Local archers compete at national level

Four young shooters from the Southeast Missouri School of Archery, based out of Twisted Arrow in Poplar Bluff, qualified and shot for scores in the national Scholastic 3-D Association’s national tournament Tuesday evening.

“We were all supposed to go to Louisville, Kentucky, back in March to the S3DA nationals,” said Twisted Arrow co-owner Jim Akers. “They canceled and told us they would reschedule, and we ended up having to do it virtual.”

The Southeast Missouri School of Archery, Akers said, has four active members, and all qualified for both state and national competitions.

The school’s four archers, Akers said, are Poplar Bluff’s Asher Gariepy, 16; Neelyville’s Natalie Akers, 17; Greenville/Silva’s Cassie Haldeman, 14; and Ellsinore’s Zoie Davis, 12.

None have much experience shooting a bow, Akers said, and most have only learned to do so in the last 10 to 14 months.

During Tuesday’s virtual archery shoot, which was live-streamed, two shooters at a time took to the line for their 20-yard shots.

Each shooter had four minutes per round to shoot five arrows at a standard five-spot target, and there were six rounds total.

“They shot 30 arrows overall for a maximum 150-point score,” Akers said.

All four shot well, Akers said, and Davis, the youngest, actually shot the highest score, earning 141 points out of 150.

Now, they must wait to compare their results with other young archers across the country.

“With all of the hubbub over COVID, they have all struggled to find time and locations to practice and keep their skills up, yet all of them worked out times and worked out ways so they stayed competitive,” Akers said. “They came in with great attitudes, and everybody had a great time.”

Soggy Opener

Tuesday’s dove season opener was a bit of a dud, not only because of the rain, but also because there just aren’t many corn fields cut yet.

Stoddard County Conservation Agent Michael Collins said he knows of one field cut in his region, near Bernie, and the hunting pressure has been lower than normal.

Several people hunted that field Tuesday, he said, but it was almost empty Wednesday.

Hunters usually are spread far and wide across the Bootheel in the early days of the season, Collins said, “but not this year.”

Collins suspects there will be a surge of hunters this weekend, but it will be a while before more fields are able to be cut and hunting conditions improve.

“We still have birds and are going to have birds,” he said.

Bass Circuit

Ninety-one teams fished last weekend’s Wappapello Bass Circuit tournament, with about half weighing fish.

The team of Seiter and Garner came out on top of the leaderboard with a stringer weight of 17.18 pounds.

Taking the second spot was the team of Owens and Allison with 15.11 pounds, and third went to Schwartz and Winston with 14.96 pounds.

Fourth place was earned by Francis and Hastings with 13.67 pounds, and the top five was rounded out by Pierce and Moore with 13.20 pounds.

The biggest bass of the day was caught by Young and Groves and tipped the scales at 6.74 pounds.

The Wappapello Bass Circuit will host a make-up tournament on Sept. 19, followed by its annual Classic event on Oct. 10-11.

Water Levels

Surprisingly, with all the rain we’ve had over the last several days, our area waters have not risen much.

Both Clearwater and Wappapello Lake have seen marginal rises, and the area’s rivers mostly look pretty good as well.

The Black River was high Sunday (around 10 feet), dropped a bit and came back up some. It’s now muddy, but is expected to drop pretty quickly.

The weekend forecast looks great, so if you have plans to be on the water, you shouldn’t have any problems.