FIELD ARCHERY

FIELD ARCHERY, FIELD ARCHERY rules, title

OBJECTIVE OF FIELD ARCHERY: Traverse an outdoor course, accurately firing arrows at 28 targets of unmarked distances.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 1-3 players (per competing group)

MATERIALS: Bow, arrows, targets, hiking gear

TYPE OF GAME: Sport

AUDIENCE: 9+

OVERVIEW OF FIELD ARCHERY

Field archery is an archery discipline designed to imitate a hunter’s hunt. Teams maneuver and hike through an outdoor course, stopping to fire arrows at targets that can be up to 80 yards away and situated within a challenging terrain.

SETUP

FIELD ARCHERY, FIELD ARCHERY rules, setup

THE COURSE

Field archery competitions take place in expansive outdoor areas, often utilizing natural forests and other terrains. While the size of a competition course could theoretically have no end, it must be of an appropriate size that allows dozens of targets – each requiring up to 80 yards of firing distance – to be spread around in a manner that provides competitors with the feeling of being a hunter.

GAMEPLAY

COMPETITION ROUNDS

Field archery competitions often include three rounds: field, hunter, and animal. For each round type, the individual (or team) that scores the highest cumulative points wins.

FIELD ROUND

A field round often consists of 24-28 targets spread around the course. Each target is an “even” distance away (30 yards, 50 yards, 60 yards), maxing out at an 80-yard target distance for adults.

Targets for this round are between 20-65 cm in diameter, featuring a black “bullseye” ring (5 points), two white rings surrounding the bullseye (4 points), and two large black rings surrounding the white rings (3 points).

Competitors are allowed to shoot four arrows at each target for a maximum of 20 points.

HUNTER ROUND

FIELD ARCHERY, FIELD ARCHERY rules, hunter round

A hunter round is similar to the field round and consists of 24-28 targets. However, unlike the field round, targets are an “uneven” distance away (17 yards, 53 yards, etc.), maxing out at a 70-yard distance.

Targets in the hunter round are an identical size to the field round (20-65 cm diameter) but feature a different color scheme. Instead of a black bullseye, hunter rounds utilize a white bullseye (still worth 5 points) and two outer black rings, the smaller one worth 4 points and the largest one worth 3 points.

As with the previous round, competitors shoot 4 arrows at each target for a maximum total of 20 points per target.

ANIMAL ROUND

An animal round often consists of the standard 24-28 targets. Targets can be located at any distance up to 60 yards away.

Unlike the two prior rounds, the animal round features 2D targets or animals, each overlaid with a scoring diagram. A “bullseye” is an arrow straight to the heart, the next highest scoring zone is a sizeable area around the heart, and the rest of the animal awards the fewest points.

Scoring is unique in the animal round, as competitors are encouraged to only use one arrow. In the case of a miss, the archer must go a marker closer to the target before taking additional steps forward if they miss their second shot. In total, only three arrows can be used on each target.

Scoring is dependent on the distance the arrow was fired from:

  • Arrow 1 (farthest distance): 21 points for a bullseye, 20 points for the ‘vital’ zone, and 18 points for the rest of the animal.
  • Arrow 2: 17 points for a bullseye, 16 points for the ‘vital’ zone, and 14 points for the remainder of the animal.
  • Arrow 3 (closest distance): 13 points for a bullseye, 12 points for the ‘vital’ zone, and 10 points for the remaining target.

COMPETITION FORMATS

Field archery often utilizes a bracket that features head-to-head matches between individuals or teams. Occasionally, determining bracket seeds may require several competitors to compete all at once, ranking them based on their total score in the placement round.

END OF GAME

The goal of a field archery round is to score as many cumulative points as possible, with the highest score winning the competition. This total score results from a team’s performance across all three competitive rounds.

Lev
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