Tag Archives: archers

Sep 19 2019

How a couple of strips of tape can help your archery?

What you need is a length of card board about 3 foot 6 inches in length and about six inches wide. This may sound a little Blue Peter but it does work. (For anyone who was not raised in the UK, Blue Peter is a long running TV program famous for making stuff with double sided sticky tape, especially in the early 70s and 80s).

3 colours of tape and card board

The idea is similar to the concept I shared the other week with using a bamboo pole to help distance.

My practice bosses as 3ft tall so by making the card 6 inches longer I can attach the card on top of the boss.
In my example I applied a strip of grey tape down the centre of the cardboard along its length.

Grey tape

I then added 6 inch strips of black tape alternating so you had a strip of black then a 6 inch gap showing grey.

Marking out 6 inch sections

The idea being to alternate black and grey so the archer can us it to aid distance and aiming. Some might want to use 4 inch sections but I keep it to 6 so it ties into the bamboo cane method.

White tape

The last thing is to apply a strip of white tape down the centre of the black and grey tape. Cheap masking tape works perfectly for this.
The white tape is what you will be shooting at. The coloured tape is there to aid in distance judgement and to act as a contrast.

Card on the boss

So how do you use this?

Fix the target to the boss and then at 5 yards shoot a set of arrows. I normally shoot 4 arrows in a set when I’m practicing.
I start at lower part of the boss, bottom 6 inches and try and get my arrows in a vertical line gradually moving up the boss and in the white tape.
When I’ve reached the top of the boss I repeat the exercise but moving down from the top of the boss.
The focus is on you being able to put your arrows in the white tape consistently.
When that’s done I move back to my next distance and repeat. I’ll usually do this to about 15 yards or so. Reapplying white tape when needed.
Past 20 yards I focus on my arrows being in the silver or back tape. The way I look at it is if I am in the tape at this distance I’m hoping I should be in the highest score zone when shooting on a course.
The technique is not that dissimilar to one my first archery coach used to use where they would dangle a coloured ribbon down the boss and aim for that.
If you really want to challenge yourself try replacing the white tape with string and ensure each of your arrows are touching it.

So why do this?

Not all scoring zones are central to the boss. If you look at different target faces or 3Ds the height off the ground varies. You might be shooting a deer 3D where the kills 24 inches or more off the ground. With the next target being a 3D crocodile where the highest scoring zones inches off the ground.
I recall one championship where the paper face ermine was on ground level about 8ft away.

Paper Ermin

So this technique helps you focus on keeping your line and adjusting for height.

It also aids you in bending at the waste, sometimes called tea-potting. If you recall the children’s nursery rhyme “I’m a little teapot” that is where it gets it name from.

By the way the keen eyed among you will notice the target doesn’t have the white tape on it. This is because I took the photograph and then realised I hadn’t applied the tape. So I went back and applied it so you had a photograph of what it should look like.

Thanks for reading.

Aug 12 2019

Inaugural Open Shoot

Here is a link to the clubs inaugural shoot report.

https://wp.me/p8jVbL-5H

Jun 24 2019

Summer archery and a darker side too

Summer is a great time for archery, lots of outdoor shoots, weekends away for two day competitions and lots more. I love 2 day competitions, camping for a few days and conversations into the night round the campfire.

Children have long holidays away from school with lots to do.
Sadly there is a flip side to this for some.
Not everyone is willing to undertake fun activities that aren’t detrimental to others.
There is an old saying “the devil makes work for ideal hands“
With the start of holidays many archery clubs see a rise in thefts and vandalism.
Just last week we found signs of illegal camping and abandoned campire, with exploded gas canisters.

Sadly we also had a couple of target bosses vandalised with the banding cut in several places and foam ripped out.

This is quite minor compared to other clubs experiences but is still demoralising and repairing costs time and money.

So what can we do?

  • We can all keep an eye out for suspicious characters at our clubs or woods.
  • Cultivate links with other local clubs and groups, so you can share news and alerts.
  • We can be careful how we promote the clubs locations on public websites.
  • Securing the huts, sheds etc seems like common sense, but having been a victim of thieves I know that simply putting a lock on the door is not always enough. When we were last broken into they got past the lock and quality padlock by forcing panels out of the door.
  • Think about marking your equipment with club name, or branding the 3Ds with club name is something I know a few clubs have done. You could invest in smart water option too for the more expensive items.
  • If we see deals that appear too good to be true on sites like eBay or offered locally, be suspicious.
  • I know some clubs have invested in security systems, whether these be alarms or cameras. Inexpensive trail cameras, the sort used for wildlife monitoring can prove an effective way of monitoring who actually visits your woodland. If you do use these, I think you have to post signs stating CCTV is in use, but not all clubs are allowed to dependent on who else uses site.
If you have any other suggestions why not share them.
Here’s hoping everyone has a great summer of shooting.
Thanks for reading.