Archive: Sports

A few times a year plastic wildlife has much to fear when the LBH Archery Club holds a 3-D shoot.  LBH (formerly Lansing Bow Hunters) attracted about 80 archers to the most recent shoot at their club grounds on Salmon Creek Road last Sunday.  Shooters traversed two courses in the woods, each with 15 targets.  "We have two 15-target 3-D courses," club President John Heuther explains.  "Anything from skunks to elk.  Small targets, big targets.  Ranges are, depending on the class you shoot in, open is out to 50 yards, bow hunters out to 35 yards, women's 25 yards.  We've got cubs who shoot 10 to 12 yards and youth at 25 yards."


Each course has 15 stations, set up similarly to golf tee-offs, with markers showing where shooters in each class stand at different distances from the target.  Targets are plastic animals set in the woods, clearings, and in one case, a frog target in the middle of a pond.  Again as in golf, archers go in groups and keep score as they try their skill at each target.  Most archers shot using compound bows, while two used traditional bows.


The club actually has four courses, but to keep things interesting they use different ones with different targets for each event.  This year the club unearthed one of the original courses that hadn't been used in 17 years.  " When the club was established in 1976 they ran up to the far side of the property and through the pines," Heuther  says.  "I found those old trails and we cut new trails to them.  It's kind of nostalgic.  Some of the original members shot there.  It was nice for them.  I remember shooting on that course as a kid and the last time I shot there was 1988."


Archers came from as far as Bainbridge, Binghamton, Oxford, Syracuse and Tully among other places, and of course Lansing.  This event was part of the Southern New York Triple Crown shoot in conjunction with Mountain Trail Bow Hunters and  Oxford Rod and Gun.  Lansing was the second event in this series.  Trophies will be awarded at the third shoot in Oxford for the best combined scores from the three shoots.  "It mixes different people and helps support some other clubs," Huether says.

Plaques were given out in for the top shooters in the Lansing event.  The plaques have a statue of a buck on them, and list the event, class and sponsor of the event.  The club has two kinds of sponsor, one that sponsors an entire event and many that sponsor individual targets or other aspects of the shoot.  This time the Triangle Restaurant of King Ferry sponsored the event.  Last year Linda's Diner of North Lansing was the sponsor.  Heuther says the club is always looking for new sponsors.  "We put their name on the flyers, and we sent the flyers out to everybody, and we advertise in the Shopper, so they get some good publicity out of it, and they help us out," he says.


Part of the point of the shoot is to raise money for the club and for other causes.  Two raffles were held on cards with 50 squares.  Participants pay $5 per square, and when the card is filled a number is drawn.  The owner of that square wins.  A raffle to benefit the club offered a 50 caliber inline muzzle loader.  A second one was offered to help cancer victim Rony Suslik.  Raffles can go over the course of several events until the squares are all purchased.  When these two are done a prize is ready for a third: a beautiful wood carving of a turkey by Johnnie Smith, one of the club's founding members.

At the practice range archers could get three arrows for two dollars.  The money was split 50-50 between the club and the winner who got closest to an orange dot on a bear target.  Ranges were set up for kids and adults.  Other fundraisers include chicken barbecues.  The club has offered one this year and may try another before winter.  Currently LBH has about 15 members, but they are hoping to generate more interest and and grow the membership.


Trouble with thieves has curtailed some activities for members.  The club keeps a trailer on the grounds to store targets and equipment, but it has been broken into a number of times.  "It would be nice to leave targets out so club members could come down to shoot and have fun," Heuther says.  "That's the idea of the club.  But we can't do that.  The last time we got broken into they didn't steal the whole target -- they just took five heads.  But that rendered the targets useless."

But for this day the club is busy with shooters going out in groups to try their skill, meet with fellow archers and just have fun.


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