Tag Archives: arrow

Aug 20 2026

Episode 153 – Shoot Report – Paget de Vesey

Welcome to another episode of the podcast and to another shoot report. This time is it for Paget de Vesey shoot, held a couple of weeks ago.

I have a soft spot for Paget shoots as the club hosted the first NFAS shoot I ever attended al those years ago.

Due to Paget de Vasey clubs site being quite small, approximately 2 acres they host a twice round 20 course, where you shoot 3Ds the first time round and then paper faces the second.

I feel this is quite a good idea in many ways as it avoids the club having to put double pegs out and is quite easy to manage for marshals and archers. On that point of marshalling I have to say I thought theirs were excellent. There were plenty of them wondering round and all friendly. They were also very friendly and open when I raised a concern about one shot, where I could hear voices from behind a large holly bush and was concerned the group in front hadn’t cleared the shooting lane. As it was the shot was perfectly safe and they handled my concerns quickly and professionally. Top marks guys.

As always the episode is available on both Spotify and Amazon music.

We were very lucky with the weather as it didn’t get stupidly warm until later in the day, which resulted in seats being moved in the shade. Hats off to the ladies in the catering hut as they must have been roasting in there all day. As it was Paget had provided able water for all archers to keep them hydrated in the heat.

Attendance was about 80 archers, with a few no shows.

There were some clearly laid shots and lots of effort on scene setting with a little pond for the 3D frog target, a tin bin for the racoon 3D to make it look as it was scavenging for food. The goose or large duck 3D and row of rubber ducks behind was also quite funny. One 3D I thought was really well set was the 3D bear as it as quite hard to judge the distance and height of the target.

They had 2 novelty shots, a moving target and robbo panda, where you only had 1 arrow at each. What was nice to see was that they changed the moving target from a 3D boar on the first loop to a smaller 3D badger if I recall correctly.

The robbo panda was a small metal. Yes you read that correctly, it’s a small metal panda, with a central hole. If you hit the metal you scored 16 points and a broken arrow, if you got the centre of the panda you scored 40 points.

There was an alternative target of a 3D squirrel or paper face squirrel if you preferred.

On the second time round you shot paper faces and they had tried to replicate the 3D shots with similar paper faces. This worked pretty well, though I think some targets were quite challenging. They had opted for non NFAS faces and modified some of the scoring zones to make them more forgiving.

Over all it felt a very relaxed shoot, flowing well with only one hold up on the second time round, which was at a long paper face bear shot.

Enjoy your archery.

Aug 4 2026

Episode 152 – Shoot Report – Briar Rose Field Archers

Welcome to episode 152 of the podcast where I give a view of how Briar Rose Field Archers NFAS shoot a couple of weekends ago. It’s a little different to normal shoot reports as this was a shoot I was helping organise and marshal.

As always the episode is available on both Spotify and Amazon music.

We were very lucky with the weather as it wasn’t as hot as it has been here in the UK over recent months. We are currently in our 4th heatwave of the year defined apparently by temperatures over 35 degrees centigrade. Having said that we still organised a couple of water stops round the 2 loops to make sure everyone was hydrated.

archers assemble during briefing
Archer briefing prior to start

Our attendees were slightly down on last years number, with 88 archers attending this year compared to over 100 last year. I think this was due to being the same weekend as the Welsh Championships. Sadly, the dates were out of our control as it was the only weekend our landowners agreed to.

Longbow archer shooting in the woodland at 3D target
Longbow shooting 3D target in woods

The course was 36 targets, with 28 3D targets, the rest being made up of mesh faces. We’d worked hard on trying to find the most suitable target faces or 3Ds for each shot and I think it worked well. There were a couple of shots that would prove a challenge, including the SRT boar 3D which would prove hard to spot depending on what time of day you arrived on the peg. In the morning it was in shade but illuminated quite well after 2pm.

Sighted compound archer shooting the tiger mesh target
Tiger shot from the wasp peg

The longest shot on the course was a mesh tiger face set at 62 yards from the Wasp, though several archers performed a trick Barns Wallis shot, when their arrows fell short and due to the dry hard ground bounced up and into the target.

Barebow archer shooting the mesh tiger face
Tiger from the reg peg

Again, this year we did our own catering and the team worked hard to offer a variety of food options, including vegan options. Apparently, the chilli I cooked went well, so I was happy with that. I’d cooked a beef chilli and vegan one, toning down the spice level a bit. There were of course a huge amount of cakes too as we have learnt over the years archers love their cake.

As before we set out wasp pegs on all 36 shots, which we asked the sighted compound and sighted crossbow archers to shoot from. This is slightly different to normal NFAS rules as normally freestyle shoot from such pegs too. We also had the chronograph set up to check bow speeds. NFAS sets a limit of 300 feet per second with a 3% tolerance.

Warm up on the practise area

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Overall, I think it went fairly well, with only a few hold ups through the day. We did have a couple of hiccups on the day though, including a power cut (thankfully just after the breakfast rush). Another was when a 3D was brought in before all archers had had the opportunity to shoot it.

Marshalling team post briefing

Lots of work went on before the shoot with many club members getting involved clearing paths, setting shots, including our junior members going round checking the settings of our yellow and orange pegs. I have to say how proud I was of the contribution from club members. For a small club of just over 30 members we had over 20 helping on the day.

The Wildcrete feral goat caused a few issues again with the replacement horns breaking due to arrow damage, also the Wildcrete cane toad seemed to be impervious to some lower poundage bows this year.

Full results from the shoot can be found on the Briar Rose website along with a huge collection of photos https://briarrosefieldarchers.wordpress.com/

Over all it felt a very relaxed shoot, flowing well with only a very few hold ups. There are a few things we need to work on for next years shoot. We’d like to change the ratio of shots on the upper loop 1-18 to give a few more medium length shots of 15-25 yards.

Next year will mark the clubs 10th anniversary.

I’d like to say a huge thank you for the support. The club really pulled together this year with so many members contributing. Thanks. Enjoy your archery.

Jul 3 2026

Episode 151 – Shoot Report – Thornbury Archers – June 2026

Welcome to the 151th episode, which is mainly focused on the Thornbury shoot over the weekend, but there are a couple of other things too.

Firstly, in the podcast I mentioned we still have places for the Briar Rose Field Archers NFAS shoot this month on the 19th of July, open to all NFAS archers and styles. Details can be found on the Briar Rose website.

Tips on field and 3D archery

Secondly, I have had a request from a follower to provide advice on shooting field and 3D courses. I’ve created a couple of videos, available on my YouTube channel as quick guides and I hope to create a few more in the upcoming weeks.

If you enjoy this content I’m producing on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@offthearrowshelf), then drop us a review, hit the like button or consider following / subscribing.

Now on to the shoot report. First off the links to podcast episode available on amazon music or spotify.

Shoot report

Thornbury is a relatively easy drive for us being about an hour down the motorway towards Bristol. If you are interest you can read a shoot report from a previous visit.

We were very fortunate with the weather only having a couple of light showers on the trip down. Thankfully the heatwave the UK has been encountering had broken so temperatures were comfortable.

The day would flow well with no hold ups, impressive when you consider there was just over 100 archers.

It’s obvious Thornbury had put a lot of effort into celebrating the 50th anniversary, with new 3Ds including a huge dinosaur in the form of T-rex, complete with a giant champaign bottle. Yes, I did say champaign bottle.

 I think there were a couple of shots that I really liked. The T-rex was unique and reminded me greatly of Kong at Wolverine shoots. It was a long way even for the junior pegs, but set well and offered a real challenge.

The other shot I liked was one of the novelty shots, which was a fan shot. Thornbury had used a similar one previously, but this year rather than the archer having to stroll between shooting pegs, they would take all 3 shots at the 3 targets from the same peg. This had to be done within 1 minute.

The key thing I realised was the necessity to adjust my stance and body position for each shot. To add to the shot they had positioned the peg at the top of a small gully, with you shooting down into it for the first target a 3d otter, the second was part way up the bank and was a 3D beaver. The last was a 3D bear lounging on a log across the gully. Nothing was particularly long but technical and under a time limit. Each arrow was scored as a first , second and third so 24/20/16 for first arrow, 14/10 for second and 8/4 for third. A max of 36 points

Fan shot

Speaking of novelty shots there five in total, one being the fan shot. Three predator prey shots, one tube shot where you shot one arrow down one of 3 tubes. Scoring either 24,20 or 16 points if successful.

Personally, I felt 3 predator preys were more than they needed, especially with the way they scored them with the possibility of scoring 48 points as if you hit the Predator with first arrow, then your second arrow you would shoot at the prey but scores as though a first arrow, meaning you could score a 24 on the predator and then a 24 on the prey.

There were several other good shots, worth mentioning such as the grizzly bear which was face on, the close snake which was face on. The ram coming up the bank and boar uphill are others worth mentioning.

Thornbury has 3 towers on their course and there is one very tall tower. This year the 3D target would be a standing black bear at over 40 yards. Sadly, there was no junior closer target so our 9-year-old would end up shooting at the same target. A real challenge for his light low draw weight compound and arrows. Sadly, he didn’t get it though did give it his best with one arrow deflecting off the branches.

I know they had increased the distances on many of the junior and adult pegs, though I feel some of the junior pegs could have been a bit closer.

I really liked the fact every shot had a Wasp peg and some of them looked very tricky, making the archer think carefully of their alignment.

I definitely struggled in the latter stages though, with some poor releases. I think this was down to fatigue from the previous days work down at the wood.

Overall, I feel it was a good shoot with a good atmosphere and challenging shots. Thanks guys and heres’ to the next 50 years.

If you have any questions or queries you can drop me an email on or via the website. 

Thanks for reading and listening, enjoy your archery.