Stickbow Target Archery Forums

Here is South Carolina our club is interested in starting field archery. Anyone have any ideas on how to get people interested. I and others like to shoot at long distances (more like fling and hunt for them for me). We have the range to shoot 28 walk-around targets and a butt range out to 60 yds, Any ideas you can give us on how to start.

Because field archery is so cheap (just the cost of paper targets) you could start out by allowing people to shoot free for a period of time. That's what I did. While field archery can be intimidating at first with 80yrd walk-ups, you might start with something less challenging. If you cound get a 65yrd shot on your butt range, try an International Round, and offer it for free. Or try offering the Field/Hunter Animal Round; it might get some compound 3D shooters interested. Keep the cost low. Make sure you have extra large backstops to prevent arrow loss, especially by the stickbow shooters. Count on the first year being disappointing. But figure that the first year it sleeps; the second year it creeps; and the third year it will grow by leaps. That was my experience. After an absence of over 10 years, we started up a field/hunter league three years ago. It's been successful enough that this year we invested $1500 in new butts.

I second Jack's recommendations re: large backstops, especially for the long range targets.

Alternatives I have seen to big butts:
Put 'wings' of carpet or similar material on the sides of the butts to catch stray arrows. They don't have to be that strong -- compounders won't need them (they can pretty much stay on the butt), so the only thing they need to stop is the occasional flier from a relatively slow stick bow
A soft landing spot around the long range targets is also reassuring.

KB,n
I tried for 14 months to get a monthly field shoot started and finally gave up. Floxter's 3 year plan sounds good but there has to be some attendance for even that to succeed. The last two months I was to have a match I waited in the parking lot for over an hour and no one showed up. The two months before only one guy shot with me, a compounder. Never had a single trad shooter even try it.

I wish you all the luck in the world. If you find a way to get it going please post what worked here as I still would like to see it on a regular basis in my area.

Dave

Sorry to hear that Dave T, hopefully it will work here. Some of my fondest meories of archery are shooting the field range at D-M AFB in Tucson many years ago.