What is it about when you are wandeing through woodlands with your bow and arrows looking for something to shoot at?  Well you would soon get bored with shooting the trees or burrowing your arrow into the ground and not finding it again

So someone invented field archery,  although field archery as a name for our sport has always slightly mystified many archers, why call it field archery when it hardly ever takes place in fields ?

The natural home of the field archer is in the woodlands,  preferably not too flat and preferably full of trees, dips, earth banks, and if at all possible then also slip in a nice stream and a quarry and you have the makings of a great spot for a bit of field archery

Field Archery is one of the best sports for anyone with an interest in the vast outdoors and archery, there is no better way to spend a day than wandering through woodlands,  shooting your bow and arrows and enjoying a good banter session with like minded individuals

Most people if asked to describe an archery target would answer “it is round and has many different coloured rings”

If asked to describe a field archery target the answer is very different,  field archers shoot at a massive variety of targets,  now at this point I will stress that these are targets made of rubber and foam,  we do not and never will condone shooting real animals and birds, we do not hunt

Our targets range from a large snail which we shoot at a pretty close up distance to an 8ft6 grizzly bear that can be placed 100 metres away,  we also have owls, gorilla,  crocodiles & with over 150 different targets of massively different sizes, it does make field archery more varied and enjoyable

 

With any form of archery to hit the target and score well there is a certain amount of skill involved
 
So what is the difference in skill level between target archers and field archers ?
 
In target archery the target is at a known distance and on flat ground and the target is also set at a perfect height
 

In field archery we use exactly the same bows and arrows as they use in field archery,  and in both disciplines shooting the bow correctly with skill is needed

In field archery the target is at what we call an unmarked distance that means that when we get to the spot in the woods where we shoot from we have no idea on how far away we are from the target,  this adds another level of skill in distance judging
 

Then just to add in more variables we could be shooting on the flat (rare) or uphill downhill at an angle up the hill over ponds and lakes, in windy conditions and in rain,  all of these have to be taken into account on deciding how and where to aim

Get one of those mental calculations wrong and you miss the target

Field archery does come with several bonuses probably on the top of the list is that it is a totally classless sport,  so when you are on the course shooting it doesn’t matter if you are earning £150,000 a year or £3,000 what unites field archery is their love of the sport

It is one of the very few sports that can be enjoyed by all ages,  by all genders, and by all fitness levels,  archery is a game of technique, skill & practice,  it is a sport where physical strength never makes a difference,  technique and skill will always win over brute strength

And no matter what style of bow you choose,  there will be one of those bows that will ideally suit you

Another great bonus is that if you enjoy the countryside you will get to see parts of the country very few people ever get to see, and probably have no clue that it even exists.  private country estates, farmland, foresty commision and many more landowners support us and field archery and to them we are forever grateful