In field archery you are on your feet walking a course from 10am until 4-5 pm or longer sometimes. This means you often have to carry not only your equipment (bow arrows and quiver) with you, I mean all the other stuff. Depending on what the terrain is like you could be on flat ground or going up and down hills all day, so carrying lots of kit can be very tiring.
Some archers travel light others carry everything but a kitchen sink.
Guess I am somewhere in between, on a normal shoot or when practising at the wood (see picture above) besides bow and arrows in my quiver I tend to carry a tube of spare arrows on my back. Whilst it’s not a Batman utility belt I do carry a small first aid kit, for bites, scratches plasters etc, though it has been used on many occasions for patching up other archers who have decided to try and chop their finger off whilst extracting arrows from tree stumps or have sliced it open when a carbon arrow has snapped.
Add to this a water bottle or mini thermos flask if it is cold, whistle for emergency signally which is on a retractable key ring along with an arrow puller (very useful for giving you a better grip on arrows when drawing them from a 3D or target boss), a multi-tool and an arrow rake in my quiver for finding those arrows lost in the undergrowth. I often carry some snacks in the quiver pouch (the main bag for drinks and sandwiches is normally left at central spot) and a spare finger tab etc.
If the weather isn’t great I carry a small pac-a-mac that I can put on to keep me dry.
Unlike some other archers I don’t carry a knife to dig arrows out of trees or stumps; I find an old flat headed screwdriver works just as well. It also means I’m less likely to cut off one of my fingers when extracting the wayward arrow from some tree that moved across the target as I release (always amazes me how many trees seem to move in to protect a target when I’m shooting)
I know a few people laugh at how much I carry but others have been grateful when I been able to lend then a finger tab, patched them up after cutting themselves or got the pliers out to retrieve a wayward pile from tree stump.
So what do you carry when out shooting?
To round it off I’ll have a metal detector in car, along with a kit box for spare strings etc
I quite like the small backpack that can double as a seat which I’ve seen appearing at shoots, but know I would forget to pick it up. Thanks for reading
