by Rob | February 10th, 2011
I’ve mentioned previously that I shoot occasionally with a gentleman named Roy, who mostly shoots longbow. Shooting with him last night, Roy was using groundmarkers – something I haven’t seen for a while.
There’s often a bit of confusion if you shoot longbow regarding what sighting aids you can use, and as often seems to be the case, it depends what competitions you intend to shoot at.
I asked Roy about this, and he put it in an easy – and memorable way. If the round you’re shooting has sighters; chances are it will be a GNAS round. If it has no sighters, but half an hour or so of ‘practice’ beforehand, it’s a FITA round. If you are shooting a FITA round, no sighting aids are allowed.
If your round is a GNAS round however, you have three options.
- Marks on the bow limb
- Rubber bands, not more than 1/8” depth and thickness
- Groundmarks – artificial points of aim on the ground, set between the shooting line and the target. Groundmarks cannot be more than 6 inches high, 3 inches wide, and obviously they cannot impede another archer.
Roy would periodically nudge his groundmark with his toe as we went to collect arrows. Personally I’ve never shot using groundmarks, but I have the feeling they require a degree of patience, as well as skill in setting them out in the same position every time.
I think of the three, my preference would be the elastic band. Marks are okay, as long as you can adjust them easily as you change distance, and as long as they don’t permanently mark your bow! Ideally try and get a red postal band; they’re small enough to be within the rules, and being red makes them stand out from your bow for more instinctive aiming.
Of course, there are more archery governing bodies around depending on your location, that all have their own variations of these rules. If you’re after a good starting point, this site has a good documentation of the different rules across countries.
Happy shooting!
