Why buy a Father's Day card when your dad could shoot an elk with a bow and arrow?
While the elk, along with a few other animals, will be artificial targets, they will be 3-D at the Sandia Crest Bowhunters Association Father's Day Shoot on June 15. The group is hosting the event at its archery range near Tijeras Canyon.
Doug Van Oostrum, range captain for the club, explained how the range is set up for the Father's Day Shoot as well as other Bowhunters Association events.
"We set up about 14 three-dimensional animals - like deer, bear, turkeys, elk, caribou, pigs - and they're life-size animals," he said.
Sherrie Hogan, the club's secretary, said this kind of range resembles a professional hunting situation.
"We set them up in the woods, and you have to shoot through the trees," she said.
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Van Oostrum said he and the club president will also be grilling real caribou, elk and ibex at the event.
There will be trophies and prizes, too, Hogan said. Gift certificates from several companies, including Sportsman's Warehouse, have been donated for the shoot.
"We've got a lot of community support," she said.
Steve Mong has been president of the Sandia Crest Bowhunters Association for two years. He said the club does a Father's Day shoot every year.
"We always have a big barbecue and give away prizes," Mong said. "Kids bring their dads out."
Van Oostrum has been a member of the club for years and said it hosts many shoots besides the one on Father's Day.
"We host a Thursday night summer league, where you can come up and shoot 14 targets every Thursday night," he said. "It's rained and snowed the last four Thursday nights up there, but we've still run 30 to 50 people through there in the last few weeks."
Van Oostrum said participation will only increase as hunting season nears. New Mexico Game and Fish uses a lottery system to regulate how many people are able to bowhunt.
"Everyone finds out how they did in the draw for the September hunt on the 18th of this month," Van Oostrum said. "Then we start running 60 to 80 people through there on a Thursday night."
Mong said he is looking forward to the shoot for practice before hunting season opens. He said elk and bear cannot be hunted until September, but Barbary Sheep are year-round game.
Mong said the brown, horned wild sheep were brought over from the Barbary Coast in Africa years ago.
"They put them on a few mountains and they've done quite well. They climb cliffs like crazy," he said.
Mong said he and his father shot bow and arrow when he was growing up in western Pennsylvania. Mong moved to Albuquerque because he fell in love with it when he was stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base.
"I did archery as a kid, just kind of playing around, and then I joined the army - and that's all rifle," Mong said. "Now that I'm out here, I don't have time to shoot rifles, because I'm having too much fun shooting my bow."
Mong said everyone should come out to the range and get hooked on shooting a bow and arrow.
"It's so much fun. To be able to use a string and a stick to put another stick where you want it to go - there's just something about it," he said.
Father's Day Shoot
June 15
Sandia Crest Bowhunters Association
Registration begins at 7:30 a.m.
$25 for nonmembers
Visit scbaarchery.org for directions to the range
