Not long ago, hitting a balloon at 100 yards with an arrow was thought to be undoable. Not impossible. But — generally — undoable. Consistently, an archer just couldn't count on pinpointing a target that far away.
Times have changed. Today, visitors to Game Fair, which opens Friday in Ramsey for its annual six-day, two-weekend run, can witness archery proficiency rarely displayed.
Now in its fifth year, the Game Fair 100-yard Archery Challenge is expected to attract more than 75 bow-and-arrow aficionados vying for a chunk of $1,000 in prize money.
The object is to pop a balloon with an arrow at 100 yards.
"I don't know if I'll have much time to practice this year,'' said Eric Nathe, 37, of Elk River, a finalist in the competition two years ago.
Nathe owns a target bow as well as a hunting bow. He'll use the latter when he draws back in the Game Fair contest.
"I'm a vegetable farmer, so in the summer I don't get a lot of time to shoot my bows,'' Nathe said. "But I shoot a variety of competitions in winter, typically shooting between 40 and 80 arrows in each. And every year I go to Las Vegas to shoot the World Archery Festival. So I shoot a fair bit.''
The Game Fair 100-yard challenge began as an exhibition, with archery veteran Kurt Baumgartner, 57, of Elk River, demonstrating his long-distance shooting prowess as a warm-up act to the late Tom Knapp's shotgun trick-shooting exposition.