Shooting Arrows out of the Air

At summer camp, we play a pretty fun game dubbed Archery Tag.  In short, it’s dodgeball with real recurve bows, paintball masks, and foam tipped arrows.  As you can imagine it’s quite the hit.  But recently my son and I took it to the next level:

It began when everyone else wanted to play, but I was a bit tired.  I found that from a moderate distance, I could stand still and just shoot the majority of incoming arrows out of the air.  While it wasn’t always 100% reliable, it sure was neat.  And when successful, the arrows give a resounding THUMP as they transfer all their energy into each other.

Practicality

Sure, this doesn’t have much practicality in the real world.  Except for the fact that instinctive shooting has its place.  When wearing the required paintball masks you can’t use your normal archery anchor point.  Nor can you use sights.  It has to be instinctive.  But as with everything, practice makes perfect and not only can you soon hit an enemy running, you can shoot his flying arrows out of the air.

Equipment

The equipment we use at camp is a bit on the expensive side, up to $15 per arrow!  However I found some on amazon recently that looks exactly like what we use and costs much less.  

The recurve bows we use are between 16-26 pounds.  The SAFE Arrows we use are rated up to 26 pound bows.  DO NOT try to fire these from a compound bow.  Serious injury could occur.  And always inspect the foam tips as well as the arrow shafts and nocks themselves before firing.

Get you a set and start to play!  It’s like Nerf/Paintball/Dodgeball for the big kids.  At camp we play several scenarios.  Everything is played in a dodgeball sized field with team sides and a 15′ “Safe Zone” in the middle so nobody can get shot close range.  One of our favorite scenarios is “Infected” just like first person shooter video games or paintball fields would play.  Be safe, and have fun!