It was cold in the morning until it warmed up early afternoon sunny and cloudless. The almighty left us with unmatched perfect weather.
We shot for fun and practice, not for points. We would have taken home a lot of meat that day and even though we made some bad shots, if you also think knee capping a bull Elk is a bad shot, we made more good ones. My son would have us eating Gopher meat for days!
The Two Toelke products, I put in two separate Powwow posts.
Owen besting me! (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_203239_zpsc6xgp5nb.jpg)
Gophers for the freezer (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_203453_zps47r0ivfv.jpg)
(http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150503_060022_zpsgl5pbc9o.jpg)
Geof taking aim at the Grizzly (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_111702178_zpsedylflri.jpg)
Me and Owen hitting the trail in the morning
(http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_2682_zpshtxftkjk.jpg)
Campers galore! (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150501_172717227_zpsazglxqkc.jpg)
Geof a hair away from the dot on the moving (john) Deer! (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_200550_zps06ib853q.jpg)
(http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_170436_zpswv4tucse.jpg)
Owen lost an arrow on a bounce off (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_085340866_zpsox7qjinn.jpg)
(http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_083949905_zpshdebw0o3.jpg)
(http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/VZM.IMG_20150502_200909_zpsro40ifvk.jpg)
Morning practice (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/FullSizeRender_zps9sektg3u.jpg)
Warming up (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_081633844_HDR_zps05vowgj6.jpg)
Me and Owen (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_2690_zpsnkqedr4p.jpg)
Bear shot (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/VZM.IMG_20150502_200754_zpsr64kh5im.jpg)
Javelina (http://i1256.photobucket.com/albums/ii498/tzolkosky/libby%20montana%203d%20shoot/IMG_20150502_112711679_zpsmzdpitzy.jpg)
Man this looks like a boatload of fun! I'm pumped for 3D season now! And it sure looks like the kid can shoot. You can't beat a weekend like that.
That looks like a fun shoot, and I love the moose target!
Looks like y'all had a grand time!
Bisch
great pics! man awesome scenery at that shoot, thanks for sharing!
Looks like you both had a great time :)
Cool........I like John Deer :biglaugh:
Really great pics Todd. Looks like you guys had a blast.Beautiful country as well.
Had a great time!!! Next year we will be more prepared and Id also like to shoot along side some archers I didnt this year.
wow, that looks like fun. might have to try to make that one sometime
Good meeting you Todd. We will have to get the boys together and do some shooting. My son was very surprised to see someone he went to school with.
That Chinook Dan brought me is a screamer, I had guys in my group wanting to shoot it over and over. A guy I shoot with from N Dakota called me today and said he had just ordered one from Dan.lol
Looks like lots of fun was had! Sorry I had to miss this one. Thanks for sharing!