Types of Archery

Target Archery is the only form of archery allowed in the Olympic Games and has over a hundred member nations throughout the world. These nations are represented by F.I.T.A., the international governing body for the sport.
There are quite a number of different target archery rounds, but usually, target archery consists of archers shooting a fixed number of arrows over a specified distance in a flat field. The target is circular with 10 concentric rings. The inner ring is the gold scoring 10; the outer ring is white scoring 1. After an end of arrows, usually 3 or 6, all arrows are scored. At the end of the day, the person with the highest score wins.

A target shoot

Clout Archery represents the medieval warfare use of the bow where the arrows are shot high into the air to travel as far as possible and ‘rain down ’ on the enemy. The clout field has a target at each end with concentric rings marked on the ground around it. The closer you land to the centre the higher the score. The normal shooting distance for men is 180 yards. Normally three arrows are shot each end and their scores totalled. As this is a very traditional form of archery it is usually restricted to longbows and wooden arrows.

A clout shoot

Field Archery represents the hunting use of the bow. Either two dimensional of three dimensional representations of animals are used as targets. Up to 40 targets can be laid out in a wooded area with the archer moving from target to target in turning a similar way to golf. The distance between target and archer varies from target to target and is unknown to the archer. Distances range from around 15 yards for a rabbit to about 80 yards for a stag. The archer is allowed up to three arrows to hit the target but only the first successful arrow scores. If the archer misses with his first arrow he moves to the next shooting peg for his second and so on. The score depends on the number of the arrow and whether it made a ‘kill’ or a ‘wound’.

A field shoot