Steven Jensen kicked up a pile of leaves in the woods at Lone Star Lakes Park.

He and his son-in-law, Paul Richardson, and 11-year-old grandson, Caleb Richardson, were hunting for a stray arrow. All three had missed the target, a high-density foam rendering of a small deer, one of 26 targets set up at the Kingsboro Bowmen Archery Association’s outdoor range, situated around one of the park’s lakes.

“It’s a lot like golf, except with this, it’s $10 every time you lose an arrow,” Jensen said.

Finding their arrows, the three archers grabbed their compound bows and headed to the next target along the winding trail. As they took aim at a foam alligator 40 yards away, another group lined up to shoot at the deer target.

Jensen and the Richardsons were just out for a little target-shooting fun on a Sunday morning, but many of the 85 people who were scattered along the three-quarter mile trail Feb. 28 were there for the first tournament of the archery season.

Some were local, but others spent some quality time on the road to come, traveling from northern Virginia or North Carolina.

The Kingsboro Bowmen club started in 1979 and has been a mainstay in the local archery community, but club treasurer Ed Bickham of Chuckatuck said pop culture has recently helped raise the level of participation.

For instance, said club president Mike Serig of Isle of Wight, thanks to “The Hunger Games,” “We’ve seen more young females interested in archery.”

A combination of good weather and the chance to participate in the first shoot of the season also contributed to the high turnout at the event.

Many of those who take part in the events at the Kingsboro Bowmen’s facility are hunters. In fact, Serig credits bowhunting friends with helping to spark his interest in the sport. He shot as a youngster, but then stopped for a while before starting again around 1986.

“Some friends had a piece of property, and they were bowhunting, so I got with them and got into it again,” he said.

But what has sustained his interest is a love for shooting and improving at it.

“I like to challenge myself to always try to get better,” he said, likening it to his days as a long-distance runner. “Yeah, I liked to see where I finished in the field, but the main thing was how’d I do compared to my other times.”

That’s true of a lot of the shooters who take part in the events at Kingsboro, said Suffolk’s Rob Carpenter, Kingsboro’s vice president.

“A lot of these guys out here that come out here and shoot, they don’t hunt,” he said, though he and his 15-year-old son, Nathaniel, do.

The younger Carpenter, who was with his father at the tournament, said what he enjoys most about being at the range is “just coming out here and just having fun and meeting new people. It just gives me something to do.”

It had been a year since he had shot in a tournament, but in 2014, he won the Virginia Bowhunters Association 3D state championship in the youth class.

Ivan Harner of Hopewell, who was there that Sunday at the encouragement of a friend, said he occasionally participates in archery “for fun, mostly, but also for the hunting aspect of it. I just like shooting. To me, on a nice day outside, it’s just a wonderful thing to do. You give me a nice sunny day and a glass of sweet tea, and I just stand out and shoot, and it’s just a nice way to pass the time.”

Dave Burpee, publicity chairman for Traditional Bowhunters of Virginia, traveled about three and a half hours from Springfield to attend the Kingsboro Bowmen event and raise the profile of the TBV, which highlights traditional gear like wooden bows and arrows.

For him, his recurve bow, which he had laid out on a nearby table, has been about both the sport of archery and hunting.

“For example, with that bow, I’ve gotten pigs and javelina in Texas, I’ve gotten antelope out in Wyoming,” he said.

Troy Ward of Elizabeth City, N.C. was competing in the tournament with his young son, Mason.

“He’s been shooting for probably about a year now, and I brought him out,” the elder Ward said. “This is the first time he’s shot out here at a tournament. Trying to get him used to it. He wants to go bowhunting.”