Types of Archery

Target archery involves shooting a set number of arrows for the round that you are shooting, at the distances that are set for that round. For example, a 'Warwick' round consists of two dozen arrows at 60yards, followed by two dozen arrows shot at 50 yards. The longer distance is always shot first, to copy the way that archers would historically have fired on an advancing enemy.  For more information on different target rounds, please Click Here. The types of bow used for target archery are normally recurve or compound bows.  For more information on bow types, please Click Here.

The targets used are usually 1.2 m circular straw targets called "bosses". The target face has five colours, each with two rings, an inner and outer ring. In metric distance rounds, the Gold inner ring scores 10 points, the outer 9, all the way down to the outer white which scores 1 point. Each end of either 3 or 6 arrows is scored, counting the highest score first, and the archer with the highest score wins unless a handicapping weighting is in use.

Field Archery.  This is a type of archery where the competitors shoot in wooded or hilly countryside at 3D foam plastic animals or 2D animal faces. Distances can be marked, but are often down to the skill and judgment of the archer. Targets will be set up around the course and archers will shoot from coloured pegs.  After an unsuccessful shot missing the target, the archer moves forward to the next peg.  Some of the animal targets will be small or at a long distance, and each target is marked with a "kill" zone which scores higher than the "wound" zone.

A first shot which lands within the kill zone may be scored as 20 points, a hit outside the zone only scoring 16 points. If the archer misses the target animal, he will move forward and take a second shot with points being reduced, and if he still misses, move forward again for a third shot which will score lower still.

Any type of bow may be used, as there are normally different classifications for each type of bow.

Clout Archery. Clout archery is not such a popular discipline because of the amount of  space required to shoot safely. Clout archery is derived from medieval warfare where archers would fire arrows onto the advancing army some distance away. A target measuring 15 metres is diameter is marked on the ground, with a triangular marker flag at its centre. The archer's task is to shoot arrows towards this target from distances up to 180 metres, trying to get as close as possible to the target flag.