HALP - My butt was handed to me by a fox... 9 times.

[PhaedrothSP]

Well I never even left the level 1 area until I had 70 melee, so I wouldn't know the minimum needed for archery.
You could just pour all of your LP into it I suppose, see where that gets you.

[ybobjoe]

Here is the rule of thumb that I've been using.

Archery - animal's level *5
Melee - animal's level *10

Of course its not perfect, certain animals such as deers are harder to kill especially with melee, but as a general rule I find it's not bad. And if you lose combat balance they get several times harder to hit.