Crazy Bear - Stadhampton - 27/12/2011

[ExSCA]

Chrimbo-Limbo they call it - in between the Christmas and New Year holidays - where cabin fever sets in after three or four days with the tree, turkey and TV and you need to get out.Seems like half of Oxfordshire and beyond decided to blow away the Chrimbo-Limbo cobwebs at the Crazy Bear in Stadhampton. We rocked up at 10 past 10 to find that our cards were numbered in the 50's - and every stand had a decent looking group shooting and waiting to shoot. We started with a decent cuppa and a nice bacon roll, cooked in the small marquee they have for taking your money and keeping you dry.We had seven stands - and a compak set-up of thirty birds - to make up our 100 (priced at £30),  the queues are unusual at Crazy Bear, but this set-up didn't aid anything - we had a wait of 40 minutes for the compak, and plenty of other stands had a wait as well.Target wise - nothing ridiculous - some decent crossers, a couple of nice sim-pairs, a nice crosser from the tower with a quartering rabbit that needed some attention.  The Compak had six targets - a couple of quick whippy going away birds, two floaty incomers that were missable, a right to left crosser and a wicked high looper that caught a lot of people out (including me - I missed 3 out of 4 of those).All-in-all a nice morning, a bit of attention and effort and I think they could stage a pretty-good registered shoot.  Most of the stands have good wooden cages, there is a mixture of terrain with some light woodland and some open fields - there are a couple of towers and sometimes (but not today) a nice grouse butt with some interesting birds.Scorewise - I came away with a 68, which is above my average - but below some recent scores - so I think quality wise it's pretty good.The Crazy Bear shoot is on the 2nd and last Sunday of each month, priced at £30 for 100 birds. Full details here : http://crazybeargroup.co.uk/fa.....mation.pdf

 

[Will Hewland]

Yes, q-ing aside, it was enjoyable, but a good entry needs 12+ stands not 8 (with the 30 compak). Nice to shoot though. If I hadnt missed three soppy floppies, I might have achieved a score to challenge for HG. Ho-hum. I will treat it as a good warm up for Westfield tomorrow. Agreed, make this a registered shoot. It is tough enough and professional enough (Just need to add scorers). I only shoot well every now and again. I was on fair form today and feel it was `wasted` on an Open shoot..CSC3

 

[Peter.W-T]

I shot the Crazy Bear yesterday as well and agree with the comments above ref the wait for the Compak but also have a couple of questions.When I have shot Compak in the past each gun shoots a pair and then it moves on to the next who has cartridges in an open gun and is ready to shoot straight away as they are clear in their mind which targets are coming etc.This carries on until each gun has shot 3 pairs on a stand at which time all move along 1 and start again.Yesterday the form was for each gun to shoot 3 pairs and then move on to the next who shoots 3 pairs etc.This did seem to make the whole process much slower and hence the long wait.Any thoughts ?The second question relates to No Birds and the " wicked high looper that caught a lot of people out " seemed to suffer with more than its fair share.Each time there was a no bird on the 2nd target the first target was being called as not established and the pair called again.Is this right ?I am sure in the past when the second target is a No Bird and the first has been shot the score for the first bird stands whether or not you kill it on the second release.All in all a good morning out with the added benefit of picking up supper at the brilliant Farm shop on the way home !Nice to meet Matt briefly - whilst we were waiting for the Compak.

 

[Fuzrat]

Glad I didnt pop in would have been major late for sisters lunch /wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-embarassed.gif will certainly have a crack at some point as its not too far away. Re Clever, how can they have an open shoot for actual prizes without scorers? Pay ya money, mark your card as a 99 and still be in the pub for 11 ??????  Not that it would really bother me as I am far from HG material /wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-cry.gif Re Peter, report pair, if the second bird is a no bird it should be called first bird esablished as a loss/kill but you must make an effort to shoot first bird before the second bird on the repeat pair. Simo pair would be nothing established.

 

[Will Hewland]

Hi,Matt Hance won Crazy on a 98!!! He is a great shot, but the first reaction from several people was 'ooohh, self-scoring..'First-bird-established rule does not apply on a sim pair, which is probably what happened yesterday..RegardsCSC3

 

[optima]

Don't like self scoring at shoots and generally try to avoid them,sadly where there are prizes,money etc there'll always  be someone willing to cheat,even if it's not acctually writting losses as kills,it could be something like "have that again,it was a no bird" when there,s nothing wrong with the target , and i,ve witnessed this a few times, whist waiting to shoot,rather pay a few more quid and have markers

 

[Will Hewland]

Quite agree!! CSC3