Archery practice is going to have to wait

My neighbor Kevin and I have been trying to get a regular archery practice routine going, and I thought we were finally going to be able to get a night nailed down for it. But then we got sidetracked, and our archery plans are on hold.

My neighbor Kevin and I are both avid bowhunters. I try to practice with my bow as much as I can the rest of the year, too, but the last few years, it’s been more and more difficult to get quality practice time. Kevin and I decided to schedule a weekly practice session so we’d be tuned up before the hunting season starts.

We were planning to start our weekly shooting sessions tonight. Our plan was to meet up this week at his backyard range, then next week at mine, and we’d do this each week until Sept. 1. We’d start well before dark, and we’d practice until the end of shooting light, so that we’d have plenty of time to work on the basics, but we’d also be ready for those early morning or late evening shots during the hunting season.

We both need the practice, and hunting season is coming up quickly. Archery season starts for antelope next Monday, so we need to get out and make sure we can still put an arrow where we want to before then.

But then a coyote came along and messed up our plans. Kevin had a calf get killed by a coyote, so now we’re spending all our evenings trying to get that coyote. Instead of practicing our archery tonight, Kevin’s going to be hiding in his barn with his .22-250, and I’ll be perched on top of my kids’ playhouse with my 6.5 Creedmoor, trying to reduce the area coyote population by one very bold individual.

Maybe we should try to get that coyote with our bows, instead. He’s brave enough to come in close, so he might get within arrow range. We could work on our archery and try to solve the coyote problem at the same time.