This morning started strangely. Before I was properly awake I was loading parts of a massive bear into a wheelbarrow. Then we crammed a baby stegosaurus in too and set off for the woods.

This isn’t something from my fevered imagination, but an accurate description of how I started helping the Westcombe field archery course captain Tim find a few tricky new shots today.

Usually when I’m in the woods with the trusty recurve bow, my attention is focused on getting my arrow into the centre of the kill zone (with mixed results, to be fair), so today it was interesting to consider all the other factors involved in making each 3D target placement challenging, memorable and safe.

The course and terrain at Westcombe is my favourite of the field archery clubs near me, and the 3 shots we placed today added some new challenges to the route.

The bitumen bear

Even the best 3D archery target brands get shot out – let’s face it, being a target is a hard life, even for a full-size bear.

So the tired old growler was treated to a bear-jazzle, using a load of bitumen paint (the stuff you seal a shed roof with) making the ol’ girl waterproof and ready to take a pounding again.

We set it close to the path on a tight uphill bend through thick rhododendrons, so it would surprise the archer when walking round the course. There is a nice little natural site window between two trees for a more advanced shot.

The Stegosaurus

Some archers said it’s not natural to have a stegosaurus on the course. I suggest imagining a time-travel experiment you were involved in has gone atrociously wrong. Makes it seem more normal.

There’s an uncomfortably narrow sight window between two trees from the wasp peg (“wasp” = the most tricky shot), and satisfying but reasonable shots from the red, white, blue and orange peg too.

The stegosaurus is also in a clearing that has a different, sparsely-planted vibe to the majority of the course, so overall there is an nice contrast on this shot.

A Bedded Dear

A 3D bedded deer is a classic target in English field archery, so we laid this down next. A slight uphill gradient with multiple sight windows between trees looked great.

Top row: pics taken standing at the wasp peg. Lots could go wrong with this shot. You can see the target under the curved fallen tree. Bottom row taken from the Red peg.

Safety in every shot

Although Field Archery is the most fun you can have in the woods with your clothes on, safety is at the heart of keeping it fun. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye!” as the old saying goes. Unfortunately with a 40# bow if anyone loses an eye, they would probably lose their life at the same time.

Each shot placement was carefully deliberated over to ensure no overshooting arrows would enter into another target zone, and ricochets from trees on a poor shot would send the arrow safely into a verge, rather than a waiting archer’s head.

On rough terrain the safest route to collect arrows may not be the shortest – if the walkers need to go out of sight from the shooting pegs, there is a real risk of the previous shooters emerging from the undergrowth at the 3D target, just in time to be accidentally shot by the next group of archers! So in this case a sign is erected asking members to leave their bows by the shooting pegs while collecting arrows, so the next group know to wait.

The big bear vs. the wolf pack

The large angry bear is a brand new 3D target for Westcombe, and wow! It’s hefty. I didn’t help set this target up, but shot it for the first time today and had a lot of fun.

The wolves are mostly to add drama to the scene, but of course you can shoot the heck out of them, giving 4 different distance options in one shot. Fast shooting practice is so fun on this type of shot.

Our first shots all fell drastically short. The next were a little closer, but only on the third shot did one of our group actually hit the ursine ba$t*rd! A couple of gung-ho shots managed to go over.

At first glance, the track between the pegs and the bear looks pretty flat. But there is a deceptively large amount of broken uneven ground along the path. It appears smoothed out by the carpet of leaves. You can’t really tell how big the bear is either from so far away. All these factors conspire to make estimating the distance extremely difficult.

It’s not until you walk to collect the arrows that you realise how far it is – around 80 Yards! The bear is absolutely massive, so we were all taken in and were thinking around 60 yards. Field archery certainly has more challenges than target archery.

This is a really tough, but very rewarding shot.

Our New Field Archery Course – Coming Soon!

We are setting up our own field archery course in Devon! Preparations are under way and we hope to have it ready to shoot by 2024.

It will be a real experience, with a different vibe to any other course I’ve seen. We are custom making our own 3D targets for a unique shooting experience.

We will be able to offer complete field archery holidays, with a well-equipped self-catering cottage in Devon to hire at the course, local Devon cider, delicious meal options and more!

We may eventually open it up for occasional NFAS open shoots too.

If you are able to get to Devon, U.K. and are wondering “Is there field archery near me?”make sure to add it to your shoot list!

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