New wooden arrows for Field? $64,000 question - what colour?

LittleSkink

Active member
Going to treat myself to a new set of arrows for Field Archery. Material, tips etc are all fairly straightforward choices

But what about colours? Which ones are easiest to find in the woods, without ending up with garish

Black shafts look amazing, presumably a nightmare to find. Natural shafts, natural feather colours likewise - any thoughts, top tips? Anyone share their designs?
 

dvd8n

Supporter
Supporter
AIUK Saviour
Which ones are easiest to find in the woods, without ending up with garish
In my experience there's no such thing.

In my experience most colours disappear as soon as they hit the field course.

Red, green, brown, beige, black are verging on camouflaged.

Blue? Not much is blue in nature, is there? Once you get to bluebell season, they're invisible.

Fluo yellow? if there's a single dandelion, buttercup or celandine on your course, they're lost.

White? Any daisies or wild garlic; they're gone.

In my experience, the only colours that come close to standing out on a field course are fluo orange or hot pink. Good luck looking cool with either of those ;)
 

bobnewboy

Member
I’ve always stuck with natural shaft colouring - with a good couple of coats of tough varnish on it. I’m too lazy to bother colouring them in any case. Also of course, any colour fletchings that you like. As mentioned above they all seem capable of disappearing, and of course they can and do break on errant trees etc. The only thing you can be sure of as a new field archer is that you will become proficient at making arrows fairly soon!

Cheers, Bob
 

Riceburner

Active member
As said - most colours will hide away quite nicely - even multiple colours won't necessarily help (look up 'Dazzle camouflage*).

That said - I have 2 tone shafts (mostly black, the rear end left clean), fluoro fletchings (with a non-fluoro cock feather), and fluoro yellow nocks (they tend to stand out on targets, but are utterly invisibly in undergrowth). Mainly because it doesn't really matter - go with what you like the look of!




* it doesn't necessarily make things harder to see, but it makes them harder to understand
 

Geophys2

Active member
AIUK Saviour
As you can see from a selection of my arrows, I have settled on orange fletchings and nock with a mainly white wrap. Luckily I don't often need to go hunting for arrows in the undergrowth now, but on the occasions when I do these are the easiest to find. When you get to my age looking cool is a forlorn hope anyway.

20201221_113812-2.jpg
 

LittleSkink

Active member
liking the orange and white :)

@Geophy2 which flat cases are you using there? I cant decide between Easton and MTM Compact, not able to compare in a real shop
 

LittleSkink

Active member
thanks for that, are your Eastons cases standard (33") or XL (36")?

Whats the longest arrow that will fit? My main arrows are almost exactly 33" tip to tip, so I am suspecting XL is needed
 

stephen1948

New member
Going to treat myself to a new set of arrows for Field Archery. Material, tips etc are all fairly straightforward choices

But what about colours? Which ones are easiest to find in the woods, without ending up with garish

Black shafts look amazing, presumably a nightmare to find. Natural shafts, natural feather colours likewise - any thoughts, top tips? Anyone share their designs?
I usually color my wooden shafts bright orangish yellow and use yellow and blue feathers and yellow nocks. It has worked well for me but I still lose a few arrows.
 

snowman

Member
A member of a club I used to shoot at coloured wooden arrows with ink jet refill inks and even highlighter pen refill inks. She even made a striped rainbow set that looked like a stack of fruit pastilles. Once varnished or covered in Danish oil made the ink very durable and waterproof.
 
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