What is Field Archery?
Contents
What is Field
Archery?
Like target archery, field archery involves shooting arrows at targets but this is where the similarity ends. Field archery is shot on a course which is similar in nature to a golf course. During a shoot archers will shoot at 28 different targets in sequence, shooting 4 arrows at each target.
The field archery course is usually situated in woodland and the targets are all set at different marked distances. The targets may have to be shot up or down gradients, at a variety of different distances or shooting angles. A selection of different rounds can be shot on the field course but the most commonly shot are the 'Field' and 'Hunter' rounds. The targets also vary in size depending on the round being shot and the distance.
The archer is scored
depending on how close each arrow is shot to the centre circle (or 'spot')
of each target. The accumulated score of all 112 arrows shot during the
round makes up the archer's score for that round.
So what is the appeal of field archery? Well, field archery requires not only a consistency of shot from the archer, but additional skills of judgement in order to achieve high scores on the field course. The archer has to contend with compensating for weather conditions and variations in the given target (caused by angle of shooting, hills, and small differences in the rules of shooting depending on which round is being shot). In short, field archery involves a level of knowledge and intuition which has a greater effect on success than perhaps in any other form of archery. It is this challenge that attracts archers to field archery.