Getting started

Kersh · 07-05-2004 1:09pm #1

Can anyone give me some info on getting staarted in Archery. Where to get gear, what is the best gear, etc. Thanks.

Renegade_Archer · 07-05-2004 4:07pm

First and foremost, I cannot stress enough that it is officially a Good Idea(tm) to join a club - not only wil you then get proper coaching from the beginning, you will have somewhere safe and insured to practise, and there are people there who can give you advice on what archery gear suits you.

A list of archery clubs in Ireland can be found here:

http://www.archery.ie/clubs/clubs.htm

If you want to look at archery gear, I find the two best in terms of price are Alternative Sporting Services and BowSports

The club will probably have gear you can use for your first few sessions so you can get a feel for the sport and see if you like it - no point in blowing a few hundred euro on the sport only to realise you dont like it.

If youre in school, there is also the inter-schools archery league, their homepage is http://www.iol.ie/~ssac/
or if you are in university you can shoot for your university - nearly every major college has a club, apart from Trinity.

oscarBravo · 07-05-2004 4:12pm

Stickied. It's a FAQ, and Ewan's answer is a good start to it. If anyone else has n00b advice, throw it in here. At some point we might tidy it all up and make a proper FAQ thread.

21-12-2004 11:55am

The link to the clubs is broken.

halenger · 24-12-2004 5:38pm

Fixed.

RedBranchKnight · 21-01-2005 8:22pm

As I am now officially retired from the daily grind I am looking round for a sport/relaxion to get myself reasonably fit again.
So far I am contemplating (lawn) bowls, ten pin bowling and archery.
My wife, Mrs Red Branch Knight refuses to countenance me playing bowls as it is a "sport for old men" and me playing it might by association make her look "old".
I did briefly join a club about 20 years ago but never followed through
John

trig · 22-01-2005 12:30am

A lot of the older archers tend to shoot compound bows. Its not just older crowd, but most of the older crowd do. Compound bows are physically less demanding then recurve (olympic style) bows as there are cams on the end of one or both limbs that give a mechanical advantage. Also they have a magnifying sight and a few other bits and bobs to make life easier. The downside is that they tend to be more expensive.

Its probably a good idea to find your nearest club and ask a compound archer what they would recommend. Even better, see if there's any older members there and ask for their advice.

Any club should have basic recurve bows that you can try too so that'll give you an idea of the way to go. Archery is an expensive sport to set up in so I can't stress enough how important it is to try it out first and see if you enjoy it before shelling out for equipment. If you do decide to buy anything, again ask at the club and they'll tell you how much to spend and on what instead of spending more then you need.

trig · 22-01-2005 12:39am

Just noticed you have Armagh as your location RedBranchKnight. In that case you might find something closer here. Thats the link for clubs up North. The link in the previous post was for clubs in the Republic. No crossborder bodies in Archery I'm afraid..... Or not until Paisley gets his photos anyway, but thats a whole other discussion :rolleyes:

RedBranchKnight · 22-01-2005 3:28am

Thanks for the advice all...much appreciated. There is a club based at a Sports Centre within 5 miles of me and seemingly an archery equipment outlet about 7 miles from me.
Although there are two Archery governing bodies on the island, people up here are entitled to "claim" either nationality so its really no big deal about clubs.

Besides I cant see that I will make so much progress before the next Olympics to really worry about it. From Beginner to Olympic contender in 3 years and at approaching 60 with dodgy knees is impossible...but I do have a 2 year old grandson but I see him shaping up as the next Damian Duff or Roy Keane. .

John

Griffon · 15-06-2005 6:30pm

I enjoy archery and have done it a good few times but never seem to get any better lol

MuchSavage · 15-07-2005 12:56pm

u have to keep at it, practise makes perfect..... i've been doing it for near 2 years and still haven't gotten any better, well have improved a bit, but that's because i had good advise from collegues who have been at it for years.....

u have to have patience, and don't give in when u can't do it propberly....just practise and take ur time..... (Pity can't take own advise!!!)

I have a habit of letting it get to me when i'm not shooting well, and things go from bad to worse, u'll have to over come that too......

ccd · 20-09-2005 1:32pm

The link is broken

oscarBravo · 20-09-2005 9:25pm

There are six links in this thread. Which one is broken?

ccd · 21-09-2005 4:47pm

Mea Culpa. Its the first one

MicS · 21-09-2005 5:26pm

Anyway, that's a simple change. List of clubs is here: http://www.archery.ie/clubs/clubs.htm
IAAA home page http://www.archery.ie/

oscarBravo · 21-09-2005 8:20pm

Fixed, ta.

admiralofthefleet · 29-11-2006 7:00am

i used to do the odd bit of archery in drewstown house when i was in my teens, is it expensive to get back into it. i see john bailey is still doing it there

Redjeep! · 29-11-2006 9:18pm

There's still a club there. Meet every Tuesday night.

Ran by Jim & Pauline Conroy

doogle deegan · 30-11-2006 1:36am

There is also Summerhill, which is a few miles from Trim. They shoot indoors on Sunday nights/evenings and outdoors (usually from March onwards) on Wednesdays and Sundays (with the possibility of other days aswell)

TelePaul · 01-01-2007 8:06pm

Join a club...being a back garden archer is NOT a good idea, I learnt the hard way.

Catarcher · 03-01-2007 10:04pm

ASI are as competitive and have really good stock levels of most items, I found them as Cheap as Altservices and bowsports, maybe fractionally dearer in some cases but no shipping costs to pay and also if you have trouble or faults with the goods you can bash on Keith Hanlon's door

or hassle him at shoots or training.

Conchubhair · 16-03-2007 8:39pm

Hey, I'm looking to start archery. I'm living in west-Dublin.
Does anybody know some clubs near-by that have Junior's / Beginners courses....sometime in the summer ?

mr potato head · 17-03-2007 2:26am

Where in west dublin? Lexlip would probably be the closest you might get if its the Dublin 15 area... Or Inchicore in D8.
The list on Archery.ie shows all the current clubs.

Conchubhair · 17-03-2007 9:28pm

I was thinking those 2 might be best....

kuroino · 08-05-2007 3:15pm

Thinking of trying target archery, but not sure where to start. Basically, I want to go to some indoors/outdoors archery range and give it a try, preferrably with a guideance of some sort and without getting into buying equipment from the start.

I live in Clonsilla-Clonee area of Blanch, Dublin and work beside Dublin port, so either one or another location would be good for me, as well as other locations on the way (along North Circular rd or further to the north from it).

Another question is following: it seems to me that archery clubs normally train 1-2 evenings a week. Does it mean that being a member of such clubs you are limited to these days or are there any other oportunities to train (apart from the back graden one, that is rightly rejected in some posts above)? It's not like I am planning to train more, it just that I may not have the same evenings free every week.

Thank you

Loveless · 25-06-2007 5:48pm

TelePaul wrote:

Join a club...being a back garden archer is NOT a good idea, I learnt the hard way.

Can you expand on the above statement a bit? ..as I practice in the back garden most evenings, but am a member of a club.

Renegade_Archer · 25-06-2007 6:33pm

Many dangers to shooting in your back garden:

If you live in an estate or have neighbours, you naturally run the risk of spearing someone, with the associated criminal and civil liability that would result. In contrast, if shooting at an IAAA-approved range, if you spear someone, your insurance as an IAAA member will cover at least the civil part of the liability (if memory serves, anyone from the IAAA care to comment?)

Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was on the Junior EuroNations team, a team-mate used to practise in his back-garden; he goosed a shot, and one of his arrows rebounded off a wall and landed in his neighbour's garden; whilst the velocity of the arrow was minimal, the neighbour called the cops, and my team-mate had some explaining to do...

In general, there is more hard stuff in a back garden to wreck your arrows if you were to miss the target.

In my case, I shoot from the back of my garden into my house - if I were to have a high shot, I'd probably perforate my fridge and be down an ACE:

But in the end, the biggest problem is liability.

alfresco · 28-11-2008 12:35am

Renegade_Archer wrote: »

First and foremost, I cannot stress enough that it is officially a Good Idea(tm) to join a club - not only wil you then get proper coaching from the beginning, you will have somewhere safe and insured to practise, and there are people there who can give you advice on what archery gear suits you.

A list of archery clubs in Ireland can be found here:

http://www.archery.ie/clubs/clubs.htm

If you want to look at archery gear, I find the two best in terms of price are Alternative Sporting Services and BowSports

The club will probably have gear you can use for your first few sessions so you can get a feel for the sport and see if you like it - no point in blowing a few hundred euro on the sport only to realise you dont like it.

If youre in school, there is also the inter-schools archery league, their homepage is http://www.iol.ie/~ssac/
or if you are in university you can shoot for your university - nearly every major college has a club, apart from Trinity.

At the moment Bowsports.com are selling the Bowtech Commander and Guardian for £329 each including target colours.

Thats under 400 euro including delivery! Best value ever.

jozi · 01-04-2009 7:38pm

fathers birthday is coming up soon and we are thinking about getting him setup to strart shooting. I've not much knowledge about archery, maybe someone can help us allong?

Bit of background first I guess.

Dad used to do target shooting when we lived in Holland, 12m kneeling at an indoor range. He had all the gear but sold it when we moved to Ireland, lack of clubs here. From what I remember mam telling me he always wanted to do archery but there where no clubs nearby at the time and rifle shooting was the next best thing. Kept him busy for just over 30 years so he must have enjoyed it

Had a look at the archery.ie site and offcourse there are no clubs (listed) near Cavan. we had a day of shooting a few years ago, in Kildare I think, which he enjoyed. Can't remember if he preffered compound or recurve.

From looking at the sites mentioned in previous posts, prices go from much cheaper than I expected to very expensive. Where do I start? There's a few 2nd hand bows in the for-sale thread of which I have no idea how good/bad or suitable they maybe.

Look forward to some advice

Jozi

eddie1690 · 02-04-2009 1:36am

where in cavan? there are clubs near kells and ardee

jozi · 02-04-2009 10:48am

About 5mins outside of Cavan town

Getting started

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