With the last remnants of Hurricane Gustav blowing through overnight Friday,
Saturday looked a little iffy in the morning. Drizzle and slate grey skies greeted
most of us as well rolled out of bed. The grey skies stayed, but the rain stopped
and the wind died. Aside from being dark on some of the lanes, it was a very
good day for field target. All the gravel shooting pads had tarps rigged over
them, so all the shooting areas were quite dry.
We enjoyed another great turnout, with seventeen shooters participating.
We had three new shooters and four junior shooters. So we made some new friends
and had a great day of shooting that continued well after the match was finished
and awards were handed out.
Right around 11:00 AM we headed out on the course with the new shooters in
squads with experienced shooters. The difficulty calculated out at 37.7 T for
the course, but it shot more like a course in the forties, partly due to the
dark lanes and some very difficult targets.
The Hunter Division, with ten shooters, yielded some excellent results. Haley,
Archie and Jeremy had never shot in a match and all did extremely well on their
first outing. Dennis L. got to shoot the match with his granddaughter, Haley,
who shot a great score. Jeremy came over from Buffalo to observe and I know
he was happy that the guys convinced him to shoot the match; he did very well
with his powered-down gun and match sights. Archie also shot a respectable score
with open sights. Luc and Luke battled it out for Junior Top Gun, with Luc being
the victor on this occasion. Braden is looking forward to getting a scope and
some modifications done to his gun, so look out for him in the coming matches.
Stan, working out the bugs in his new set-up came in fourth, and Kel shot a
good match to end up third. Dennis, still shooting very well, finished second
and Tom J. took Top Gun honors in the Hunter Division.
Since there were only two Piston Division shooters, they battled it out for
the Top Gun spot. They shot together and on this day, Ted had a great day, earning
the top spot. I’m sure Len will continue to work on his rig and who knows how
it will turn out next time.
The three shooters in the open PCP Division all had excellent scores. Dennis
E. claimed third, Don second and Tom took his first Top Gun award. I am pretty
sure it will not be his last.
Two shooters participated in PCP Limited, with Chris shooting a super match
and taking Top Gun. I had an off day, but did take the opportunity to shoot
two different rigs and now they are both ready for the next match. There is
always the next one, right?
After the awards were presented and targets pulled, we had a shooting session
on the sight in range. We switched rigs with each other and exchanged information
to make for a very enjoyable time. We finally wrapped it up to let the archery
guys set up their course for a Sunday match.
Eight of us then headed off to have some supper at a local restaurant and
continue talking about field target and anything else that came up. It was starting
to get dark when we all headed home after a great day.
The next match in Port is on October 4th and we are hoping for another super
day. Seven Canadian shooters will be heading to the US Nationals in Kentucky
next weekend and look forward to seeing old friends and making some new ones.
I hope we all shoot well and enjoy the experience.
Keep shooting and tuning those rigs and we will get together again soon for some FT fun.
Tim MacSweyn