Does anyone here do archery? If so what type of bow do you use, and do you shoot championship or just club or leisure. I have only just started and apparently I'm pretty good. I shoot recurve, though I only have a 17 pound draw, I will have to work out a bit more I think.

Go you. I did archery for years also in south australia. We used to go to a place on Piggott Range Road in the south. They set up targets amongst the bushes and trees and we would have to shoot through unde and over obstacles. Good times. Actually wandered into an archery store yesterday, wow, things have changed.
I once shot a round of archery with Simon Fairweather who went on to win a gold medal at the Sydney olympics. It wasn't very close!
Good luck with it all.

Cool. I shoot at North Adelaide Archery Club, I'm not entirely sure where Piggott Range Road is though. How much have things changed?

Sometimes I do acid and shoot a bow and arrow into a crowd. Is that sort of like archery?

You shoot the bow and the arrow? That could be a little difficult.

Jokes aside though, not really.

Can I ask any archers here what Clout and Field shooting is?

Howdy!

Glad you decided to take it up.

Field archery is like target but at "unspecified" ranges, the target faces are black with gold centers. It's also mainly compound bow these days.

Clout is a lovely odd form of archery, you shoot at a point marked on the ground. It's actually a lot harder than it sounds as the surface you are aiming at is nearing perpendicular.

17lbs sounds like you're using a trainer bow, that poundage will be fine while you learn your form with indoor target, it won't take long before you need a heavier bow.

Clout sounds difficult, wouldn't you have to lob the arrow?

Also I switched to a 21 pound bow, it is harder, but I am shooting better. I am using training bows, as my club recommends waiting at least 6 months before getting a bow of my own, as muscles develop and ability to draw heavier bows increases.

Doubtless they will tell you that you should get a bow slightly ahead of the poundage you settle at, say four pounds (so you can grow into it) Also, your chest will expand as you emphasise the use of your back over your shoulders. At teenage level, learners aquire these physical traits fairly fast as you can imagine but it still happens to those of us taking up the sport a little later on. Mainstay hilarity like trying to master an unconscious release on top of developing your physique for the sport just adds to the challenge of improving ones scores whilst preserving arrows. It's also worth remembering you can spend a fortune on a bow and it will do nothing for your scores.

For now though, as long as you are using a good quality training bow you should just keep going uphill, the real fun comes when you change aspects of your setup, For example, reach the need for stabilisation and go from dacron to a BCY string, all these things make archery about twice as complex as golf... and about tree times as rewarding.

Keep well. focus on the target, not the sightpin.

Yeah. Today I tired shooting with a friends bow. It is a 29 lb barebow recurve.

I missed the target 5 times on a 40 cm face, but after that I was fine. I think barebow is harder, but with normal the big stabilisers have to be used.

How long have you been doing archery for?

I've been shooting just over a year, I shoot a 34lb (Drawn to 29") recurve with just the longrod. I started with a 26lb that after one months use made me ache in places I was ill aware of prior to that point. Took me a matter of 6 months to get used to it before I made friends with my current bow.

I actually spent today trying to address bugs in my shot, Still have a bit of tuning to do. One thing I have learned the hard way is not to change too many things in one go, I made the catastrophic mistake of changing my rest, string and tab all at the same time, it cost me a couple of aluminium arrows (they hit brick).

For the most part I usually score 22+ at 18 meters, but as I mentioned above - anything can (and if you fiddle too much with your setup - will) happen.

Speak soon.

Ok. I usually shoot at 15m, but I've just started with 20. I think lowest I've scored is 25 so far. I usually get in the 40s.

What's a longrod?

It's the main pitch effector for stabilisation at full draw. The stabilisation rods usually if you were to look down on the arher from above the regular long & shortrod setup comprises a Y attached to the riser below the grip at the front.

Basically it helps me with front/back tilt...

20 yards, or 18 meters to those of the metric persuasion is indoor and probably the most annoying distance of all to miss at.

It's clear now you shoot more than 3 arrows an end (I'm guessing 6 so scores of 40+ is doing very well for a beginner)

I am also into archery. Apparently it is a diffrent type than you guys. I shoot 3-D targets. I use both a 47lb longbow and a 50lb recurve. Most of the time I am using wooden arrows, but during the times I have time to shoot more rounds I will use carbon as well.

Yeah, it's 6. So the longrod seems to be what I call a stabiliser, big black thing on the front of the bow...

Kllrwolf, 3D targets sound fun, do they rotate or something?

"Do they rotate or something"

<Laughs> That would be great, then on one of the faces they could do product placement adverts or faces of people you dont like... I always liked the ide of a slow rotating cube with various target arrangements... it would be great fun, if a little bit of a pest for shot timing.

3D Archery is essentially bowhunting model animals, they are pretty much to scale (model or not, brown bears and moose can scare the bejeezus out of most people, and that's on top of the fact you're already armed)

It's ok for some but not my thing. I got a bow for target dicipline really, pseudo-hunting is kind of pointless unless you hunt for real on occasion. A lot of Americans do it as practice for shooting at unmarked distances outdoors and in the same settings they would normally find trophy. From my friends over their who do this they find it is good for keeping skills used in real hunting tidy.

If I were to do 3D archery I would happily do so if it were lifelike models of spice-girls, cabinet ministers or other people I generally detest.

The setup for the bow (usually compound) is a flourescent pin sight arranged in three to five horizontally aligned references in a frame that gives you some preset sightmarks for known ranges. It's still a pest if the compound user is more a target shooter reliant on his scope and peep. The arrows are lacking the broadhead as it would quickly disintergrate the high density foam the mock animals are made of. so it's pretty common to find hunters with more than one modular setup or individual bows specific to 3D and actual hunting.

Speak soon.

Yes the targets are animals of all sorts. they go all the way from Buffalo/Bison size all the way down to rabbit/squirell size. They even have dinosaur targets. With broadhead designs like they have nowdays, most of the compound shooters are able to use the same setups for both target shooting and hunting without having to make any changes when switching to or from the target tips. I have been rabbit hunting with my longbow, and not done too bad, everything I hit was killed (and eaten).

I do the 3D shooting because it offers me more of a challenge since the distance is not the same. The targets can be anywhere from touching distance up to about 60 yards. There are also obstacles to worry about. Shooting through openings in trees really makes you focus on making the shot perfect, otherwise you are trying to find an arrow that went who knows where. Even shooting up to or down at a target makes it tough. Sometime we even have them in motion such as turning or moving along a line. Using the traditional style bows we are not even allowed to have any sights. It is often described as using two sticks and a string by the guys who insist that compounds are the only bows a "real" shooter uses. I like the simplicity of not having to worry about the bow being set up properly, adjusting sights, or making sure the right stabilizer is used for the conditions.

I find that shooting at a normal targets is not my thing. Making the same shot over and over, I start to get bored. However shooting the same target but moving to a different spot each time keeps me focused. I do not think that normal target shooting is bad or anything, just not what I prefer.

Sometimes I am amazed at how well a person can group their arrows at some of the longer distances when target shooting. It is not something I can do without a lot of luck.

I'm pretty surprised at how some of the really advanced members can group, all in the X from a distance of 50 or so meters.

3D shooting sounds like fun!

On a note of strange shooting things, there is a "wand" tournament coming up at my club. I have got the idea that I will be shooting at a thin strip of target, but does anyone else know more?

Compound shooting doesn't sound that great to me, it's kind of like cheating to use the mechanical stuff to increase the force on the arrow. I'm happy with recurve - or if I must - Barebow recurve. I havn't tried longbow yet though.

Today I did a lot better than last week at 20m.

Instead of a score of 175 I got 234. That almost beats my score for 15m.

Congrats on doing better, improvement is the key. The wand shooting sounds like it would be interesting and I am up for trying different styles at least once. You will have to tell us for sure what it is when you shoot it.
I like the simplicity and challenge of a bare bow. My recurve has a place to mount a rest and a counterwieght, but my long bow was made without even that.

I have found out what the wand is, they explained it at last week's meeting. They tape a 2 inch thick strip of bright yellow tape on to the target, and the scoring is simple, if you hit the strip, you get one point, if you miss, you get nothing.

Apparently the tradition dates back to when people shot at sticks in medieval times.

That sounds like a fun challenge. What distance are you going to be shooting from? Also how long is the strip? I think once my wrist heals enough for me to shoot, I will try it out for practice in my back yard, just to see how I do.

We shoot from the distance that we have got a Grade Pass on, which for me is 20m. I think it is the length of a standard target face - 122cm.

What happened to your wrist?

I sprained it at my last shoot. We had a lot of steep up and down walking, and several times I had to catch myself from falling. I think it hurt my score, since I did worse on the last 10 shots than I did the 30 before it. The worst part is that I have not been able to just let it heal because of work. I guess it is good we only do a club shoot once a month, it gives me time to heal without having to skip a shoot, I hope.

Yeah. The wand tournament was great fun, I scored 17 hits (3 rounds of 3 ends of 6 arrows) which was better than anyone at my distance. I ended up having to shoot at 15 though, which was a bit easier than I am used to. Next year I should be from about 30 or so though.

I may have got 18 hits, but mum rang my mobile just as I was about to release the last arrow, and it put me off quite a lot.

Glad to hear you did well. So did the wand extend all the way from the upper part of the outer ring to the lower part of the outer ring, going through the center?

I also have learned the hard way, when I am shooting I make sure my ringer is off. I shot one into a lake when it glanced off the back of the target because I jerked when my phone rang.