(POST-MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND)
Saturday May 30 and Sunday May 31
Hosted by AA
Take Highway 288 south of Houston. Exactly 4.3 miles south of Highway 6.
You will pass Sterling Lakes on the right and Strouhal Tires on your left.
Look for a radio tower on the left and County Road 64 is across 288 on the right.
Take CR 64 west for 1.7 miles (there is a curve) then go straight. Ignore the DEAD END sign.
Look for large metal building on the left. Enter gate or park alongside the road.
Google Maps Link for navigation!
"This a fun shoot (for some) to educate people on shooting clout and a useful prep for those competing in the clout round at the USA Nationals in Alabama in July. As such, there are no awards."
Distances:
Fee is $10 per day. Practice starts at 9:00 am and a seminar is available free of charge to beginners.
Scoring starts around noon or one. If need be, scoring can start on an individual basis while others are still practicing before the start time. Clout rounds are tailored if need be.
Tournament Director is Rick Stonebraker. 4-time National Clout champion and former record holder.
A water and Powerade barrel will be provided on the field. Encouraged to bring shade and anything else you need to last the day. Water, bug spray, etc. The June heat is upon us, be prepared.
At the intersection of 288 and Highway 6 (six) is the following - all on the east side of 288:
(NOTE: There are no “facilities” so stop at one of the places on the left before attending the event. There are “limited” places/bushes to do a number 1 so be prepared. If we have enough archers committing to attending, we may rent a porta-can.
The CLOUT is a white triangular flag affixed to a wooden pole in the center of the clout circle.
Each ring is 1.5 meters (4 foot 11 inches) from the center of the circle measured outward. The center circle is 3 meters in diameter (9 feet 10 inches). The five scoring rings are 5 for the center and 4,3,2 and 1 point. After practice, the event will begin will all archers on the shooting line.
Each archer has four minutes to loose (shoot) their six arrows.
While walking to the scoring circles, great care is taken to watch where you walk as errant arrows will be in your path way. Even if they are not your arrows, pull them out of the ground in the same direction they went in and gently stick them vertically upright in the dirt so the owner will find them. After everyone has looked over the scoring circles and located all their arrows, scoring will begin. Designated archers will enter the circles, collect all the arrows in their assigned circle and place in a neat pile to be identified.
Scoring: When an archers name is called, they enter the circle, pick up their arrows and call out the value of each arrow as they pick them up, starting from the highest value (hopefully fives).
Two people keep score. When the values are agreed upon, the next archers name is called.
by Cliff Huntingdon
The term clout shooting is derived from the act of shooting at a clout. The clout itself is nothing more than any mark, historically white and in its most simple form, a small white rag. This is accomplished at long ranges, customarily between 9 score and 12 score yards. The event dates back to the first Elizabeth and has been practiced in varying form for many years and is an "old English form of competitive archery at a single mark."
Clout shooting probably evolved out of a need to train archers "to shoot to a length." The English were not disposed to willingly practice and maintain a degree of proficiency as is sometimes portrayed in verse and cinema. Without the compulsory week-end practice as was commonly dictated by law, skills necessary to successfully fend off aggression in defense of land and life were quickly lost. The English had to be forced to practice. From these forced sessions clout shooting was developed as the means to mass huge numbers of arrows to a common point.
Archers provided a primitive yet highly effective form of artillery and history would record in graphic detail it’s effectiveness. During The Hundred Years War, the outcome of battles at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt would certainly have been different without the massed firepower of these ancient archers.