Having Fun Making Arrow And Practice Archery While Camping
By David Z, Mon Dec 5th

Next time when you go out camping, try to play with archery. Itis fun-filled activity and can give you great way forentertainment and sense of accomplishment.

Read further to find intructions on how to prepare the target,making arrows and techniques.

The Target -

A target can be made of a burlap sack, or oil cloth, about fivefeet square. Stuff this with hay or straw.

It may be flattened by a few quilting stitches put right throughwith a long packing needle. On this the target is painted.

In scoring, the centre is 9, the next circle 7, the next 5, thenext 3 and the last circle 1. The shortest match range for thetarget is forty yards.

Making Arrows -

Arrows are divided into three parts: the head, sometimes calledthe pile, the shaft and the feathers.

For target, practice a wire nail driven into the end of the pilewith the head of the nail filed off and pointed, makes anexcellent head.

The shaft is generally made of hickory, ash, elm or pine, andits length is dependent upon that of the bow. For a five-footbow, make the length two feet and the width and thickness aboutone-half inch.

Feathering is the next operation. Turkey and goose feathers aregenerally used.

Strip off the broader side of the vane of three feathers andglue them to the shaft one inch and a quarter from the notch,spacing them equally from each other.

One feather should be placed at right angles to the

notch. Thisis known as the cock feather and should always point away fromthe bow when the arrow is shot.

Archery -

The rules for the five essential points are these:

1. Standing:

In taking position to draw the bow, the heels must be seven toeight inches apart, feet firm on the ground, yet easy andspringy, not rigid.

2. Nocking:

This is manipulating the bow string. Hold the string with twofingers and the arrow between the first and second fingers. Gripfirmly, but not so as to give awkwardness to any finger.

3. Drawing:

In drawing stand with the left shoulder toward the target,turning the head only from the neck and looking over the leftshoulder.

Then raise the bow with the left hand, keeping the upper endinclined one or two degrees from the body. With the right handdraw the arrow to chin-level and below the ear.

4. Holding:

Steady the aim a moment and keep the point of aim directly inview, looking along the whole length of the arrow.

5. Loosing:

In letting the arrow go, do not jerk, but loose smoothly, and becertain your bow arm does not move when loosing. To get a clean,sharp loose is more than half way to hitting the target.

Happy camping!

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