We are very lucky as a club to have access to a woodland where we can practice a form of archery known as ‘field’. Set in 4 and a half acres near Luddington, this is a little gem of a shoot, and all club members are welcome to try out this fun aspect of our sport.

The woodland is owned by the Heart of England Forest charity, who kindly lease us the land for us to use for field archery.

Field archery has more in common with golf than target archery as it involves following a course of targets, moving from one to the next. Each target has three ‘pegs’ from which to shoot, each progressively closer to the target (with some exceptions). If you hit the target from the first peg you shoot no more arrows at that target; if you miss you move on to the next peg and shoot from there. The closer each peg gets to the target, the lower your possible score on that target.

The targets usually represent animals, either as 2D paper faces, or 3D rubber models – they can be anything from pheasants or rabbits, to crocodiles and hyenas, or even dinosaurs. Each target has three different scoring zones: the better the scoring zone, combined with the distance from the peg gives you a resultant score.

Unlike target archery where all the shots are roughly the same except for the distance, field archery uses lots of different targets placed at unmarked distances (some very close, some a long way away); they can also be angled up or down depending on the terrain.

Our course can have up to 25 different targets, all varied and challenging. These include shots where you have to get on one knee to shoot, flying birds (or guitars) on zip lines and a very unusual shot through a tunnel.

This variation goes to make field archery a great, fun way to spend a morning.