i know its only a bow but it still get me excited! This is a pic of the first GMX in the uk. The GMX is hoyts new top of the line recurve handle. As soon as i get to shoot it ill let you all know what i think.

Its become apparent to me just how many people read these blogs that my clickers team mates and myself do. I always try and write about what i think may interest fellow archers but it would be nice to know for sure what you all wanted to know about. So here is your chance. It you have any questions you would like me to answer, no matter how large or small ill give them my best shot!

Send your questions to the normal Clickers archery contact email address which is

sales@clickersarchery.co.uk

please put "to Michael Peart" at the top so it does not get mixed up with shop stuff.

Ill try and answer them all on my blogs as we go along, lets just see how it goes. Just remember no question is to small!

So Christmas is coming and the arrows are getting fat, or so they should be in my opinion! It’s pretty well proven that X10s are what’s needed if you want to win outdoors but indoors at 18m it’s quite different.

Each winter I and many other of my GB team mates reach for the big tree trunk aluminium arrows to get us a few more points indoors. The theory is simple, you only have to touch the line on the target face to get the higher score so the bigger the arrow the more chance you have of touching the line. So for the same level of shooting you should get more points, which is very handy as most indoor competitions are only ever won/ lost on a couple of points.

Not every top recurve archer changes over to Aluminium’s indoors as some archers feel that the speed of there X10s lets them get away with bad shots better than a heavy slower aluminium but the results speak for them selves I think. Only 3 British recurve archers have ever shot over 590 for the 18m Fita round, Neil Bridgewater, Simon Terry and me. We all shot 591 and we all shot Eason 2314 X7s. the best ive ever been able to do with my X10s is 584, I know its only 7 points but at the 2005 World indoors those 7 points would have moved me from qualifying in first place to about 10th, like Tesco’s say “every little helps!”

For as long as I can remember the best arrows for the indoor season has been Easton X7s in particular ive always liked the X7 cobalt’s as there end taper that the Super Uni nocks fit into is slimmer and better for us finger shooters as some times ive found the Uni bushing that’s fitted in the back of the Eclipses can press in to my fingers a bit, of course with a release aid this is not a problem.

X7s come in over 25 different sizes but selection need not be difficult. Use the Easton Selection chart as normal but when it lists the selection of sizes you can use choose the shaft size with the biggest first 2 digits as this denotes the outside diameter of the shaft. I.e. a 2212 is “22” 64ths of an inch in diameter and a 1916 is “19” 64ths of an inch in diameter. So for my spec of 49lbs draw weight and a 30 inch arrow I can either shoot a 2115, 2214 or a 2312. I would always go for the 2312 as it’s the biggest and it also happens to be as big as you are allowed to shoot under FITA rules. Of course I would then “bare shaft tune” to set the bow up.

To finish off your indoor ten ring cutters I would always recommend fitting your X7s with 100 grain bullet points and 4 or 5 inch feathers. Because as we are only shooting 18m we really need our arrows to straiten up as soon as possible and nothing seems to do that better than a heavy point and big feathers. The other great thing about feathers is if they do happen to hit anything on the way passed your bow, they will just fold way with out coursing a problem.

So there you have it, indoor arrow selection made simple. Well not quite. Things have been simple in the passed but not so much now. Easton are selling an all carbon arrow called the “Fatboy” as the name suggests they are big, really big. Infact they are as big as FITA allow i.e. the same size as a “23” X7. But instead of being relatively slow like the X7s, the Fatboys are fast and super light, believe it or not they are even lighter and faster than my X10s and almost as light as A\C\Es. Large diameter carbon arrows are not a new thing, many companies make them but the problem has always been quality. It’s just so hard to make an all carbon arrow to the consistency of an ali or ali/carbon arrow. Even Easton with all there cutting edge technology have said it was hard to get it to the standard were it could be used to win a championship. But that very thing happened last year, when Sergio Pagni won the European indoor championships in impressive style. So these Fatboys should be perfect, the speed and forgiveness of my X10s and the massive size of my X7s. I really do expect them to shoot great and maybe ill be able to beat that 591 and have the national record for myself! So when you see me at competitions this winter, just stop me and ask me how they are going!

ive had some questions as to what arrows i shot at the Hawks 18m fita, which is a good question as those of you who read the bow mag know ive been trying different shafts. This weekend i shot 500 spine Easton Fatboys 30inches long with 100g Easton points, beiter nocks and 4 inch feathers. My gut feeling from the weekend is that mayb i could do with a little more point weight to help straighten them up in flight when i do a naff shot. I had about 4 arrows score 8 this weekend which is not really on so ill see what i can do.

well its that time of year again. Its getting cold and dark and out come all the new catalogs with next years bows in. Ive been a hoyt guy for about 10 years now and they hav always done me well, ive never had to go in to a shoot thinking the other guy has a better bow than me. This year those good guys from salt lake have given us lots to try. Not only have they give us new limbs to try (990TXs) but also a new handle, the GMX. The exciting thing about the gmx to me is that it comes in 3 sizes, 23, 25 and the all new 27 inch. I shoot a 70 inch bow, long limbs and 25 inch handle. But what i cant wait to try is a 27 inch handle with some medium limbs. Should b a little faster and a little more stable, fingers crossed any way! Ill let u know how it shoots as soon as i get it!

let me just start off by saying im knackered! Ive been at the Hawks 18m fita shoot this weekend and as normal it was a great shoot, well run and well attended. But whats not normal and possibly the reason im so worn out is that i shot all the sessions. Thats 5 complete 18m fita rounds and a complete head 2 head set. In general it went ok, not great but ok. The one thing i was pleased with is that with each round i shot, i got a little better. My scores were 583, 585, 585, 586 and another 586. Not exactly my best (591 world indoor champs) but at least they were the 5 highest scores of the weekend. 2nd highest was my team mate simon terry with 581. Other notable scores were Andy Rik with a lovely pair of 590s! Although my clickers buddy neil wakelin was not far off with a 589 which im sure he wil talk about on his shot by shot blog ;-)

well im pleased i stuck at shooting the old bent stick (recurve) as i managed to finnish the year with a few new personal bests. At the norfolk fita i shot a new 50m personal best twice. My best was 335 and i shot a 336 on sat and a 340 on sunday, only one point off the national record! And at the last shoot of the year, the Telford fita at lilleshall new bests for the fita, double fita and 30m. They were 1313, 2625 and a nice 355 to finish the weekend. So for a season with some very big ups and downs it was a nice way to end it. Bring on the indoors!

so another year has passed, i think this year was my 14th year on the archery circuit. But 2008 is no ordenery year, it is an olympic year. As most of you already know i did not make the olympic team this year. 3 years of full time training and no big event. I just ended up like every one else, sitting at home watching it on the tv. Another thing you may or may not know is that i was de-selected from the team rather than just not making the grade. At the 2nd olympic selection shoot there was 6 of us shooting for 4 places at the 3rd and final shoot off. I had won the first shoot off and was in good form. The 2nd selection started ok but on the head to heads i got in to a bit of a loosing streak, i lost about 5 matches in a row. Our selection was so close that this was enough to move me from 1st to 4th, not great but at least i thought i would live to fight it out at the next shoot off, our coach Peter had other ideas. Peter has the power to over throw the scored results and pick who ever he wants for the 4th place and thats exactly what he did. Peter dropped me and put Tom though to the next round from 5th place. As you can imagin i was gutted and went home totally broken. I really did wonder what affect it would hav on me long term. Would i leave the sport i had done for over half my life or would i go back to compound as after all i never was world number one, second was as good as i got. I did go back to compound but as it turned out only for 3 days! After that i just wanted to shoot my recurve, dont know why but i did. Dont get me wrong, i love compounds and i think always in my heart ill consider myself a compound archer but for the time being recurve is where my passion is. Im pleased to say all my sponsores have stuck by me and forward we go. So bring on the next 4years and bring on the glory at london 2012!

Just thought i should mention that im now avalible for coaching of both compound and recurve archers. My fee is £25 an hour, min 3 hours recomended and exspences payed for traveling over 50 miles. If you are interested please feel free to call the shop or drop me an email at archerymichael@hotmail.com see you all soon, Michael

Since i was taken out of the Olympic selection by the head coach ive only been on tick over training, just doing enough to keep me going untill i start full training in october. so instead of shooting 300 arrows a day ive been shooting about 100. for the first month of doing this it all went fine and i begain to think that maybe i had been over training by shooting 300 a day as i said in my last blog i was shoting some of my best ever shots. Well this weekend it finally cought up with me. i felt over bowed and physicaly a bit of a mess. so much so that before the start of the sunday fita i turned my bow down as much as i could, it helped as a managed to shoot a 1290 but it has shown me that if you shoot a 50lb you better shoot 300 a day or the bow will end up taking over you! this weekend is the oxford 720, ill let you know how it goes. Michael