Planning a trad fun shoot and would like to add as many novelty shoots as possible.
I need some help.
What are your favorite novelty shooting events?

Brad

The wand (pieces of wood lather standing upright in a frame 4" apart, arrow eater (steel plate with 3" hole to shoot thru, usually with alil casket below for broken arrows), flying geese, flying bear, running bear, running deer, pigs across the pond, bucket between two does, the lob (looking down a hill here you just see the top of the back on a buck)

Steel targets are always a hoot.  
also did a shoot around here were they targets were made up of painted on playing cards.  The idea was to score as close to 21 as you could with out going over.  the closer the shot the smaller the cards got.  

Aces were in the center with face cards and 10's on the corners.  Rest was filled with other random numbers.

The floating on air ping pong ball.  point a vacuum cleaner hose with air coming OUT straight up, float the ball and use a back stop.  The ball bounces up and down on the air/ wind.

"Dueling Balloons"

Two archers go head to head with each having the task of breaking their 2 balloons before their opponent breaks theirs. Distance 15-20 yards.

Single or double elimination brackets.

Clay birds can be substituted for balloons.

Anything on a zip line. My favorite was in CO. You sit on a "rocking horse" (50 gal drum) You rock and an elk target goes "running" through the trees. You had to get 2 shots off before it stopped.

We took an old shot up deer target, used the hip section to carve out a mans head. Used pieces to make nose and ears. Put sunglasses on it and made a tongue sticking as if it was mocking the shooters! Put on apple on the head and shot at the apple. The person who hit the apple won 1/2 the money. When it got hit, we started over again. It was a blast.

funnest one for me was a styro carp rigged underwater.   a line through an eye on a cement block pulled him down, the end was hooked on shore.  If you hit the carp, you let the line out and floated to the surface so you could pull the arrow, then you pulled him under again.   If you missed, you could wade for your arrow.

Anything long range. I love that 10-foot polar bear at the Compton shoot. The further the better.

I have seen two paper milk cartons on the same pulley system.  They are both filled with water,and pull against each other,  and so the more holes, the more water pours out.  The one with the most water falls and pulls the other one up, so make sure you hit towards the bottom!!!

Glenda and I have been to several that had an outhouse bear. The door to the outhouse was spring loaded, you pulled a rope to open the door and had to drop the rope and put an arrow in the bear before the door slammed shut. Pretty challenging, you couldn't draw your bow before you dropped the rope. Glenda was overjoyed when she hit the bear and no one else in our group did.

Tic Tac Toe, Ballon taped inside a tire and rolled,  :cool:

Strictly Sticks in PA put up a large 3D boar target on a zip line - shooter at the bottom of the hill and shooting from right under the bottom zip anchor - a stop on the line made the target come to a halt about 5 feet away - just in time that you didn't get hit with the nock on your arrow - that is if you could get an arrow into the forehead of the charging boar.

One of the best and most fun I have seen was at the Iowa Bowhunter's Shoot at Eldora, Iowa over 20 years ago.  They had a left hand recurve and a right hand one at the novelty shoot.  Everyone who shot used one of these bows, blunt arrows were also provided.  The novelty shoot was to shoot thru a round hole cut in a piece of plywood that had a deer painted on it.  The arrow triggered a system kind of like the "mouse trap" game I had as a kid, sirens went off and it set in motion a bowling ball which rolled down a sloped frame and dropped on a trip lever attached to a dunking stool.  It was a blast!!!!

The Juneau Archery Club does a yearly Salmon Derby Shoot on their outdoor range. Balloons with labels listing different weight king and silver salmon, and halibut, are pinned on the backstops. Only one arrow is shot at each backstop. You pop a balloon, you "caught" a fish. The top three fish of each species are the winners. A great family event where anyone can be a winner! It's not only the kids that like to pop the balloons!

I love my bunny shoot I made for the bunny hunt,,J

 
here is me practicing for it,,LOL,,


actually it went more like this,,



I also built this for the bunny hunt as well and it is alot of fun too,,
 

Thanks guys you gave me some great ideas.
Any more??

I shot a "Marble Drop" that was a lot of fun. It is a life size metal deer with a cut out for his heart with a backstop behind. A piece of pipe is staked so one end is higher than the other with a bucket at the lower end. The object is to place a marble in the pipe and shoot the deer in the heart before the marble hits the bucket. It is harder if you leave your arrow in your quiver. "Drop, Draw, Shoot"!

Roanoke Valley Traditional Bowmen recently used a clay target thrower to send "rabbits" scurrying across a field in front of a line of archers.  Many arrows flying, much hootin' & hollerin', and we even managed to hit a few.  Very cost effective target as a box of clays can last for hundreds of shots, you know, if your not trying too hard....

At the UBM rendezvous a couple years back I started doing a "bow skirmish" that was a 3 person team event.  We put clay targets in hangers in front of the target butts.  There were two target butts side by side and there were three targets hung on each butt.  All six shooters stepped up to the line at the same time and each had 6 arrows.  The "on deck" teams stood behind the shooters to act as spotters.

The gist of it is this:  Each clay target represents an opposing member of the other team.  You MUST shoot at your own target until you break it but as soon as you do, you can begin shooting at the others to help your team mates.  When you break your target, you eliminate the shooter in your spot on the opposing team.  Since you are not looking at the other teams targets, spotters are used to watch the targets of the other team and tap the shooter on the back to let him know that he's "out".


...Targets for team A...........................Targets for team X....
...represent team X............................represent team A.....
....X1........X2........X3........................A1........A2........A3....  
======  ======  ======-----------======  ======  ======


..................................15 yards apart.....................................


....A1........A2........A3........................X1........X2........X3....
......Team A shooters.............................Team X shooters.....


......On deck teams.............................On deck teams.......
.....act as spotters.............................act as spotters.....


Everyone starts to shoot at a given signal.  The spotters are watching the corresponding target on the target butt their shooter is NOT shooting at.  Ex. If I'm spotting for shooter X1 of the team on the right, I watch the clay target in front of shooter A1 of the team on the left that REPRESENTS shooter X1 .  The instant that clay target gets broken I tap my shooter on the back and he's "OUT".  In the event of both shooters hitting their target at about the same time, they are both "out" just as if a real battle and both arrows were in the air at the same time so both shooters would have been shot by the other guy.

To make it fun, razzing and heckling from the crowd are strongly encouraged.

If all shooters (still in the game) of both teams run out of arrows, time is called and they all go retrieve arrows and start again.  Don't laugh, it happens!

We did the full double elimination routine with drawings to start the matchups and buys where needed.

On a side note, trad gangs own Charlie Lamb and his buds were usually there.  I think it was the first year I'm thinking of but they called their team (I think) the Wautauga Bowmen and the first time they stepped up to bat all three of them drilled their targets on the first shot to end it in about a second flat!  Them boys could shoot!  Crusty ol' farts....