March 15th Smoke Report

Weekly Trapshooting Info
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smokem
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March 15th Smoke Report

Post by smokem »

Hello and good evening or morning depending on when you read this. Great weather weekend for the most part with trap shooting activity in the state and folks traveling South to the Southern Grand.

This week in North Carolina the Buckhorn Gun Club will be hosting their monthly shoot on Sunday the 21st. While I was doing this report a notice popped up announcing the Buccaneer Gun Club will host their first registered shoot since last March on the 20th. Also, in South Carolina Mid-Carolina will be shooting on Saturday the 20th. If you do not get to travel you can shoot locally in NC or SC.

The Southern Grand starts Monday morning the 15th and I believe they are going to have a crowd and it might not match previous records, but we will see. Not sure who all is down there but I know the Galloways got down there Saturday. Marty mentioned he, Greg High and Gorgeous George Brown were heading down later in the week. Good luck to all the NC shooters and we will look for you on the leaderboard. Mash on this link to follow the shoot this week. http://www.shootscoreboard.com

Being around the trapshooting scene since 1964 many clubs have gone by the way of golf courses and housing projects and other issues. Some clubs over the years have not closed but discontinued hosting registered ATA events for a myriad of reasons. Some was participation and others possibly for lack of help. It isn’t rare that clubs return to registered events, but one just came back to life at Fort Bragg.

Thanks to the efforts of NCTA President Marty Hill and Rodney Selberg Ft. Bragg roared back to life on March 13th, 2021. I was excited to drive the 87 miles from Greensboro and it was a straight shot on 421 all the way. I sort of missed rolling through Sanford and might make that detour on the next trip down. The club looked great with all the houses painted and newly installed wood barriers separating the skeet fields. Bragg has 6 trap fields and 12 skeet fields with a 5-stand on field 12 and soon to be developed sporting clays.

The shoot started under gray skies and a bit of North wind for the singles. The sun briefly popped out and warmed things up, but the clouds returned and the wind died for the handicap. Neill McInnis and Tim Crabtree both had 97’s in the singles with Neill winning the flip, SubJr Gracie Marshall broke a solid 95 from the 21 for a ½ yard punch. Joe Nalley and John Miller had 92’s in the doubles with Charlie Brown winning the event with a 95. Gracie Marshall and John Miller tied for HOA with 270's with John winning the flip.. A great time was had by all and Bragg has two more shoots scheduled for this season. Word on the street is that they might double the schedule for 2022 based on participation and help.

I managed to chat with two great skeet shooters while I was at Bragg and they were Neill McInnis and Tildon Downing. Neill broke a 97 in the singles and Tildon was shooting Skeet doubles when I walked down to talk to him. It had been quite a while since I talked to Neill and almost did not recognize him with the longer hair and the facial hair. He is still shooting skeet actively and shoots trap occasionally. He managed to tell Tildon that I wanted to talk with him and I appreciate that. Tildon Downing is a larger-than-life sportsman and I just did not have enough time to talk about shooting back in the 50’s and 60’s. He knew my grandfather as Mr. Brown and we talked about the good old days at Pinehurst, Durham County, Tarheel and Piedmont. Til told me a story about winning the Sunday handicap at the Dogwood in Pinehurst. He said he decided to go to church that morning and while he was sitting in church he decided to drive to Pinehurst and shoot the handicap. He broke a 98 and was on the 23-yard line. He shot against a fellow that was out of state and on the 24-yard line. They went three rounds with Til losing the shootoff. As things were winding down, he was approached by shoot management and notified that he had won the handicap. Seems that the out of state shooter was really a 27-yard shooter and somehow slipped through the cracks. We talked about Marion Erwin and Pat Samonds and George Wilson. Anyway, I could go on but will stop there. I really need to go see him and record some of the stories he has to tell. A lot of shooting history has been and will be lost forever with the passing of some of the best old-time shooters.

I was excited to hear several people say at the shoot that they read the smoke report either on Sunday night or Monday morning. I appreciate hearing that my efforts are not in vain. Also, I heard that if the smoke report isn’t published in a timely manner it really disappoints. My goal is to provide a little bit of shooting sunshine to start your day off right.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Harlan Campbell held two 2-day clinics at the Rockingham Gun Club. The 2020 clinic was cancelled due to the COVID and pushed forward to the same basic dates in 2021. Looks like the same dates are on the books for 2022 so plan accordingly.

Well, that is about it for this week and I really hope you have a great week. I did find a source for flats of shells and they are Gamebore English shotgun shells. I will publish the info if it turns out to be a good source. Hello to Lou, Scott, Ronnie, Cowboy, Thea ( Tim said if you would work two more days a week he would have more $$ to shoot) and Anne and until next week………..smokem
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