The Origin of TAA's Rules

Keith Speight
Traditional Archery Australia - Former President

The first Traditional shoot that I remember was the Australian Longbow Muster, held at Tiara, Queensland and reminded me of the way the ABA round used to be, when it was an instinctive archery game, based on fun using realistic hunting positions and distance. Almost everyone used wood arrows in those days regardless of bow type, as the rule was that to shot the ABA round you used the same gear you hunt with and woods were what we could afford to hunt with.The Muster was run under the long standing rules for longbows which included the use of wooden arrows with feather fletches only.
Archers traveled from all over Australia and New Zealand for this National event. The Muster also included demonstrations on how to make a selfbow and arrow shaft making and also included the arrow craftsmanship awards for those fletchers making their own arrows to achieve master fletcher.
These shoots were held from the late 80's and through the 90's until it was taken to Gladstone around 2000 and became The Longbow and Recurve muster. 

North Albert Club and Hunter Valley Club started running Traditional shoots around the same time run under the same rules as the Longbow muster keeping the use of wooden arrows with feather fletches only.
Targets can be 3D, paper Animal, round targets or a mixture of all 3 incorporating running, rolling, sliding or floating targets, canoe shots and other novelty events.

TAA together with Archery Crafters have put together Guidelines based on these Shoots for clubs wishing to run a Traditional shoot, it is up to the club if they use some of these events or all of them or add to them with their own clubs ideas.

If we are going to be fairdinkum about Promoting and Protecting what's traditional in Australia we should ensure that instead of changing our rules to suit someone’s equipment we have their equipment changed to suit our rules.

 
Trad shoots are now being held by several clubs around Australia and are run with rules using Traditional bows and wood arrows with the emphasis more on fun and fellowship while still participating in a competition.