Five-Star Certified Field Range.
All about CVA’s Field Range Facility.
The Field Range Facility.
Welcome to CVA’s Field\Roving Range Facility, awarded a Five-Star Certification by the National Field Archery Association.
Drive into Tapo Canyon Park (about 100 yards) and you will notice double gates off to your left. This leads to our free parking area for members and tournament participants. After parking, you will see a stage to your right, which we use throughout the year for tournament registration and post-tournament award ceremonies (check out our Tournaments and their scheduled dates in the Calendar and Upcoming Events sections of our website, as well as individual Tournament pages).
We also have a service kitchen to feed hungry tournament shooters. Shaded picnic areas are located nearby, where tournament competitors can eat and socialize. CVA also holds its monthly General Membership Meetings in the picnic area adjacent to the service kitchen.
The Field Range course begins (and ends) just past the stage and service kitchen. Just before venturing out on the actual course, you will find a warm-up area to the right, a variety of paper targets. For your convenience, we also provide a handful of 3D targets in the warm-up area that are available year round. The warm-up shooting area is also used for our "running pig clout” or “flying mosquito target" during tournaments that include novelty shots.
After a warm-up it’s time to go out on our roving range and have a great time.
The Field Range area covers approximately 12 acres of land over varied terrain. The round of 28 targets is a 3-mile loop, with target distances ranging from 20 ft. to 80 yards and constantly changing shot elevations. During many of CVA’s tournaments, specialty targets are included in the round to challenge and entertain everyone from the beginner to the most experienced archers.
Average groups of 3-5 people circulate the range, similar to foursomes on a golf course. Each archer shoots four arrows per target butt. There is a maximum of twenty points available for each target (using 5-4-3 scoring per arrow) and a possible total of 560 points for the entire round of 28 targets. It can take 3 hours or more to complete our roving course, so you might want to do some warm up exercises before venturing out!
All bow types are permitted on the Field Range (crossbows are not permitted on any of CVA’s ranges). You may see longbows, recurves, compound bows and selfbow shooters on our range. You must be a member of CVA to shoot the CVA Field Range, unless you are a participant in a CVA Tournament or when shooting with a CVA Member as a guest.
Any CVA Club Member can compete throughout the club year in our monthly club shoots, where archers shoot in various categories for awards including trophies, Buck knives, engraved belt buckles and more.
A scoring “how to” overview is a work in progress.
Field Archery Overview.
What is Field Archery?
A field archery round is a challenging, cross-country course, situated in varying terrain, with targets placed at different distances from target to target. Shooting a field archery course can help target archers and 3D archers improve their shooting proficiency.
CVA’s field range has marked yardages denoted via painted concrete stakes. An archer’s age division will determine what stake that archer shoots from. Be sure to read the instruction sheets posted at each target for shooting specifics for that target.
Black Stake: Cub (11 years and younger), Blue Stake: Youth (12-14 years), Red and White Stakes: Adult (15 years and up)
Field Round
The basic NFAA field round is made up of 28 targets. The round is divided into two, 14-target segments. An NFAA field round can be situated on a 28-target range, shot one after the other, or a range can have a 14-target course, which is shot twice to make the round. At CVA we have 28 individual field targets over a 3 mile course.
Each 14-target unit has a similar variety of shots, but not necessarily arranged in the same order on a 28 target field course. Archers shoot four (4) arrows at each target, for a total of 112 arrows per field round.
Some of the shooting positions have archers shoot all four arrows from one marked stake. Some shooting positions have stakes at four different positions where archers walk toward the target on each shot (walk-up), or stakes are placed in a fan position, where each archer will shoot one arrow each from four stakes at the same distance from the target.
Distances vary according to the shooting round. The standard NFAA field round has distances from 20 feet (~6.5 yards) to 240 feet (80 yards). CVA’s certified course complies with these distance requirements.
There are four different sizes of target faces, with progressively larger target faces used as the distance to the target increases. Targets are round, with either black or white faces. There are a possible 20 points per target and a perfect round is 560. Scoring on NFAA courses is identical throughout the US. No matter where you live, you can compare your score and level of proficiency to an archer shooting in your division and style anywhere else in the country.
At CVA, the color of the target faces rotates for our monthly club shoots. When the target face is white, archers shoot from the white stakes. When the target face is black, archers shoot from the red stakes.
Cub and Youth archers will shoot from the stakes as described in the shooting instructions posted at each target. Distances shot during the field round vary based on age division. If an archer is under 15 years old, the longest distance shot is 50 yards; if aged under 12 years, the longest distance shot is 30 yards.
Hunter Round
A hunter round is shot in a similar fashion as a field round, except that archers shoot at an all-black target face with a white dot marking the center of the target. Because of this, the black target face is sometimes called a “hunter target face.”
The distances shot during a hunter round vary between 33 feet and 210 feet. Again, two 14-target units make a round. There are four sizes of target faces to shoot at and different distances on the roving course. Scoring is identical to the field round.
Animal Round
The animal round is much like the 3-D round; however, the targets are 2-D animal printed paper targets with marked shot distances.
Scoring is different for an animal round. Archers mark three of their arrows as 1, 2, and 3. The first shot is done using arrow number 1. If the archer’s first arrow hits the scoring area another arrow is not shot. If the first shot does not score, the archer will move up to the next shooting stake and shoot number arrow number 2. If the archer’s second arrow hits the scoring area another arrow is not shot. If the archer missed arrows number 1 and 2, the archer will move up and shoot arrow number 3.
The scoring area is divided into two parts, the vital area and non-vital, with a bonus X-ring in the center of the vital area. Scoring is based on where you hit with which arrow. The first arrow shot is scored 21, 20 or 18. The second arrow is scored 17, 16 or 14, and the third arrow is scored 13, 12 or 10. The best score per target is 21 and the total possible score for the round, a 588.
