About the third or fourth year after I started shooting a rifle regularly, I got curious about archery. After all, a bow is just another way of flinging a projectile down range.

My first excursion into archery was with an old Bear Kodiak recurve my brother-in-law gave me. It's great bow, but it wasn't what I needed. I wound up with a pulled shoulder and a somewhat jaundiced view of archery in general.

But after my shoulder healed, my curiosity still itched. This time I scratched it the right way. I went to Bear Archery and had them measure my draw length and "fit" a bow to my needs. Within days I was hooked.

One of the big pluses of archery is that you can shoot in your back yard, even if you live in the city. With a little planning you can build a safe backyard range in an area no larger than 2 x 30 yards.

The first requirement is the right bow, as I learned the hard way. As a beginning archer, you'll have to choose one of three basic types: a recurve bow, a compound, or a crossbow.

Recurve

The recurve bow has been around for at least 50 thousand years. There have been a lot of variations on the basic design, but the components are the same the world over: a curved stick held under tension by a string. The archer "nocks" the arrow by placing it on the string, draws the bow, and releases the arrow. Many archers think of a recurve as a "beginner's" bow. Nothing is further from the truth. Shooting a recurve bow well requires much more consistent practice than shooting a compound.

Part of the reason lies in the bow's performance. The archer lacks the mechanical advantage of a compound bow. This means that as you draw a recurve, the draw weight--the tension you are holding on the string--increases steadily until you have the bow fully drawn. This means that as you hold the bow at full draw, you are trying to aim while maintaining the maximum pressure possible. The more times you shoot in a session, and the longer you hold the bow at full draw, the harder it is to do. So maintaining proficiency means shooting almost daily.

Compound

Compound bows are the most commonly used archery equipment in the U.S. today; they make up 92-95 percent of bow sales annually.

Compound bows are strikingly different from recurve bows in both appearance and performance. When you see a bow with wheels or cams at both ends of the limbs, and several strings running back and forth, you're looking at a compound bow.

Though a wide variety of compound bows are on the market today, they all perform similarly. As you draw back on the string, the draw weight increases until the wheels or cams "roll over" at the peak draw weight. From then on, you're holding less pressure than the bow actually shoots. This means the bow is easier to hold at full draw than a recurve. As a beginning archer, you can reach a reasonable level of proficiency in a shorter period of time, and maintain that proficiency more easily.

Crossbows

The crossbow is the bow that most resembles a firearm. However, its performance is nothing like that of a gun; more than anything, it's a compound bow turned sideways and mounted on a stock.

Most compound bows are cocked rather than drawn. The archer inserts a foot into a "stirrup" in the front and pulls back the string with both hands until it slips into a mechanical lock. The archer places the arrow--properly called a bolt when you're talking about a crossbow--into place. Then you hold the bow as if it were a rifle, aim, and pull the trigger.

Regardless of which bow you choose, archery isn't as simple as just picking up a bow and starting to shoot. Don't make the mistake that I did; go to an archery shop and get some help selecting the right piece of equipment. You'll have more fun and reduce your chances of injury.

If you choose either a compound or a recurve bow, the salesperson should be concerned with three things: your draw length, the draw weight of the bow, and what you're going to use the bow for. The draw weight, as we have said, is the amount of force you have to exert to pull a recurve back to full draw or a compound to the point where letoff occurs. For a woman who is just beginning to shoot, this will likely be in the 40- to 50-pound range.

To find your draw length, the salesperson will have you draw a bow to shooting position. Then he or she will measure the distance between the nocking point on the string and the back of the bow (the side away from you). This determines the length bow you need.

If you're just learning to shoot, you should be looking at a low-end bow, something in the $200 range for a recurve or a compound, or $300 for a crossbow. If your salesperson starts talking about much more money than that, he or she has seriously misunderstood your needs.

As far as accessories are concerned, you'll need an inexpensive sight, an arm guard, and a couple of shooting tabs or a shooting glove. Many archers use mechanical releases, but a beginning archer needs time to get the "feel" of shooting, and this is best done by using a tab or glove (often called finger-shooting).

The right bow is only part of the story, however. You also need some projectiles to go with it. Again, this involves some "fitting" to the equipment.

Based on the draw weight of the bow, your salesperson will recommend a specific size and weight arrow. For your first arrows, buy aluminum; you don't need to spend the money on carbon shafts at this point.

The archery shop will fletch the arrows, which means they'll install the feathers or vanes. They'll cut the arrows to the proper length and insert field points. Field points are sharp, and you need to treat them with respect, but they don't have the cutting capacity of broadheads. They are all you'll need if you're just learning to shoot.

Now, you're almost ready to begin shooting. The last ingredient in this mix is a target. While you're in the archery shop, you'll see lots of foam targets, some at a pretty fancy price. They're certainly nice, if that's the way you want to go. But you'll also see burlap bag targets that are adequate, and usually not as expensive.

You also can make your own target with a couple of bales of hay. However, hay doesn't have the stopping capacity of foam or burlap targets, and your arrows will tend to go out the other side.

Whatever target you use, be sure you have an adequate backstop. This might be a wooden fence or the wall of a building (with no windows). You also may choose to set up your shooting area inside a basement or garage, if you can find an area that's at least 30 yards long. A stray shot with a field point can injure or kill someone, the same as a stray bullet can.

All of this is just a very quick look at some archery basics. As you begin shooting you'll quickly learn a great deal more than you can find out from one short article. It's a fun style of shooting that you--and your whole family--can enjoy.