South Wilts Archery Club is based in Salisbury and covers South Wiltshire and the surrounding area. It is one of the oldest clubs in the country having been founded in
1859 and offers target, field, clout and wand archery. We have approximately 200 members shooting a range of bow styles from the high-tech Compound to the traditional English Longbow.
SWAC members can find current scores for the season, club records, classified adverts and further info on news and events on the members pages.
Check your membership pack or email the webmaster for access details.
Field Archery involves shooting at targets set out along a course, normally in the woods. SWAC Field Archery follows the National Field Archery Society (NFAS) rules of shooting. This involves following a pre-laid course and shooting at targets set at an unknown distance. One of the main draws of NFAS field archery is that the distances are not set - you have to judge for yourself how far you are away from each target, then shoot! The targets are can be either 'faces' (pictures) or 3-D model animals or target faces depending on round being shot. Courses will normally have either 20, 36 or 40 targets. Further details can be found on the NFAS website.
Field Archery committee members:
Brett Field (Field Officer),
Denise Field (Field Tournament Organiser)
Targets and Scoring
The idea is to shoot at the target from a peg set at an unknown distance away from the target. If you miss the target you will then have to move forwards onto the next peg. If you fail to hit the target again, you then must shoot from a third peg closer to the target. If you miss this time then you will not score (known as blanking a target).
On each 'face' target you will have a two zones to aim at which is also marked out on the face - a centre hit zone (this does have a much smaller bulls eye zone within it) and a secondary hit zone. With a 3-D target you will also have a zone to aim at. Your score on each target will depend on which arrow hits which zone will.
The usual scoring system for a 'Big Game' round is as follows:
Arrow. Centre Hit Zone Secondary Hit Zone.
First 20 16
Second 14 10
Third 8 4
So you can see that with the scoring it is better to hit the secondary zone with your first arrow than it is to hit the centre zone with your second. In some shoots a score of '24' can be awarded if an archer hits the 'bulls eye' smaller zone inside the Centre Zone
Bow Styles:
There are many styles of shooting that are allowed under NFAS (National Field Archery Society) ruling. The complete list of bow styles are:
Freestyle Recurve bow with metal arrows, sight and full stabilisers
Barebow Recurve bow with metal arrows, no sight, single stabiliser
Hunting Tackle Recurve bow with wooden arrows, no sight, no stabilisers
Longbow Longbow with wooden arrows, no sight
American Flatbow Flat bow with wooden arrows, no sight
Traditional Bowhunter Recurve bow without sights, arrows of any non-wooden type with feathers shot off the shelf
Primitive Bow and arrows made from natural materials, no sight
Crossbow Crossbow with sight and metal bolts
Bowhunter Compound bow with no sight, limited stabilisers
Compound Limited Compound bow with pin sight
Unlimited Compound bow with full scope sight
The Pegs:
In front of each target will usually be five or six pegs laid out in the following order:
1) Wasp / banded Peg (not used at all clubs) 2) Red Peg 3) White Peg
4) Blue Peg 5) Yellow peg 6) Orange Peg
A compound archer will shoot off the banded peg (if used) first followed by the red and white. All other bow styles will start from the red peg followed by the blue and white. Juniors and Cubs will shoot off the white, blue, yellow and orange pegs according to their age group.
Winter Field Champs (Big Game Round)
20 target course set at unknown distances on 7 dates from October to April (see the Field Champs listing in the members section for upcoming dates). Your two highest scores are added together to form a combined ranking for the competition.