Axe Throwing??-!!

Wasn't sure if I should put this in 'Survival', or what.

A couple weeks ago the wife tells me she's going to go "axe throwing" with her friend, the widowed gal down the road. I thought I heard her wrong, or misunderstood, or something at first, because axe throwing is about the very last thing on planet Earth I would ever expect my bride to go do. I asked a couple questions and sure enough, she's gonna' go out to some place and learn how to throw an axe! You know, the things you chop wood with, yeah, that kind of axe! "No S###??", was my reply. Now, you can't even begin to imagine all the crazy s### circulating through my brain when she says this.... Her and her widowed girlfriend are gonna' go out have have some dude teach them how to throw AXES!!! 😮😲

After a bit she says..."Hey, you wanna' go too??" Well, hell to the yeah, I'm all over that like white on rice...if for no other reason than seeing what this is all about!

So today's the day, and we cruise over to this axe throwin' place. First surprise was, I didn't know you needed a "place" to throw an axe. I thought just any old pasture and a stump would do (I mean, that's what me and my buddies always did when we were in elk camp). Nope, this place is different. Once inside...Holy cow! This is a big fancy operation! They've got alleys, just like a bowling alley, and a bar / lounge, food...the whole bit. Pretty up-town joint in my book. I'm waiting for the big Paul Bunyon dude in the logger's shirt to show up. Nope. This petite little blonde gall shows up to check us in. The whole time I'm lookin' around this place and it's some pretty fancy digs.

Anyway, we sign all the waivers swearing we're not axe-murderers, and agreeing if we chop of any extremities it's our own damn fault, I'm sure you can imagine the drill here. The gal takes us to our assigned axe throwing alley, shows us the ropes and hands us about a half a dozen axes in different sizes and weights. Tells us we're good to go. Huh??? Are you even gonna' show us what to do? She says..."OH! This is your first time? I'm sorry!! All you do is (and she picks up an axe) throw it like this (making the motion). You can do it one handed or two. Here, I'll show ya."

This gal couldn't have weighed 90 lbs. soaking wet. She takes this axe, talking the whole time (and not even looking at the target), rears back and tosses this thing at these wood 2x10's with a bullseye target. She completely misses the target and hits this blue spray painted dot about 2" in diameter above the left side of the bullseye. I'm ready to start cracking up, when she says..."Okay, the blue dots above the target on the right and left side of the target? Those are called "Kill Shots", and they're worth 8 points each.". Then she picks up another axe, still talkin' to us, and fires the 2nd axe at the target, splits the 2nd blue dot in half, dead center, and says..."And, you can only make 2 'Kill Shot's in each round."

"Oh."...was about the best response I could muster. LOLOL!! I mean, what the hell else are you gonna' say, right??? I just got 'schooled'! LOL!! I'm sittin' there thinkin' I'm gonna be one lucky SOB to even get the axe to stick in the wood (anywhere), let alone hit the 4 foot diameter bullseye target painted on these boards!!! A bullseye in the main target is worth 6 points (the blue dots are worth 8 points). This gal isn't even looking at the damn target, talkin' to us, and she splits a 2" diameter blue dot in half, not once, but TWICE in a row!! LOL!

Our turn...

Turns out this whole axe throwing thing is a total blast!! We had a GREAT time! This sport is fun as hell!!! Once we got the hang of it, my wife and I were stickin' about every axe on the bullseye target somewhere. Wife's friend was having a tough day; she might have actually stuck an axe on the wood maybe 3 times total out of the whole time we were there (felt bad for her, as she was the one who invited us).

We threw for about an hour and a half, and played 5 rounds I think. My wife handily kicked everyone's butt on every round, just about doubling my score on a couple games. When we got done we were talking with the owner of the place (not the little gal who checked us in). Apparently, last night they'd had a tournament (who knew, right?). Said they had about 150 people competing. Wife asked him what was a good score? He tells her there are generally two groups, "Pro" and "Amateur" in 'sanctioned' events (which last night was). Says a good score for the Amateur group is a 40-44, and the guy who won last night threw a 42..."And that's a REALLY good score for an amateur too!", he says. LOL!!! The wife's lowest score was 44, and her highest was a 56!! LOL! Now she's all into this, wants to go back and compete! (and I will admit, she did throw pretty well for a beginner, a heck of a lot better than I did, that's for sure).

Anyway, we had a heck of a good time going out and, of all things, spending a Sunday afternoon throwing axes!

That is all. 😎

P.S. Did you know there is a World Axe Throwing League (WATL)? I didn't either, but there is. Good grief, what will we learn next?

Oh, and I guess I should have added...None of us ever did manage to hit the blue "Kill Shot" dot!!!

🤣🤣🤣

Sounds great.

My difficult coworker's dragon boat team took her axe throwing. It sounded like she had fun at it.

Didn't make her an easy coworker to deal with though.

Assuming we can get our taxes to come down, we might be able to swing a vacation this summer and one of the activities at the place I'm eyeballing is axe throwing, so I might get to find out how fun it is.

Why does one call it "axe throwing" ?
I think "hatchet throwing" would be a proper term .
Like us yung uns did way back in the day .

My grandchild went to an axe throwing sweet sixteen birthday party a school mate had; she really enjoyed it. Do we really want our teenagers becoming proficient at throwing axes, though?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Nice, Beer and Hatchets.👍🏼
youtu.be...

youtu.be...


This is on the list of things I shouldn't do, but yep.... I'm going to eventually.

Hold my beer!

a reply to: nugget1

Could be an important part of survival if SHTF.

a reply to: Gothmog

Well, as I understand it they have different categories, up to and including big ol' double-bit axes

Yeah, I go every once and a while. That was a stop for my bachelor party too.
If you like it, try some different axe types.
Tomahawks are awesome compared to the hatchets and bigger axes.
They are light and fast and sort of snap when you throw them.
You can really feel the knockdown power of them.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Looking at the 'Near Misses' video makes me wonder why they don't have some sort of cage/fence behind them. It's one thing for it to bounce back at the person who throws it, but specifically the last guy, there were people walking around behind him. Not a very good lay-out in my opinion.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

There's a couple in Denver! I like the one with the rage room. It's a good way to get some destruction or of your system. The televisions are a little more robust than you'd think!

I like throwing axes with friends. The last time I did it was at the Renascence fair here. The other times were with my crew on a construction job building a house at lunchtime, The owner we were building the house for was there throwing the axe too. But we only had one hatchet, I kept that in the truck under the seat....it was there in case we have a dead tree when out hunting deer during deer season along with a saw to cut wood.

We did axe throwing when in Boy Scouts when I was young too, there was an axe throwing area of the rifle range at the camp we went to every year.

I also used to do it with my Dad and uncles, it is something every father should teach their son. That and always having a knife and matches on you at all times used to be important, most boys over the age of eight had a pocket knife in their pocket and matches when we went to school. I remember teachers asking me for matches so they could light their cigarettes when I was in school, seems like the teachers parents did not teach them to be prepared.

There were no stabbings of school kids back then, but occasionally a kid would cut their finger when carving on a piece of wood at school, nothing the school nurse couldn't fix. We even used our knives in school to cut cardboard stuff to do projects in class...way safer than those utility knives they had for us.

Boy, have things changed since I was a kid. Guns were never allowed in school though back then except when you brought them to metal shop to blue the barrels on them along with the bolts that hold the gun together, refinishing the stock could be done in the woodshop with the help of the teacher as one of your projects. The three guns I redid at school were even showed to all the guys in the class by the teachers and many kids admired the refinishing of the guns. There were dozens of kids that signed up for that oportunity in metal shop and I would guess that there were lots of kids that did the refinishing in woodshop of the stocks too. I even made a wood part for my shotgun in class, the front wood part. It worked good but it broke like the original after around six years, so I bolted it together...it was just too thin or the wood grain should have been more twisted so it would not break along the grain.

Like I said, school was a lot better back in the sixties and seventies.

a reply to: SoundisVibration

This one was in Brighton.

a reply to: rickymouse

Guns were never allowed in school though...

They were in ours!

In fact, we were encouraged to bring guns to school! And hey, if the teachers started teaching us students some of that BS woke hooey, well...**BLAMMO!!**

That's enough of that crap!!!!

NEXT???

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Sounds like a cool day.

Might come in handy some day soon, lol.

We did that as kids also ninja throwing stars (now forbidden) and throwing knifes mostly.

The thud when it hits the wood is so satisfying and an axe has something special because of the imbalance. One of the first knifes I got as a kid was a two blade throwing / boot knife with wood handle and brass cap. I still have the blade but it came off the handle.

Might be a project for my daughter to make a wood handle with me this summer

(I collect knifes so I would never throw away a blade)

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: rickymouse

Guns were never allowed in school though...

They were in ours!

In fact, we were encouraged to bring guns to school! And hey, if the teachers started teaching us students some of that BS woke hooey, well...**BLAMMO!!**

That's enough of that crap!!!!

NEXT???

I am still afraid of those wood yardsticks the teachers used to swat our hands with when I was young. When a yardstick comes out at home I get kind of tense. You didn't need to pay attention to the teacher talking in class if you read the books you were supposed to and the books seemed way more interesting than most of the teachers. I was bored in school a lot.

originally posted by: MykeNukem
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Sounds like a cool day.

Might come in handy some day soon, lol.

Just worried a little bit that my wife was as good as she was on her 1st time out!!

...and then she wanted to buy some throwing axes!!

**picturing myself running away in fear as she buries an axe in my back from 50 yards after commenting that the lasagna needed a bit of salt!!** 😲😨🤕

🤣

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
I gotta axe you, whoops I mean ask you (see what I did there) how far away is the target as I've never even seen such a thing?

There's a bar in downtown La Crosse, WI called the Driftless Axe who does this too.



I have yet to go check it out myself but looks pretty fun. They even have league play like darts or pool.