The draw of the catapult

Tom Sykes has rekindled a childhood passion and been out hunting with his ‘new’ favourite weapon. Here he explains how satisfying the sport can be

- Tom Sykes

During the original lockdown, I developed what my partner Charlie would describe as an obsession for the sport of catapulting. The lack of shooting available at the time left me longing to be out in the field but we had no option but to hunker down and find new ways to pass the time. This gave me the perfect opportunity to take up an old hobby in the garden, but I would never have believed it would become such a fantastic way to bag meat for the larder.

As regular readers may remember, last year I wrote about how I had ditched the common catapult of my youth for a Goblet EVO from Catty Shack. The Goblet revealed just how deadly accurate you can be with such a primitive tool. Months of daily practice firing thousands of ball bearings and wearing out countless bands followed, and before long I was hitting the mark consistently.

All this practice built up the muscle memory and accuracy required to consider taking live quarry. I cannot stress enough that this is a tool that should be taken seriously and, as with any weapon, we have a duty to our quarry to ensure we can deal a fatal blow efficiently before considering attempting to take a life.

Tools for the job