The 5th Kill-Tournament Austria - The Competition

The time has come!

More than 130 traditional archers found their way here to the Alte Almhaus on the Stub Alm to take part in the 5th Austrian kill tournament. On Saturday morning Henry Bodnik welcomed the participants and gave a brief overview of the basic philosophy and a few of the special features of the tournament. He also gave an overview on a special competition that was scheduled to take place on Saturday evening as is usual for the Kill Tournaments. He was very clear that this particular kill tournament here in Austria was going to be very challenging. That is was going to demand a lot from each individual shooter in terms of the terrain and the various shooting situations that they would encounter on the course!

"We make no claims that this is going to be an easy tournament! Welcome to nature and the mother of all bow hunting tournaments!" Henry Bodnik

The instructions regarding compliance with the mandatory hygiene regulations regarding the corona pandemic were also covered in detail.

In total, Henry Bodnik and the team from BSC Holzmichl integrated 38 challenging shooting situations in the rugged yet beautiful mountain landscape of the Stub Alm. In the usual manner, many shots had to be taken from a kneeling position. The unique characteristics of this region were perfectly suited for Henry to set up shooting stations that would match all of his ideas for challenging but realistic bow hunting shot situations.

The challenges and the strategic solutions of his various shot scenarios were never to be seen based on the actual distance to the 3-D target because all shots were set up within realistic bowhunting ranges.

Rather, to figure out the best shooting strategies for each of the individual shooting situations, it required a close look and analysis of everything you could see within the shooting area.

• What was the specific challenge with this shot?
• Where was the clear shot window to the kill zone on the target?
• Why was it that Henry came up with this particular shot?

After all, every single shot position was "invented" and "created" by Henry Bodnik personally. Every single shot was tough and it was important to find the perfect trajectory for each of the shooting positions. Shots downhill or uphill were common as well as several shots that required you to shoot from a kneeling position. It was always important to find the perfect shot path that would allow your arrow to find the kill zone of the 3D animal target. Often, the shooters would have to lean way out away from the shooting stake and assume angled postures because touching the stake with a part of the body was the top priority, a requirement for every shot. Extreme angles of fire from difficult lateral positions were also not uncommon.

In addition, the strenuous mountain terrain demanded a lot from the archers physically.

It was a rock hard experience for everyone there at the 5th Kill Tournament Austria!

We have put together some of the most beautiful pictures from the two competition days to give you an opportunity to virtually experience these two difficult yet enjoyable competition days.

On the first day all participants were required to shoot a two-arrow round. Kill hits were scored with 10 points each, while body hits were scored as a minus 2 points each. This scoring system accurately reflects how it is when actually bowhunting animals in their natural state.

On the second day of the competition we had a few failures to complain about. The tough competition from the previous day had taken its toll and some archers decided that they simply had to give up and drop out of the competition.

In terms of the scoring, things really got down to business on the second day. In the one-arrow round, the kill hits were scored as 20-points. Every shot in the body of the 3 D animal was punished with a -5 points score!

So 25 points could be scored for each single shot situation. In addition, the front runners from the previous day were put together in individual groups to ensure an eye to eye competition between well matched peers.

It was hot on the 2nd day of the competition and the scoring leaders were asked to confirm their results from the previous day.

But we don't want to forget that at the end of the 1st day of the competition there was a very fun, special competition.

We will report on this very special event in our next blog post.