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Idaho State Field Target Championship.
On
Saturday Sept 20th, we held the 2008 State
Championship match at the Oregon Trail Range in Pocatello,
Idaho. We had fire, storm, pestilence and famine.
It was a really good day.
Dark clouds and lightning threatened
as our 72 shot championship match started, but the worst
swung to the north as we only had sprinkles while we were
shooting. George (the match director) was ready
to go. When I turned the pre-match meeting over to
him, he just said “Let’s Go!”
The day before we set out 24 targets
over 9 lanes. Our course starts in a gully
bottom where all the shots are up hill except for the very
closest. The next three lanes shoot down into or
across the draw from the top of the right hand bank.
Then on lane 5, it goes back down into the draw for some
heavy sagebrush cover where we had a standing shot where the
sagebrush obscured the target when the shooter was in the
sitting or kneeling position. Ray Carter did his best
offhand shooting of the year on this lane. Then the
course runs up a side draw with a windswept hill on the far
side. Usually winds sweep up the draw and across the
hillside. The site faces the Snake River Plain where
wind can build for over 200 miles without obstruction.
I
was pared with Ash Covey. Ash shoots a Daystate and
was the only other pre-charged shooter in the match.
On lane one, our first lane, Ash missed one out of 9
targets. I chocked hitting only 4 targets. It
took me until lane five to catch up, and from lanes six
seven and eight the lead seesawed back and forth by one
point until the last lane. Where Ash miss judged the
range on the near target and I could not get a hit on the
far target. This really showed us that range finding and
sight settings are a major part of the game. Our final
scores were 55 to 56. It was the most fun I have had
in years of shooting, and it was made especially memorable
by Ash’s sportsmanship.
We had a videographer from the Idaho
State Journal Come, and shoot video and interviewed George
and myself. I hope it attracts some new shooters to
our club.
Every
time I saw George he would pump his fist of give the thumbs
up sign, but he never talked. “George is really
pumped,” said Ash. George Gardner has been described
as a champion of the underdog gun, and this year he shot a
12 foot pound Theoben piston gun. George has been
making long shots with this gun. Earlier in the year
he hit a 55 yard squirrel 3 times in a row. Today he
hit a target twice that was only downed one other time
during the match. It was at 49 yard uphill on a
windswept 20% slope. Good shooting George.
In
4 years of Championship matches, this was the first one
without out of area entrents. We all missed the
companionship and competition that your visitors always
bring. The match remained undiminished though.
Our club members built the course, painted the targets, laid
out the lanes, showed up to shoot when there was snow on the
ground. It was their day. Ron Robert, one
of the original gang of three, who shoots an HW 97 and
Shorty Miller with his Gamo 440 rounded out the group.
Springers were the predominant air gun, just as they are in
the world of air guns.
The Match had an unexpected
interruption when we looked up toward the pistol range and
saw smoke coming from behind the 50 yard backstop. “We
got to get up there now”, said Ash, so 4 air gunners joined
about 20 shooters form the pistol range in controlling the
fire while others called the Chubbuck (the local) Fire
Department. The CFD came with their brand new heavy
pumper and hosed down the hot spots. Shortly had the
most fun ridding on the Heavy pumper until the fire chief
told him he had to get off. “I was hoping to wear one
of the firefighter’s helmets.” said Shorty with a
mischievous grin. The fire covered an area of a large
apartment but would have been a lot larger if it hadn’t been
for the prompt action of David Craven’s three weapon
shooters and others in the firing bays.
My
dog, Balin, who had attended the last two matches, has been
very sick for the last four days. He went to the Vet,
and was found guilty of eating too many grasshoppers.
He is on the mend after a couple of shots.
The floods came afterwards.
Just as we were leaving, a hale shower reduced visibility to
less than 200 feet. Luckily, we got all the match
stuff put away just before the storm hit.
For you out of
area folks reading this, you are all invited to any of our
matches, but especially to the 2009 Championship next year.
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