The weekend after my trip to Morocco, I got to drive to a tournament that was only 40 minutes away! Last year, I wasn’t able to shoot the NFAA Sectionals for the New England region, as it interfered with AZ Cup, but with the move of this tournament to the fall, it was a perfect opportunity for me to try out my new 2712 arrows. Unlike USA Archery and World Cup events, which have a maximum arrow size (23s), in NFAA, we can shoot the large diameter arrows. In the past, I have chosen (like most women) to stick with my 23s for all tournaments. This makes it easy when tournaments for different organizations are on back to back weekends. Even though I still have a very “female” length draw length, now that I am shooting the same poundage as the men, I felt it was time to at least give the 27s a try. If I could get them to work, the larger arrow would definitely come in handy for tournaments like Vegas where so much money is on the line.
I started by cutting the arrows to 31.5″ and went with 300 grain pro points up front. It didn’t take me long to get my bow tuned, and I headed to the tournament to see how they would shoot under pressure. I was pleasantly surprised, when I hit a 300 for the first half (the only competitor male or female to do this). My X count was definitely on the low side, but I reminded myself that in Vegas you can shoot a 900 with 0 Xs and still win. We had a crazy long break at the half (you actually signed up for two different 30 arrow sessions when you registered), so I felt kinda stiff when we started our second session of the day. I had a mental lapse and made a terrible shot, dropping a 10 on my first end! There went my chance at my 600…
Luckily, I was able to keep it together and finish strong. I had more Xs the second half, and finished with a 599 overall. For the first Vegas style competition of the year, and with new arrows, I definitely wasn’t upset. Obviously, I have work to do before February, but I will have some additional tournaments to test everything out before than (Midwest Open, Iowa Pro Am, etc).