Field archery is archery on the move. Instead of standing on one shooting line in front of a row of bosses, you follow a marked course through woodland or varied ground, and along the course you find the targets, each with one or more bosses and its own shooting pegs. The rules depend on the federation. Under World Archery rules a full round has 24 targets with three arrows at each, shot at round faces; under IFAA rules the main rounds have 28 targets with four arrows at each; in FIARC's national competitions you shoot at animal targets, always at unmarked distances. In all three you go round in small groups, and at every target you score and collect your arrows before moving on to the next. Getting started works the same way as in target archery: a club that shoots field, a beginners' course with an instructor, and membership of the federation the club belongs to.
The rules described here come from the official rulebooks, listed with their dates at the foot of the page. Federations update them often, and before a competition the latest published version is the one that counts.
The course and the targets
A field course is built to make use of the ground. The World Archery rules ask for the targets to be laid out for the greatest possible variety, and set the maximum difference in height between the highest and lowest points of a course at 100 metres. You shoot uphill and downhill, across clearings and between trees, and every target asks you to read the shot afresh: the slope, the light, where to put your feet.
At World Archery events archers go round in groups of three or four, shooting in pairs. Targets are numbered from 1 to 24, and the number board stands 5 to 10 metres before the pegs, where the group waits its turn. At the peg you may stand or kneel, within about a metre of it, and nobody goes forward to the target until the whole group has finished shooting. In the qualification round the time limit is 180 seconds, and a judge times it when an archer or a group is holding up the course. The colour of the peg tells each archer where to shoot from: under World Archery rules red is for recurve and compound, blue for barebow and under-18 recurve and compound, and yellow for under-18 barebow. Traditional, from the blue peg, and longbow, from the yellow, appear only on recreational rounds, because World Archery runs their official events in 3D. FITARCO, the Italian federation, uses the same colours, with a few additions for its youth classes and one change that matters to traditional archers: since 1 January 2026, in its calendar competitions, the instinctive bow shoots from the yellow peg rather than the blue.
In FIARC the course follows the same logic, but field archery takes the form of shooting at animal targets: each target simulates a hunting situation, with animal figures printed on paper or made in three dimensions. Every target has a board showing its number, the pegs, the targets and the shooting order, and archers go round in groups of three to six, led by a group leader who scores the arrows; the rules require that a group is not made up entirely of archers from the same compagnia, as FIARC calls its clubs. The shooting pegs are yellow, while the Cuccioli, the youngest archers, have a red peg closer to the target, and on the larger targets there is a blue one for the Scout class: compared with World Archery, where red is the farthest peg, the colours run the other way round. The course also brings tests that target archery does not have, namely kneeling shots, raised platforms or tree stands, moving targets on a trolley and timed targets, where the arrows must be shot within 30 seconds of the start signal. The time limit applies to the historical bow, longbow and recurve categories; the other categories, and all Cuccioli, shoot those targets in the normal way. Every set of arrows still has a maximum time, which starts when the archer passes the target board: one minute for one arrow, two for two, three for three.
In the IFAA archers shoot in groups of three to six, normally four, in pairs side by side: three or four on marked-distance rounds, three to six on unmarked ones. Each round has its own peg colour, white for the field round, red for the hunter round and yellow for the animal and 3D rounds, with blue for juniors when they do not shoot from the adult peg and black for the youngest archers, the cubs. Here too nobody goes forward to the target until the whole group has shot.
The target face and scoring
The World Archery field face is different from the target archery face: it has a yellow centre split into two zones, scoring 6 and 5, surrounded by four black rings of equal width (teal is also allowed, and is compulsory at World and Continental Championships), scoring 4 to 1. Faces come in four sizes, 20, 40, 60 and 80 cm across, and the smaller ones are set out in groups on the same boss: four 40 cm faces, one for each archer, or twelve 20 cm faces in four columns of three, where each archer shoots one arrow at every face in their column. Over 24 targets and 72 arrows the maximum score is therefore 432.
IFAA faces also come in four sizes, 20, 35, 50 and 65 cm, but they have only three zones: the centre, or spot, scores 5, the inner ring 4 and the outer ring 3. On the field face the spot is black, the inner ring white and the outer ring black; the hunter face is all black with a white spot. Over 28 targets and 112 arrows the maximum is 560, and anyone who scores it at an IFAA-sanctioned tournament is eligible for the 560 Perfect Club, a register the IFAA keeps for the purpose. On the animal rounds scoring works differently: you shoot up to three arrows and stop at the first one that hits, and the first arrow scores 20 in the central zone and 18 on the rest of the animal, the second 16 and 14, the third 12 and 10. On the two 3D rounds you shoot one arrow from each peg instead, at targets divided into three zones: on the one-arrow round the central zone scores 20, the zone around it 16 and the rest of the animal 10, while on the two-arrow round, where both arrows count, the same zones score 10, 8 and 5.
FIARC targets have three scoring zones: the animal itself, the spot inside it and, within the spot, a smaller circle called the super spot. Targets are divided into four groups by the size of the spot, from group 1, the largest, to group 4, and if a paper target lacks a super spot, one must be drawn, 110 mm across in group 1 and 35 mm in group 4. The score depends on the zone hit and, when more than one arrow is shot at a target, on the order of the arrow: the first is worth most, and since multiple pegs are shot moving closer to the target, the first arrow is also the one shot from farthest away. The Sports Regulation provides for four competitions, summarised in the table.
| FIARC competition | Targets and arrows | Maximum distance | Scoring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battuta | 28 targets and 48 animals, one arrow per animal: single animals, moving targets, herds of three and timed groups of three. | 40 metres for groups 1 and 2, 30 for group 3, 20 for group 4. | Super spot 13, spot 11, animal 7. |
| Percorso | 24 targets, three arrows from three distances, 72 in all; all three count. | As in the Battuta. | Super spot 11, 9 and 7 for the first, second and third arrow; spot 9, 7 and 5; animal 6, 4 and 2. |
| Tracciato | 24 targets, up to three arrows from three distances; only the first arrow to score counts. | 55 metres for group 1, 40 for group 2, 30 for group 3, 20 for group 4. | Super spot 22, 16 and 10; spot 20, 14 and 8; animal 16, 10 and 4. |
| Round 3D | 24 targets, two arrows from two distances, three-dimensional targets only. | 35 metres for all groups. | Super spot 16 and 9; spot 14 and 7; animal 10 and 5. |
On three-dimensional targets FIARC and the IFAA treat the parts that are not the animal in the same way: an arrow in the base, the stand or the horns does not score.
Marked and unmarked distances
Under World Archery rules a course is built in units of twelve targets. In a marked unit the distance is written on the peg and grows with the size of the face: from the red peg, for example, the 20 cm faces stand at 10, 15 and 20 metres and the 80 cm faces at 50, 55 and 60. In an unmarked unit the peg tells you nothing, and the rules set only a range for each face size, the one shown in the figure: from the red peg an 80 cm face can be anywhere between 35 and 55 metres, from the blue between 30 and 45, from the yellow between 20 and 35. A round can be all marked, all unmarked or half and half, and when the qualification at a World Archery event includes one unmarked and one marked round, the unmarked round is shot on the first day.
In the IFAA the two belong to different rounds. On the field and hunter rounds the distance is shown on every peg, and on the field round it runs from 20 feet, about 6 metres, on the 20 cm face, to 80 yards, about 73 metres, on the 65 cm face. The animal rounds come in two versions, marked and unmarked, and on both, as on the 3D rounds, the largest target stands no more than 60 yards, about 55 metres, from the adult peg. In FIARC, by contrast, every shot is at an unmarked distance: the maximum distances in the table are measured from the first peg, with a tolerance of 5%, and nobody may shoot on the competition course before the event.
On an unmarked course the archer judges the distance by eye, and the federations protect that judgement in similar ways. World Archery and FITARCO forbid rangefinders and any other aid for judging distance or slope, allow binoculars only if they carry no scales or marks that could be used to measure, and until the target has been scored nobody in the group may discuss distances. The IFAA allows hand-held optical devices, provided they cannot measure distances or angles and have been inspected before the competition, and does not allow a camera to be used as a rangefinder; a clarification issued on 1 June 2026 adds that in the sightless styles nothing may be held up towards the target to judge distance or to take an aiming reference, finger tab included. FIARC allows binoculars and spotting scopes only before or after your own set of arrows, bans from the course any instrument able to measure a distance, and also bans notes that could help judge one and passing on information about distances to other archers.
How far off people are when they judge a distance has been measured in a single study, of twenty-eight compound, recurve and traditional archers judging the distance of objects in open ground: the typical error grows with distance, and on the farthest object, at about 50 metres, it was between a third and more than half of the distance itself. In the registry judging error that grows with distance is reported, because it rests on that one descriptive study. How judging distance is trained, and what changes compared with target archery, is covered in the comparison between 3D and target archery.
Divisions, categories and styles: you can shoot without a sight
In World Archery field archery there are three divisions: recurve, compound and barebow. Recurve and compound are the target archery bows, with a sight; on unmarked courses, though, nothing on the sight may serve to judge distance, and the archer may carry only one sight mark for each distance. Barebow is a recurve with no sight and no stabilisers. Weights may be fitted, as long as the bow with everything on it passes through a 12.2 cm ring, and two techniques are allowed for adjusting to the distance: string walking, moving the fingers down the string below the nock, and face walking, changing the anchor point on the face.
FITARCO, the Italian member federation of World Archery, recognises Olympic recurve, barebow, compound and longbow in field archery, and, on an experimental basis, the instinctive bow, which its rules also call traditional. The instinctive bow has a riser of laminate or of a single piece of wood, an arrow rest that cannot be adjusted and no draw check, and allows a single fixed anchor or face walking, but not string walking. The longbow must have the traditional shape, be at least 150 cm long and shoot only wooden arrows with natural feathers, with neither string walking nor face walking. In every division without a sight the bow may carry no marks that could help aiming.
FIARC has eight categories, plus a Guests category, outside the rankings, for archers using equipment their own category does not allow. Five are shot without a sight. The historical bow may have a historical shape or another one, but it is made of materials like those of its period or of natural materials alone, with no synthetic parts, and so are its arrows; the longbow must show a single curve when strung and shoot wooden arrows with natural feathers; the recurve may be no longer than 64 inches and carries no stabiliser. In these three categories the hook and the anchor may not change during a competition and both eyes stay open, and with the longbow and the recurve the nock sits between the index and middle fingers. Barebow allows a stabiliser up to 12 inches long and weights on the grip, the archer may close one eye, and the hook and anchor may move vertically during a competition, which means string walking and face walking are allowed; in the Compound category the compound is shot without a sight, with the fingers. The three sighted categories are all compound: Stile Libero has a hunting sight with no more than five fixed pins and is shot with the fingers, Stile Libero Illimitato adds a release aid, and Freestyle allows any sighting system that is not electric or electronic. The age classes are Cuccioli, from 7 to 13, Scout up to 18, Cacciatori and, at national events, Seniores from 55, and the youngest archers have a maximum draw weight, 25 lb for Cuccioli and 40 lb for Scout. In every category the arrow may not leave the bow at more than 300 feet per second, about 91 metres per second, the same limit as in the IFAA.
The IFAA also divides equipment into styles. The sighted styles are freestyle, unlimited with a release aid and limited without, and bowhunter unlimited and limited, which have a sight with four or five fixed pins that may not be moved during a round. The sightless styles are barebow, recurve or compound, which allows stabilisers and written notes carried on the archer; bowhunter, recurve or compound, with a single anchor point, the index finger touching the nock and a finger position that may not change during the competition; traditional recurve, with a riser and limbs based on wood, no arrow rest and no face walking; longbow, with wooden arrows, natural feathers and a Mediterranean loose; and historical bow, built as bows were before 1900 and from period materials. The 2026 clarification about the finger tab makes sense against this background: in barebow the marks on a tab may be used to find the finger position relative to the arrow, but the tab may not be held up towards the target to measure.
Why it suits traditional archers
Archers who shoot without a sight find in field archery the ground where their way of shooting makes most sense. In target archery the distances never change, and anyone with a sight already has the mark set; on a field course the distance changes at every target, the target sits uphill or downhill, and the shot is built by looking at the target. The rhythm is different too: a few arrows and then the path, and the day goes by outdoors, in a group. This is why barebow, instinctive and longbow archers in FITARCO, and historical bow, longbow and recurve archers in FIARC, find in field archery the competition closest to the way they shoot, and the differences between these families of bows are covered in the comparison between barebow, Olympic recurve and compound.
The course also asks something of the body: you walk, often uphill, and reach the peg more out of breath than you would on a shooting line. Whether this spoils the first arrow has not been tested in any useful way: in the registry the idea that being out of breath spoils the first arrow is unstudied, because the only data come from a conference abstract that does not make the comparison the question needs. A beginner can still take a few breaths before raising the bow. At World Archery events the judge's stopwatch only comes into play when a group is holding up the course, and even then, in the qualification round, the limit is 180 seconds; in FIARC you have a minute per arrow from passing the target board, and only on the timed targets, for historical bow, longbow and recurve archers, must the arrows be shot within 30 seconds.
How to get started
The first step is to find a club that shoots field: in FIARC it is the federation's own discipline, while among FITARCO clubs not all of them do. Ask whether they have a course of their own or travel to other clubs' courses, and which federation they belong to, because rules, divisions and competitions depend on it. The beginners' course usually takes place on the club's own ground, at short distances, and the field course comes once your shooting is safe enough. In FIARC archers who are still in training hold a green FIARC Pass, which lets them compete in a Training Class at regional and friendly competitions: no more than five trainees per target, accompanied by a federation instructor entered in the competition, with course equipment if need be and outside the rankings. Regular competitions require the red FIARC Pass, and the instructor writes on the pass the date from which the archer is cleared to take part. The things to work on at the start are the same as in target archery, and you will find them in the most common beginner mistakes. Course and annual fees are set by the club, while the cost of FITARCO membership and of the FIARC Pass is available from the club or on the federation's website.
On the course you need a few things more than on the field: shoes with a good grip, clothes suited to woodland and the weather, a belt or back quiver that leaves your hands free while you walk, and some spare arrows, because in the woods an arrow that misses the boss is not always found, and the FIARC and IFAA rules ask for lost arrows to be looked for after the competition, without holding up the groups behind. In FIARC every arrow must carry the archer's membership number near the fletching, and where two or three arrows are shot at the same target they must be numbered with rings, as on the IFAA animal rounds. From the first day you learn to shoot only when nobody is between the peg and the target or behind the target, and to walk forward only when the whole group has finished. As for arrows, a calculation made for a compound bow, without archers or shots, suggests that a lighter shaft at the same spine suits field archery; in the registry the lighter shaft for field archery is transferred, because it rests on a model rather than on tests with archers, and for your first outings the arrow your instructor has chosen for your bow is the right one.