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Archery can be classified as a sport or a hobby and it has its own category at the Olympic Games. Archers either hunt wild game animals or shoot at targets or both. If you shoot at targets in a competition, it is the aggregate score of all your arrows that determines your position in that competition. The nearer the centre of the target that the arrow hits, the higher the score.

Target archery can also be sub-divided into two categories: field archery and target archery. In target archery, the archer stands in a fixed spot. If there are a number of archers, they can stand in a row and all shoot together on command from the person in charge of enforcing the rules and safety. Any type of bow can normally be used in target archery, although only compound bows may be used in the Olympic Games.

In field archery, the targets are of diverse sizes and are placed at various distances. The archer moves around the course, so there is no one fixed shooting spot. The targets may be the familiar round targets with concentric rings or they may be life-size models of wild animals like bears, deer and rabbits.

The bows used in field archery are more often than not traditional type bows: longbows, flat bows and recurves, although archers may use any bow that they want. When stalking live animals, compound bows are normally used because they are smaller, so more manoeuvrable, yet they are still extremely powerful.

Archery targets are conventionally made from straw bundled and tied together to make ropes. These ropes of straw are then wrapped around themselves like a Catherine Wheel and sewn together. The cloth or paper target is pinned to the front of it.

The other word for these targets is ‘butts’ and many old towns and villages in Britain still have a recreational area known as ‘The Butts’. Nowadays they play football or cricket on it, but Henry VIII decreed that all males had to practice his archery skills every Sunday at the butts using a longbow, so that there would be a plentiful source of archers for his army.

In competition archery, every archer shoots at his or her own target, but every archer is expected to have uniquely coloured flights, so that if there is a problem an archer and the arrow can be identified. This is useful for retrieving arrows that have missed the target altogether.

There are normally six arrows shot by each competitor in a round and if they are to be shot from a variety of distances, it is normal to shoot from the furthest distance first. Men generally shoot from 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres, while ladies customarily shoot from 70, 60, 50 and 30 metres.

Archery as a sport appears to be growing in popularity, especially as there is a tendency in some countries, like the UK, to make it more difficult to obtain a gun license. They say that fashion goes around and comes back again, well British men are back at the butts working on their archery skills again in greater numbers than there have been since possibly the sixteenth century.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently concerned with archery bows for sale. If you would like to know more or for special offers, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.

Archery has been practiced for a long time. Bows have been found from at least 2,500 years before Christ, so 4,500 years ago. It is also likely that archery goes back several thousand years before that, but because most bows were made solely of wood, they have not lasted.

In the early days, bows were utilized for hunting and keeping invaders away. These days, there are still some cultures that rely on hunting with bows and arrows to put meat on the table and there are also people who decide to do it that way for sport.

The equipment concerned with archery is basically a bow and an arrow, but it goes deeper than that. If you really want to get involved in archery, you might want to consider making your own bow, your own arrows and your own practice butts.

There are excellent kits for making your own bows, but there are too many varieties of bows for us to go into all of them in this article. However, be assured that if you do want to construct your own bow, you will find a description of the materials and the techniques on the Internet.

You can also make your own arrows and that is an easier subject to deal with. If you begin with the shaft, it can be made of wood, aluminium alloy or carbon fibre, all of which can be bought easily. Then, at the sharp end, you can choose your tip or point.

The arrow head should match the job that the arrow is meant for. If it is meant to kill, then a broadhead, if it is meant to make a hole in a piece of paper, then a simple brass tip.

The flights can be bought separately as well. You can feathers or plastic and with a little experience, you can use feathers that you have found yourself. Goose feathers were historically the ones most well-liked.

Finally there is the nock, which is the part of the arrow that connects with the string. The nock can be as simple as a ‘v’ or a ‘u’ cut in the arrow, or it can be a plastic or metal casting that is fitted over the end of the arrow.

The bow string is too hard to make oneself, unless you really want to go into that technology. The bow string is better bought.

Archery targets, the round ones, you associate with target archery are a different kettle of fish, because you definitely can make them yourself. You first have to get hold of a load of straw and then grab handfuls of it. Bind these handfuls of straw into ‘ropes’ and make a circle like a Catherine Wheel out of them.

Sew these together until they make the size target you require. Place this on an easel or affix it to a tree and then fasten the conventional archery target to the front of it.

You can draw the conventional concentric circles on cloth, canvas or paper. It does not have to cost a lot to enjoy archery. Remember that 5,000 or 500 years ago, people did not have much, yet they still enjoyed their sport or hobby of archery.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on various topics, but is presently involved with archery bows for sale. If you would like to know more or for special offers, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.

Archery fishing is also known as bow fishing and it is as ancient as the bow and arrow themselves. We in the West are inclined to think that only poorer tribesmen in Third World countries go bow fishing, but that is not quite true.

These days the hunting of mammals is strictly controlled and so some people who like to hunt with a bow will switch to bow fishing if the animals that they like to pursue, say deer, are out of season. Some other people, who would not hunt a deer or bear are quite happy to hunt fish in this fashion.

Bow fishing is a skillful sport, but the equipment need not necessarily be hi-tech. The fact is that you can use whatever bow you have or you can just manufacture one. It does not have to be powerful, because the quarry is seldom more than ten feet away. You categorically do not need a 100 lbf longbow to kill a trout.

Having said that, any bow used for fishing will have to be modified a little – you will need to affix a reel to it, but it does not have to be anything fancy. There are three principal varieties of reel for use in bow fishing: hand-wrap, spincast and retriever and the line is normally braided nylon of approximately eighty pounds although you might need six hundred pound breaking strain line for alligators or sharks.

It is worth checking out the regulations with regard to bow fishing in your country or state, because sometimes bow fishermen have to be licensed and sometimes getting that license involves having been on a safety course.

Some regions will even have regulations concerning the kind of gear you can use in bow fishing and of course, some fish have seasonal limitations.

Bow fishing is a hybrid of fishing and hunting, so you could have to acquire some new skills like tying knots for instance. You will have to be able to tie the line to the reel and the arrow and those knots will have to be able to put up with the tremendous acceleration that an arrow leaving a bow goes through without failing.

The bow may not differ much from a standard bow, but the arrows certainly do. Arrows for bow fishing are usually a lot more substantial that air-flight arrows. They also have barbed points to prevent the fish escaping or just slipping off when you reel it in. The arrows do not have flights either because flights tend to avert the true course of the arrow in water – the opposite of in the air.

There are three main techniques used in bow fishing: 1] you can put down ground bait and lie in wait. – an over hanging branch or high rock is good for this; 2] you can float down stream in a boat while sitting or standing in the bow; 3] you can wander into the river like a salmon fisherman.

Compensating for the refraction of the water is the most difficult ability to learn and that means knowing the water well as well.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on various subjects, but is presently involved with archery recurve bows. If you would like to know more or for special deals, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.