2011 Weekly Blurbs

The ongoing saga of the gun purchased in Boone and shot around the Country!
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

2011 Weekly Blurbs

Post by smokem »

Weekly Blurb 3/28/2011

Greetings from chilly Greensboro North Carolina. What a dreary weekend and it looks like a cool week upcoming also. Most areas got rain and some areas heavy at times. I am really looking forward to warmer weather and I hope it arrives real soon.
I posted info about Jack Eller passing this week and thanks to Don Sutton for the info. Jack was a great guy and shot quite a few registered targets in his career. The last time I got to see him was when I was visiting Dan Johnson at the Rowan County Wildlife Club. He did recognize me and we talked a bit about the old days in Pinehurst.

Rockingham shot Saturday and the only precip that fell was sleet. John Miller won the singles, Chase Reese won the caps with Ted Carwile winning the doubles and HOA. I hope to have the shoot report from Ft. Bragg real soon.

Two shoots this upcoming weekend with Coharie hosting a typical 300 target program and Rockingham hosting a 500 target singles marathon. Targets are $18 per hundred with daily fees with more targets being offered if time allows. Wetaher is looking good on the long range forecast.

The Florida State Shoot is over and it looks like several shooters won including Charlie Brown and Bob Schultz. I would imagine that folks are getting geared up for the GA State Shoot - Hog Heaven - Dogwood and of course the local shoots. Before you know it we will be rolling into Bostic for the NC State Shoot.

We are just a few weeks away for the Dogwood (April 14 - 17) at the Homegrounds. If you have never shot at the HG this will be your only chance to shoot there before the NC State Shoot. I have been to the Dogwood and the wind blew 30mph, hopefully the weather will cooperate. It looks like the Hog Heaven shoot starts April 13th and runs throug the 17th. Hopefully that scheduling won't hurt the NC attendance.

It seems like Spartanburg is getting a few things together including a new and improved website. The upcoming state shoot is May 11 - 15 and the site stated that all singles and handicap targets would be shot over all 8 fields. Doubles will be shot bank style according to the website. They have a fish fry on Saturday and it is has always been very good.

It looks like JC will be traveling with me to Bradford PA in July. We will be attending the 92nd Annual Konne-Yaut Indian Pow-Wow. JC will turn 88 the 13th of July and we will celebrate his birthday at the club. My mom was in town over the weekend and had an early present for my birthday. When I opened the bag I couldn't beleive my eyes. It was an authentic indian headress and it came from Arizona. It will make it's first trip to Bradford for the Sunday morning ceremony.

That is about all I have to offer for the week and hopefully we will have more to report next week. It is going to be a busy full week and I actually got to tour the new jail Friday. Anyway, have a great week and hopefully we will see you at the Rock Saturday. Hey to Lou, Lew - Dan The Man, Big Jim & Buckeye, Jose and Bobby Hill.





Weekly Blurb 3/21/2011

It is all over and the crying is done! The 2011 Southern Grand has come and is gone into the history books. Leo Harrison has proven that a one armed man is better than a two armed man or woman. Leo won the singles with a 200 and 50 in the shootoff. He broke one of two 97's and then outlasted KY youngster Jenna Knott after 75 in front of a crowd. He took the HOA with a 396x400 which meant he broke a 99 in the doubles.
I stayed to watch the shootoff with Jenna and the ever humble Leo posed for pictures with the young lady and in a great act of kindess he gave her the 8 box leather bag marked 2011 Southern Grand Handicap Champion.

Some NC shooters took a few trinkets home including Dennis Taylor, Addison Callan, Billy Thigpen and Charlie Brown. Jeff Galloway missed the "A" Class HAA by "1" bird.

We had a great time shooting and JC laid it on me up until the singles and the Sunday handicap. He made a rookie mistake Sunday and stepped to the line with his blunderbuss choke. He said that choke was so open he was chipping targets on adjacent fields.

We spent some time with the NC crowd and the folks that stay a the Dollar for more than just one shoot. Maybe one day when I retire I will move down there and ref a few rounds.

I really haven't checked attendance for the Southern Grand but it looked pretty crowded. I believe there were 117 squads today if I am not mistaken. We ate at Skeeter's grill and I have pictures to prove it. I talked at length to Skeeter over a bacon cheeseburger and it was delicious.

Some folks are headed back today but JC and I will head back in the AM for the 660 mile trip. As soon as we get back there are shoots on the schedule to work at and attend.

I have not checked to see if scores have been posted from Rocky Mount - Old Hickory or Buckhorn. Hopefully we can get those up in a timely manner.

I am sitting out in the hallway of the lobby at the motel. My wireless isn't working in my room so I am banished to the hallway like Funky Winkerbean the "Hall Monitor".

I am posting the blurb early so that we can get tucked in to get up in the wee hours of the morning. Several mornings the fog was dense and they also did a controlled burn (that I caught in some of my pictures) that stunk to high heaven.

Oh - Jenna was shooting a new Blaser and she was really mashing the targets. I should have taken a picture of her and all the youngins playing cards in the clubhouse before her shootoff.

I hope everybody had a great weekend and hopefully a good start to the week. I have a lot of work waiting for me when I get back to the SD and I will be hunkered down all week (short week) thank goodness. Oh - I got to talk with Lou and he is still just as handsome as ever and also shot his singles with one of the best looking gals on the grounds - how did he rate that? He is always fun to talk to and I believe that he might just miss the NC crew a wee bit.

Lewis Wyatt tried to work a little mojo on JC stating that if JC didn't shoot good in Florida Lewis would give him a good whipping when he got back to North Carolina.

Ok - that is it and we hope to see some of you folks at a gun club in the near future! Hey Lew - Lou - DAN - Big Jim - Jeri - Andrew - Jef - Grandpa and Grandma.......




Weekly Blurb 3/14/2011

Hello to all and what a great weather weekend in North Carolina. Saturday was a bit windy and Sunday was almost perfect for shooting. There was only one registered shoot in NC this weekend and we will talk about that a little later.
The Southern Grand cranks up in the AM Monday and you can keep up with all the activity by going to http://www.rjstuart.com. You can see that scoreboard as the scores are posted and also there is a function that allows you to see what a person actually breaks in each event.

I am not sure of how many NC shooters will attend but it looks like quite a few will be shooting at the Silver Dollar GC. The last time we attended we shot like #### and Richard Colley sent me an email to cheer me up because he knew I was really struggling. Hopefully it will be much better this year and of course the crippler will be there also. We will be posting updates on a day to day basis so keep any eye on tarheeltrap.com.

The Gastonia GC shot Saturday and they had a good turnout. In fact they have had good turnouts at both shoots already this 2011 season. Jef Solomon won the singles, doubles and the HOA. Bill Howe had Jef on the ropes until the doubles and that is when Jef tied it up. Jef and Bill flipped for the HOA with Bill the winner.

Three shoots coming up this weekend in NC for the folks that won’t be traveling to the Southern Grand. Saturday the 19th – Old Hickory @ Bostic and also Old Hickory @ Rocky Mount. Sunday the 20th the Buckhorn GC will host a typical 300 target program. We hope everybody shoots well and I am expecting some scores so that I can get them posted.

I talked with former NC shooter Dave Daily today and he is currently in Greensboro Georgia. He has been on vacation for two weeks and spent a week at Disney with the grandchildren. He hasn’t shot a target since the Konne-Yaut Indian shoot in July 2010. Hopefully he will get some birds in before the South Carolina State Shoot in May.

I ran across “Fudd” Shaffer’s number Saturday and decided to give Fudd a call. How can I aptly describe Fudd only to say that he looks like a ruggedly handsome muscle bound mountain man from the hills of Kentucky? We met Fudd at the Konne-Yaut shoot in 2009 and we hit it off right away. He had back surgery and is on the mend and hopefully he will be ready to shoot at the Indian shoot in July. Fudd is from Indiana and travels with Jerry Bruns who is another character that you would just have to meet.

JC Nunn has been testing his guns lately and is ready for the Southern Grand. He bought a new John Deere tractor mower and he was getting his yard all mowed and trimmed before the trip. He is going to concentrate on the singles and the caps and will sit out the two doubles events on Thursday and Friday. He is saving himself for the caps events and if he gets hot the fellow just might win something. I would like to make a prediction and that is the Crippler will win something at the event.

I was looking at a thread on trapshooters.com about whether shooting was down in your area. I wanted to comment on the subject and I still might post a comment. One neat thing about this website is that you can look a year or two back and see how many people shot at the same club on a similar date. Let’s face it, we have lost some shooters to all types of issues. Some are gone because of finance, some are raising families, some have lost interest and found other hobbies. Whatever the reason you got to admit, trapshooting is alive and well in the State Of NC.

The calendar for NC shoots is posted and from what I can tell you can shoot about every weekend in NC this year. Now some clubs have cut back like Ft. Bragg and unfortunately Charlie Brown won’t hold any registered events this year. The truth of the matter is that clubs that hold registered shoots have to have good help to run the shoots. Running a shoot is almost like Church – 10% of the club is doing 90% of the work. If you are apprehensive about scoring don’t be. One of the things I enjoy the most about shooting is watching folks shoot. Scoring doubles for me is actually fun if you can believe that. So what I am saying is get involved and help out – what could it hurt.

We are about to enter the meat of the competition season and I can’t wait for it to begin. As many of you know I listen to some type of music when I shoot. One of the reasons is to cut down on all of the noise on and around the trap field. As you get older some folks lose some of their hearing and with plugs in people tend to talk real loud up and down the line. I am asking all shooters to please be considerate of the scorers and shooters on the line. If I can hear you listening to music I know that folks on the line with plugs or muffs can really hear you. Folks might say too bad so sad that is just the way it is. Well if you think like that then maybe your turn will be coming at an event when the chips are on the line. Just think about it – that is all I am asking…..

Ok – I hope everybody has a great start to the week and it looks like it is going to be about 75-80 and sunny in Odessa all week. I am just thankful I don’t live in Northern Japan – what a modern day tragedy. Hello – to Lew - Lou – Dan – Jackie & Terry.






Weekly Blurb 3/7/2011

Good morning and we hope everybody had a great Saturday because it was super wet here in Greensboro Sunday. The weather held off Saturday and both Coharie and Rockingham held events with dry conditions.
Coharie held their first shoot of the year and it looks like they had a great turnout with some new shooters attending. From the shoot report it looks like the wind was creating some issues for the shooters. Mac prevailed and managed to win the HOA even with and 87 in the singles event. I had talked about slipping down there but I was on call with the SD and didn't make it.

Rockingham hosted a club trap/skeet fun shoot saturday and 23 shooters showed up for the event. Past club Prez Roger "Hotshot" Haney won the event with a 46 on the trap event and a 48 on the skeet event. He proved that pound for pound he is the best around. Lewis Wyatt thought he had a foot up on the crippler JC Nunn and wound up tying him with an 81. We will be holding another one of these events in the near future.

Since we are talking about skeet lets talk Buckhorn. The BGC crew had a little cookout Saturday night and I was suprised to get a few pictures of a well known trapshooter shooting skeet. He was still using the "weight forward" stance when addressing the target and showed great form looking at the pictures. I would really like to know how many targets he broke just for the record.

One shoot this week and it will be held at the Gastonia Gun Club. They will be hosting a typical 300 target program and they had a great turnout for the last shoot. Hopefully the wind will settle down for this weekend and I hope they have great weather also. Phillip Putnam has worked really hard getting that trap program established and it looks like he is doing a great job.

Folks are plotting and planning for the upcoming Southern Grand at the Silver Dollar Gun Club in Odessa Florida. It looks like NC will have a good number of folks attending this year and we hope to see some of them in the winners circle. I hope the weather is great and we hope the gas isn't 5 bucks a gallon by then.

I am really looking forward to the shooting season and also to this time of year. The days will get longer and the weather will be getting warmer. Let's hope that the expense of trapshooting doesn't become to overwhelming for the average shooter. The word on the street is that shooting related supplies/shells are going up in May 15 per cent and that is going to be a killer.

We hope everybody has a great week and if anything important pops up we will put it on the front page. If you have any stories or pictures regarding trapshooing please feel free to send them my way. Hello to Lew - Lou - Dan - Terry - Jacki and Donna......

Late breaking news: As I was about to turn in I checked my private messages. There were three words - "PAIN IS COMING". It seems that someone read my post "Lordy Lordy Skeet Sure Is Sporty". Go to NC Trapshooting then NC club news to read the article and view the pictures.

If anything happens to me or if you see me walking with a limp do not approach me if the big guy is around because pain might be coming your way also......




Weekly Blurb 2/28/2011

Good morning to you and I hope you got to get out and enjoy a beautiful weather weekend. Folks are getting out practicing and also shooting some registered birds taking advantage of great conditions.
Gas is going up, lead is going up but it looks like folks are still traveling, flying, eating and shooting from what I can tell. I sure hope gas doesn’t hit 5 bucks a gallon because that might be a killer for a lot of activities.

Now normally I don’t start out with gloom and doom and sure will not continue from this point forward. I guess the most important thing a person can have is good health and for those of you that are sick we will remember you in our prayers.

Buckhorn hosted a shoot Sunday and all I know is that Gail page went from a lawn ornament last Saturday to the singles winner with a “STRONG” 99. We will get the scores up just as soon as we get with Mr. Wilson.

The Callan’s should be making it back across the earth after their trip to Arizona for the Spring Grand in Tuscon. I know those fellows had to bring something back home after all that good shooting they did. Jim will post a picture story when he gets back and gets settled after being gone for almost a week. I will let you know when it appears in the “Travelogue” section of the site.

I was AWOL from the shooting scene this weekend and here is the reason why. Yes I am married (going on 26 years) and my wife owns a state licensed childcare facility. We have raised generations of children for almost 30 years. We went to the Zoo Saturday with Zach (going on 7 June 6th) and little Nick just about to turn 3. The Zoo was great with one small issue a double stroller was rented. The boys would not have made it around the Zoo without it and it is the closest I have ever been to being crippled without getting hit by a car. Word to the wise – if you have two kids get two stroller’s.

2010 North Carolina State Handicap Champ Chase Reese will be getting his Eagle Scout award this Sunday the 6th at 3 in Kinston NC. He follows along in a list of Eagle Scout recipients that include Jeff Galloway and Chris Shoulars, both North Carolina “Singles Championship” winners. Good luck to Chase and hope to see him on the line real soon.

Two shoots in NC this week with a BIG50 at Old Hickory the 3rd and Mac cranks up his program this weekend at Coharie. Those White Hats are really taking things serious and the scores are showing it. Mac noted that both fields now have ERAD voice calls on them and that is great. I hope both locations have above average attendance and you just never know who is going to show up where.

If I missed anybody or anything please forgive and hopefully with warmer temps there will be more shooting and more tales to share. I do have pix to post from the Gastonia shoot and hope to get those up Monday night. Have a great Monday and hello to Lou – Lew – Dan and Terry.




Weekly Blurb 2/21/2011

Good morning and it has been a tough week for the NC trapshooting community. As many of you know Elmo Matkins passed away last week and was laid to rest today in Reidsville NC. It was a military funeral and that is first time I have ever been to one. The 21 gun salute and the folding of the flag was impressive. The minister was not only Elmo’s pastor he was also Elmo’s friend. Elmo might be gone but he will never be forgotten.
I was glad to see all the trap shooters that showed up for Elmo Matkin’s ceremony. Here is a brief rundown of all that attended – Berk Stephens and wife, Doc Spencer and Betty Dan, Scott Louise and Chris Shoulars, Lewis Wyatt and his wife, Donna and Darvin Cornett, JC Nunn, Terry and Jackie Roush, John Woolsey, John Kerns, Jim Bray and his wife, Steve Morgan and his wife, Don Krites and his son, JT Brewer, Hunter and Jeff Galloway and possibly more shooters attended.

There were three shoots in NC this weekend and we some info on a few of them. It looks like the Old Hickory boys stomped another mud hole in the Red Hats Saturday. They are up on us 2-0 and it will be hard digging out of that hole for sure. A quick rundown for Old Hickory showed Mike Pobiega as the singles champ, Philip Putnam got a ½ yard with the lone score in the 90’s and Bill Howe won the doubles with NC State President Billy Thigpen winning the HOA.

I won’t say that there was more wind at the Rock but only the weatherman knows for sure. Charlie Brown won the singles and then packed up his guns, John Miller got his second punch in two visits to the Rock with an 86 and then his wife Karole won the doubles with an 82. Last but not least John Miller took the HOA with a 250 x 300. We had homemade spaghetti with meatballs and “Elmo” cobbler made by Lee Ann. Bob Goodman sent me an email asking for the recipe because he said it might be the best cobbler he has ever eaten.

We had a couple of new young shooters from VA Saturday. Levi Bolan was 9 and his brother Hunter was maybe 12 or 13. Their mother brought them down to shoot and when I clipped the ERAD on Levi he looked at his brother and said “man this is different”. They shot well for the conditions and I think they had a good time also. I posted pictures of them on the thread for the shoot results.

I got news from the hill that I didn’t get the entire story from BamBam. According to Tom Shelley, BamBam started practice off rough with a 21 then a 19 and wound up strong with a pair of 24’s. Those guys have got a monster on their hands with Tom Pitts. I believe if my memory is good Tom whipped them all in doubles at the last “Wing Fling” in 2010. He got to study some Harlan Campbell tapes and now he is getting tough. I hope everybody gets out from under all that snow and gets some practice in real soon.

I just got an email with the “Elmo” peach cobbler recipe from Lee Ann. I posted the recipe on tarheeltrap.com just in case you have someone that cooks in your family. I am going to help my wife whip up a cherry cobbler maybe this week. I also sent the recipe to Bob Goodman for his wife to make him some Elmo peach cobbler.

That is about it for this week and I hope everybody gets out shooting real soon. March is full of NC shoots and don’t forget about the Southern Grand also. Hey Lew – Lou and Dan…….


Weekly Blurb 2/14/2011

Good morning and it was a great weekend for flying kites or loading shells. We made a trip to the Rock Saturday and the wind was whipping through the trees something fierce. I decided to leave the clean gun in the truck and try to get back out to shoot a little later this week.
I guess everybody that visits the site has been reading about Elmo Matkins. He has had a tough time the last several weeks and we hope that he is resting comfortably. He should be in a regular room and we might try to get up and see him sometime this week. He has had a ton of local visitors and even Don Kaufman came up to visit.

We have a father and son heading out West to shoot at the Spring Grand in Tuscon Arizona. I know that they are looking forward to the trip and we can’t wait for the story and pictures from their adventure. The Spring Grand dates are February 22-27 in case you want to see if these guys show up on the leader board.

There is a lot of shooting going on this week in North Carolina. Bragg hosts a BIG50 Wednesday night starting at 5 PM. We were going to take of work to come down and play thinking that it was a daytime shoot like the OH@Bostic club. Saturday both Rockingham and OH&Bostic will host a typical 300 target program with Buckhorn hosting a typical 300 target program Sunday the 20th.

From what we can tell the weather is going to be great for all the events with temps in the mid 60’s Saturday. That should give the Red Hats a good shot at tying up the score with the White Hats at Old Hickory in Bostic. Those White Hats must have popped open a can of spinach with all the high scores they broke that day. If you think about it Charlie Smith sort of reminds me of Popeye if he was wearing a sailor suit. I guess that would make Lillian Olive Oil now wouldn’t it.

My spy in Florida gave me a bit of info about the Patterson’s. Evidently Chuck had a convention or meeting of some sort in the Orlando area. They got together with our resident NC/FLA folks (you know who I am talking about) and did a little shopping etc.. Word is that they might be visiting NC sometime soon in the near future. I sure miss Sandi and Chuck and really hate that they had to move out to California.

I chatted a bit with George “BamBam” Sudderth on Facebook the other night. He said that he was going to do some shooting this weekend so that he could get ready for the upcoming season. He said something about Pitts being tight, Shelley being crazy and Morg being busy. I would imagine that the Watauga crew is planning for some good shoots this spring. Hopefully I can get up more than just for the Chicken Wing Fling.

Lane took a trip up to Rockingham today and shot a little skeet. Evidently there was more laughing than good shooting from what I heard. They had quite a crew up at the trap range shooting today including Charlie Rinehart and Roland from up in VA. Gary, Norman, JT, Glenn and Jim Haughton all got hooked into moving targets in lieu of the upcoming shoot the 19th.

The Rock is hosting a non-registered shoot the 5th of March that will offer 25 skeet, 25 doubles skeet, 25 16 yd trap and 25 23 yard trap. It should be an interesting day for all to enjoy and I can’t wait to see who the eventual winner will be. It has been years since I have shot a round of skeet and I believe the last time I did it was on the old skeet field at the Rock.

Also, mark your calendars for the 5th of April. The Rock will be hosting a 500 target singles marathon to give folks a chance to get some singles in. Right now we have about 20 folks signed up to shoot some or the entire program. It is very rare you get to shoot 500 singles targets in one day. They use to have a 500 target marathon in Pinehurst NC and I believe Don Sutton won it one year. It might have been offered during the Annie Oakley shoot if I am not sadly mistaken.

I did get a note from Don “Pappy” Sutton the other day and he is excited about some medical procedures that might help him escape some of the pain he endures with his back. We loaned him a Beretta AL-391 last year and got him back to hurling lead in the air. Evidently the 391 is a little more forgiving with recoil and he is able to shoot without getting pounded. I would sure like to see him standing beside me on the line with JC – Hunter – Cliff Dowdy – now those are some old-timers.

I haven’t been in the chatroom like I should lately. Been hanging out on Facebook too much and neglecting the chatroom folks. Make a note – 9PM – we will try to get in about that time to see what is shaking. I noticed that John Woolsey – Ronnie Manuel – Richard Colley and a few others have slipped in and out without being detected. Before you know it the time is going to change and folks won’t be stuck in the house.

I believe I am about typed out for the evening and we will be working on next weeks blurb come Monday. I still think I will crank up “Hotshot of the Week” award and keep a running list of the real performer of the weekend. I will need some help in nominating these folks. Have a great Monday and a great week and we will keep you posted on Elmo’s progress. Hey Lew and Lou and Dan………….



Weekly Blurb 2/7/2011

Good morning and it looks like an interesting weather week for North Carolina. Congrats to the Packers for an impressive win against the Pittsburgh Steelers. With that out of the way we have one shoot this weekend and it will be held at the Gastonia GC.
Ft. Bragg is hosting a BIG50 shoot the 16th and if the weather is good we might haul the tailgunner down for some sandhill clays. Next in line we have the shoots at the Rock and OH R&PC@Bostic the 19th. The White Hats broke a shoe off on us the last time and I might have to shoot to get in on the action. Last but not least the Buckhorn crew will shoot the 20th to end up the month of February.

Elmo is back at home and resting and the doc said that if he was still having issues he would have to be admitted back to the hospital. Please take a moment to pray for Elmo and his family. If you have ever taken care of a loved one you know how it is.

The Rock hosted a Lewis Class shoot this Saturday and it looked like we were going to get rained out. It was cool and cloudy but the wind wasn’t blowing too awful much. We had 6 shooters step to the line and it was neck and neck up till the last trap. Tommy Brown took the top Lewis with Ronnie Manuel taking the next spot..

We have some NC shooters out and about and our mystery traveler and comedian Lewis Wyatt got back to NC yesterday. He took a whirlwind trip to the Florida Keys and back up to shoot at the Dixie Grand. I gave him a call once and awhile and we are sure glad he got to shoot with Jeff and Hunter in the sunshine state.

I don’t know if you have checked shot prices but Lane had to pay 45 bucks a bag for shot last week. With premium shells selling for almost 10 bucks a box the Wally World Federals are looking better every day. I got a contact for Rio shells but the fellow hasn’t responded to my emails. If anyone hears of any shell deals please email me!

I know folks are getting cabin fever and with the uncertain weather folks are looking forward to Spring. Of course the Southern Grand is about a month away and that trip always brings a smile to my face. I am looking forward to seeing a person that snuck down there to live named Lou.

JC is doing great and we visited him the other day and took him a few AL-2 Beretta parts. He is getting all of his guns ready for the season and has been shooting a newer Al-391. He rode up Saturday to the club and declined on getting out in the wet and cold. He said that at his age he couldn’t afford getting sick. Mark it on your calendar and don’t forget that J-Bird turns 88 the 13th of July.

I haven’t heard a peep out of PA transplant Dan Johnson. He is laying down in the weeds plotting and planning a return to competition trapshooting. He has a lot of things to get done like find a place to live and get the family down to NC. One great thing is that I will have my camera ready to take a picture of his lovely wife Mary. She really doesn’t like for me to take pictures of her. Time will tell and we will see when Dan “The Man” steps back out on the line in NC.

Dave Daily should be back from his 40th wedding anniversary in the Dominican Republic. He has been shooting at the club in Myrtle Grove and I might plan a weekend trip to shoot in one of their BIG50 shoots this year. I will try to get a schedule of shoots and post it on the site.

This wasn’t a particularly news producing weekend and we will have to work a little harder for the next edition of the blurb. It looks like Gary Hicks is really shooting good according to the shoot report from the Old Hickory club. I imagine they are getting “tuned up” for the Hat to Hat competition the 19th.

Have a great Monday and if we have any breaking time sensitive news. We might break down and post a mid-week blurb if something really pops up. Want to give a shout out to Lew, Lou and Bign – have a good one…….



Weekly Blurb 1/31/2011

Good morning and I hope you had a great weekend whether you got to the gun club or not. We have quite a few things to talk about in this weekly blurb so hold onto your shooting hat.
Elmo Matkins was admitted to the hospital last Monday and will be released hopefully in the morning. He wasn’t eating and anything he took in was not staying down. The docs decided to adjust his medications and keep an eye on him. Hopefully he will be back in the mix real soon and I know he had plenty of visitors including Lane Murray, Shoulars, Ron Anderson and Ronnie Manuel.

Also on the mend is Andrew Carroll from the Buckhorn GC. He had surgery on his right hand to help restore some feelings to his hand and fingers. Evidently snapping all those beanie-weanie cans has had an affect on his trigger finger and hand. He has been advised to start using his hand immediately and hopefully he will be back to shooting really soon.

The Buckhorn crew hosted a Duke University “Ducks Unlimited” event Friday at the club. The weather could have been a little warmer and the sun a little brighter. All in all the 48 guys and 2 gals that attended had a great time. They shot 13 squads worth of targets and were assisted by Ike, Chuck & Auman Woody, Bobby, Tim and Big Jim.

It looks like the Buckhorn crew is also attending a Hurricane Hockey game this upcoming weekend and I believe there are 10 or 12 couples attending the game. Someone has some strings because they will have a “suite” for the game. That is a great way to watch the game for sure and I hope they have enough finger food to feed the Bear Jimmy Wilson. Hopefully I will have some info to report from that gathering of the Buckhorn faithful.

Upcoming shooting events include a BIG50 in White Hat land and a new Lewis Class for the folks in Red Hat land. The folks at Old Hickory@Bostic will host a BIG50 on the Thursday the 3rd of February. The folks at the Rockingham Gun Club will be testing out a new format for their Lewis Class shoot this Saturday the 5th of February. The new format is 25 from the 16, 20, 22 and 25 from your ATA yardage. We will probably keep the Lewis Class payouts the same but we are looking at some other options at a later shoot. Then Gastonia the 12th, the Rock and Old Hickory@Bostic will have a rematch the 19th with Buckhorn GC ending out the month on the 20th. It won’t be long before March will be upon us and I can’t wait.

The Dixie Grand is over and man what a time NC shooters had in the Sunshine State. Charlie Brown, Tom Wilkinson, Larry High, Billy Thigpen, Bill Howe, Jeff & Hunter Galloway, Lewis Wyatt, the McKinney crew, the Roush’s and if I missed anybody please forgive me. I would take time to name all of the winners but that would be a lot of typing. We tried to give the highlights from the Dixie on a day to day basis. Let’s just say that NC was well represented at this prestigious ATA event. I know that folks are planning right now to attend the Southern Grand in March.

I would like to get one thing straight and that is about the rumor that I didn’t go to the Dixie because I attended a figure skating event. I had not planned to attend the Dixie and just happened to get some “FREE” tickets to attend the early session on Saturday morning. Even our mystery traveler called me this afternoon telling me that he and the wife were viewing the men’s finals from the Greensboro Coliseum and to slip my hand up and wave so that they could see me. As he was hanging up the phone he was laughing for some unknown reason.

We had some visitors at the Rock Saturday. Pete Pearce, North Davis and Doug Henderson showed up for a little practice and it was great to hear that Pete and Davis are going to start shooting again. From what I hear Pete ordered 3 ERADS and Davis was murdering targets from the 16 and the 27 yard line. Doug Henderson is the DA for Guilford County and is a sporting clays shooter for all practical purposes. I hope to actually get out and shoot some sporting clays with Mr. Henderson in the very near future.

We went to the Rock Sunday to shoot a little practice. I wore shorts and it was perfect weather for them. I stepped to line and mashed 25 singles and it was downhill from there. Danny Lloyd, Tommy Brown, JC Nunn, Glenn “Sky King” Brewer, Doc Gonzalez, Doug Starr, Lane Murray, Tom Cox and there were others spreading the lead.

I hope everybody has a great week and if you know of any good deals on shotgun shells please let me know. With shot at 38 bucks a bag this is sure getting to be a pricey sport. If you have any funny dirt to dish just email me at freddydacrusher@hotmail.com. Hey Lew and Lou see you in March……



Weekly Blurb 1/24/2011
Greetings to you on this chilly morning in the Piedmont Plateau of North Carolina. This wasn’t a big shooting weekend in North Carolina but folks were still out practicing in the cold this weekend. I guess the biggest news this weekend was the birth of Kelsey Galloway. She came into the world Saturday night at 6 pounds 1 ounce and 19 inches long. She is the daughter of Andy and Traci Galloway and of course Hunter Galloway’s first granddaughter.
Our mystery traveler checked in from Venice Florida today and is just a few days from getting to the Dixie Grand. They spent some time in the Keys and said the alligators were everywhere trying to get warm and out of the cooler water. The temps in the Keys approached the low 80’s and our mystery traveler is already working on his farmers tan.

Called Dave Daily tonight and he had just gotten on the ground in Indianapolis. He said there was six inches of snow on the ground and about 10 degrees. I know he is a happy man with the Steelers winning their AFC division playoff. I would imagine Uncle Rick is jumping for joy also in Pittsburgh.

JC has been slipping out to the Rock and tuning in the old AL-391 I sold him about the time I bought the Kolar in 2006. He has been trying to get parts for his AL-2 and I found two items that he has been looking for last week. He was dug in this weekend looking at the games yesterday and waiting on warmer weather.

I have some news from the hills that I would like to share with you. It gets lonely up on the hill and I asked one of the hill people for some hearsay and here it is:

Hearsay from the Mountains - Going to sum it up in one word. BURRRRR!!!!!!!

Weather to day. Its a sunny 18 degrees outside today, snow is not falling its blowing by with a 45 mph tail wind, and that wind is kicking the wind chill down around -8 degrees. And this is a good day. I believe that you could count the days above freezing on one hand since Thanksgiving. The club, well I haven't seen the club since the second week in November. We had to call off the January meeting, because we couldn't reach it for snow. So every-things a norm for the mountains.

Spoke to Morg the other nite on the phone, I went by Christmas and that was the last time I saw him. He is still chained to the leg of that Jeweler’s bench making an honest dollar, but he has visions of shooting more in 2011. I think he still has Ms Kitty setting in the safe hidden away. George (Bam Bam) is spending his winter setting at the reloading bench and at the computer working on his Clinic material for the up and coming year. It is my understanding that Shelley goes by routinely for a friendly match of trap shooting on the wall chart. Funny thing is George still beats him on the wall chart, figure that. Shelley has just gotten back from his yearly coyote feeding frenzy in Alabama. Last time I saw him, he was hosting a new beard. He had read where you could ugly a deer too death, well this drove his brother-in-law too buying shoot houses because he was tearing them up so badly. Me, well I'm getting use to Grand Paw, have my first grandson Oran he got here the week before Thanksgiving. So maybe if father time looks on us kindly I can turn him into one of those range rats running around.

That's about it for the mountains, I understand this snow is going to leave about mid March. By that time we should have shells loaded up for a little practice. Just in time for The Dogwood, Spring, Summer, Warmth, Green Grass, Orange Targets, O! sorry a little cabin fever. That's about it, the Cartel is hunkered down waiting for spring thaw.

Thank you Tom Pitts for a little hearsay from off the hill. Speaking of hearsay I hear that Lou Carter is shooting a little bit and might make it a day to the Dixie. Seems like his time is occupied by working at a sporting clays range and that could be interesting.

The Dixie starts this week at the Silver Dollar trap club in Odessa Florida. I know that some NC folks are there and others plan to be there. So by the time the blurb hits next Monday all the fun will be over and we will see how our North Carolina brethren fared.

February is right around the corner with registered shooting around the state. We had a question about league shooting in NC and I wish someone would startup something like that or even maybe give it a go. I know Maryland has league shoots all through winter and have some huge payouts. It is all non-registered so that you don’t kill your averages during the winter.

Rockingham might try a new format for the Lewis Class shoots and here it is. 25 from the 16 – 25 from the 20 – 25 from the 22 and 25 from your ATA card. We would have the same Lewis style payouts and I thing it would be pretty interesting!

Ok – it is about bedtime for me and it will be a super busy week for me for sure. We hope your team won this weekend and cannot wait until the Superbowl February 6th. If you would like the link to the chatroom just email me at freddydacrusher@hotmail.com and we will send you the link.

One last comment before I go. I have been chatting with Sandy Mitchell about every night about the good old days of trapshooting in NC. If you knew Sandy you would remember him during the Pinehurst days and all the folks back then. It has been great catching up so get in the room and say hello to Sandy if you can. Take care and travel safe!


Weekly Blurb 1/17/2011
We hope you had a good weekend and it was a great weather weekend for our area anyway. Two good days of shooting weather and we have some reports on the two registered events in the state.
We have a mystery traveler that I talked to this week. He and his lovely wife are tooling around Florida and will drop back by the Silver Dollar GC for the last few days of the Dixie Grand. We won’t give his name because you just never know who is reading the blurb that might have bad intentions.

This was a big football weekend and we checked in on former NC resident Dave Daily at his home in Myrtle Beach. I called him and asked if folks from Pittsburgh new what a fumble was? Evidently he had a crew of Pittsburgh transplants at his house for a football gathering. We will probably get to shoot with him at the South Carolina State Shoot in May.

We have been adding things to the website when we find them and I have been digging through my archives for old shoot reports. Unfortunately we don’t have all of the articles I have written going back to 2002. I have also been moving interesting things that I find on Trapshooters.com to the Lodge area.

One of my goals has been to collect information on all of our Hall Of Fame inductees including the information that was presented at the ceremony and also pictures of the event and shooter. If you happen to have any of the old HOF programs I would like a copy or a scanned image of the info.

The chat room is up and running and it has been hit and miss here lately. I have opened it up to not require a valid email address and we will see how that goes. Folks have had issues logging in and getting a valid password to use the room. Also, if you have tried to register on the TarHeelTrap website and can’t get logged in please let me know ASAP. Use freddydacrusher@hotmail.com to contact me – Thanks!

I have been tempted to start the “Hotshot of the Week” back up and I think it would be a good thing. For the folks that continue to shoot and spend their money there ought to be some type of recognition for their efforts. If you would like to nominate someone for the weekly “Hotshot of the Week” designation, just drop me an email with your choice and tell me why you think they should be the weekly Hotshot..

Old Hickory Rifle & Pistol Club held a registered shoot this weekend and from the looks of the scores they had some good weather. Henry McGinnis won the singles, Chris Ricketson won the caps and Jef Solomon won the doubles. Chris Ricketson also won the HOA with a 283x300 for the daily target program.

The Rockingham Gun Club also held a registered shoot with Chris Shoulars winning the singles after a shootoff with Tommy Brown, John Miller won the handicap with Tommy Brown winning the doubles and the HOA. We had enough handicap shooters for a punch and Mr. Miller got a ½ yard punch for his great shooting.

I called Charlie Smith Saturday night and asked him about a lighthearted competition between the two clubs involving the singles event on Saturday. It would be a total score of the 5 shooters he chose and of course 5 shooters from our site. He agreed and by the time I called him Saturday he changed the format to include another 5 shooters for a total of 10 competitors. So in the end we pitted his top ten against our top ten and we came out 10 birds short of a win. He has agreed to give us a chance to tie it up in February and only time and targets will tell if the Red Hats at the Rock can outgun the White Hats at Old Hickory.

It looks like a break in registered shoots for the next few weekends with OH@Bostic hosting the 1st shoot of February the 3rd with a BIG50. If you have never been to Gastonia it is a neat place to shoot and sort of reminds me of West Penn Sportsman near Delmont PA. They shoot the 12th with Rockingham and Old Hickory@Bostic the 19th and bringing up the rear last bust not least Buckhorn the 20th.

I hope you have a great Monday and it looks like cool weather most of the week with high temps this weekend in the high 30’s. I have the day off and might slip up to the Rock for a little practice. Hey Lew and Lou……..


Weekly Blurb 1/10/2011

Weather seems to be the main focus of the news media lately and by the time you read this Monday morning precipitation might be falling in your area. With the predictions of snow and then ice it might be a miserable start to the week.
Rockingham Gun Club hosted a non-registered shoot Saturday and we had 10 shooters step to the line. With temps in the 30’s and wind in the 20’s it was a little sporty. There were a few times that when I put the gun up to call for the target, two lost targets were still in the air. Lane Murray bested all shooters with a 46/43 with Lewis Wyatt hitting the next Lewis 18 targets shy of the top score. RCGC will host their first registered shoot of the New Year the 15th. We hope that you can join us for some winter shooting fun. The weather forecast is calling for low 40’s and partly sunny.

Jimmy Wilson called me earlier in the week and advised me that Russell and Jennifer Nuti would be stopping by Buckhorn for a visit. I called JC and we worked out a little road trip to visit the Nuti’s and to see Dan “The Man” Johnson. When we got there Jennifer and Russell were working with Jennifer’s sister showing her how to shoot trap. They both looked great and I took some pictures of Russell shooting alone and with Dan Johnson.

I took a look at the last time Russell shot a registered target and it was in August 2006 at the Dixie Trap Club. Jennifer registered her last targets in 2007 I guess at the Alabama State Shoot. Dan registered his last targets at the Bedford County Sportsmen’s Club in June 2007. Dan shot a hodge podge round to get used to a loner smokepole today and then took Russell out for a pretend shootoff round. Dan only missed one and that isn’t too shabby for a shooter that hasn’t registered a target since 6/24/2007.

I took some pictures of everybody today and will try to get them posted for your viewing pleasure. I also took a picture of the bag of sand Gail Page won for the 93 she broke last weekend. Dan asked Bobby if he wanted to take her trophy home and he acted like he didn’t want any part of it.

I want to share a little story with you to keep you from making the same mistake a local shooter made this week. Evidently this person had a problem bird that kept sitting on his SUV mirror and would relieve itself on the side of his vehicle. If the window was rolled down a little bit the bird would sit on the window and proceed to rain down chocolate chip streaks on his seats. Alas the shooter had a brilliant idea that involved his trusty BB Gun. The result was a shattered window and a bird that returned to the side mirror confused as to where the window was. “Sticky Note” when in doubt do not get the BB gun out.

The “TarHeelTrap” chatroom is back up and running and we have sent out invitations to about 40 people. The following folks have checked in since the new room went up. They include Richard Colley in Tennessee, Hap in Arizona, Tommy Brown, Lane Murray, Jimmy Wilson, Jeff Hashbarger in Tennessee, Marty Hill, AwMan Woody, Sandy Mitchell in Texas, Terry Jordan in Canada, Tom Cox and last but not least Ronnie Manuel. If Dan reads this please get me your email addy and we will send you the link. If you have cabin fever just drop me an email at freddydacrusher@hotmail.com and we will email you the link. We talk about all types of stuff but it is a great way to keep up with each other and to discuss elements of our sport.

I know this is sore subject for some and for others not too much. This is for the release trigger shooters out there. I just purchased some “Release” trigger decals that can be placed on your stock. I have large ones and small ones and they are .50 cents each. That is exactly what I paid for them and hope to get one on my Kolar this week. I hope the decal stays on my gun as long my “Release Sticker” did. I don’t want to get these to folks and they not adhere to the gun. If you want to order your own the fellows address is as follows – Vernon Shaffer – 1860 Rosstown Road – Lewisberry PA 17339. He charges .50 cents a piece for the large or the small. I will take some pictures and put them under the Buy Or Sell thread in the The Lodge. His thread is on Trapshooters.com in case you want to check it out.

Just recently I found a thread regarding a portable gun rack for 3 or four guns. Most of you know that Roger Bynum built me a handmade gun rack that holds 4 guns. I also had Lane Murray pick me up an aluminum Winchester gun rack that holds three guns. Now at the big shoots we can rest 7 guns under the big top. Anyway, I emailed Jeff Galloway and also Hunter Galloway the info on the gun rack but forgot to include the .pdf document. I did however explain that the info was found on ts.com and went on about my business. The next day I get an email for Jeff and it is a one liner that says “What the H*** Freddy”?

When I read that all I thought was that I had sent an email without the .pdf and resent the email to both Jeff and Hunter. Then I hear the rest of the story and in graphic details. When the email was sent to Hunter his wife Debbie read the message and since no attached document was sent she did the next best thing. She typed into her browser address bar the following – ts.com and then all heck broke loose. Guess what – ts.com which was my abbreviation for trapshooters.com turns out to be a website for you guessed it “transsexuals”.

Yep there Mrs. Galloway was knee deep in a graphic cornucopia of all types of odd images on her 21” flat panel display. She immediately began to think of me in a “bad” way and maybe thinking that I had a dark side that she somehow had missed along the way. And that her trapshooting son had been traveling with me since 2003 shooting around the Southeast and also to the Dixie Grand with Debbie, Jeff and Hunter. When Hunter called me to see why I had sent him a link to an odd website I had to do some serious explaining. So – please for God’s sake please spell trapshooters.com out when sending it to your trapshooting friends.

Here is the report for the top 5 pictures viewed on my Photobucket account as of January 8th. Out of the top 5 photos 4 of them are of Pat Ireland. At # 5 Pat’s picture at the Silver Dollar on the golf cart in his pink shirt. At #4 is the picture of Pat, Jim Mitchell and John Hiter on the front porch of the old NC Homegrounds clubhouse. At #3 is the picture of Pat shooting at the Southern Grand on the club side from the 27 yard line. At #2 is the picture of Terry Dean’s lean and mean shooting machine squad at the Southern Zone at the NC Homegrounds. At #1 is the picture of Ralph Harrelson, Jim Dodson, Pat Ireland and John Hiter on the front porch of the old NC Homegrounds office/clubhouse. These 5 pictures total views exceeds 5000 picture views on the internet.

That is about it for now and we hope you have a great week. If you get trapped in the house this week it might be a good time to clean up the shop, load some shells, clean some guns or maybe even see what the wife needs done around the house. Also I would like to thank Jef Solomon for the kind words regarding the return of the “blurb”. Jeff is an air traffic controller I think at the Charlotte Mecklenburg airport and I thought I had a high stress job. I posted the pix I took today and you can find them by going to www.nctrap.com and look for Fred Redmon’s pictures. The folder name is BGC Nuti 1/9/2011. Hey Lou and Lew……….



The Blurb Is Back 1/6/2011
Hello everybody remember me? I got to check the last time I posted one of my “blurbs” and it has been about 7 months. I know that some of you folks got a kick out of reading my ramblings and I guess I missed it to a certain extent. I am looking to the future and I really feel like I can post something of interest at least once a week unless there is some breaking news.
Back when I was shooting all the time and traveling I had a bunch to write about. Then I cut back quite a bit and also spend a lot of Saturday’s scoring at the Rockingham Gun Club for their monthly shoots. The biggest thing that happened is that I have struggled the last two years shooting decent scores. When you go from AA25 A to C20B it sort of takes the wind out of your sails. But that in itself is no excuse to give up or quit trying or break out the crying towel.

Before I get to yakkin about a lot of stuff here are a few things I did to get my shooting turned around a little bit. One thing I did was visit the eye doctor and got my 1st prescription for distance at the ripe age of 55. I should have had my eyes checked two years ago. I also got to looking at some factors that might have got my shooting off track. I determined that about the time I added extended posts to my comb my troubles began. I decided to take those out prior to my trip to the Indian shoot in July and my my it made quite a difference. Now, am I back on track who knows but one thing I do know is that I am looking forward to shooting this year and that is a good feeling.

Enough about me but I just wanted you to get a feel of what has been going on with me. Now, onto other matters at hand and some not so pleasant. I know that we all were saddened by the loss of Pat Ireland and none more than me. Pat was one of the few folks that shot at and loved the Pinehurst GC. I would imagine that a white balloon will be released in his honor at the 2011 NC State Trapshoot.

JC Nunn is alive and well and will turn 88 this July. He is still working 2 days a week at the auto auction and we try to call him every day to see how he is doing. We are planning to travel to the Grand this August Lord willing and his health is good. J. D. Holland isn’t doing too well the last time we heard and lost his wife last year. His vision is poor and he has sold all of his shells and components. We are going to try to call him to see how he is doing and might try to get him out to the club so he can get out of the house. Cliff Dowdy is back to shooting some and is still buying high dollar trap guns just like always.

We talked to Dave Daily and is busy and living in Myrtle Beach. He confirmed that the Myrtle Grove Gun Club is holding monthly shoots and the dates are available on their website. He will be celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary and will be traveling to the Dominican Republic for his vacation. Normally he goes to Cancun but is a little wary of all the drug cartel junk going on in and around Mexico.

As many of you know Dan Johnson is back in North Carolina and will be working in the Sanford area. He is working on figuring out where he wants to live before he brings the family down from Pennsylvania. We are going to try to get him a gun to shoot so that he can keep Jimmy busy and help Jimmy hone his shooting skills. Dan did appear and scored at the January 2nd shoot at Buckhorn.

Hunter Galloway is now the official ATA Secretary and will be serving in that capacity for however long his term is. That is quite an honor and I know he will serve the ATA and all trapshooters well. Now we have Terry Roush and Hunter serving the ATA and both from the Tar Heel state. Jeff is still in school studying gunsmithing and living on the family farm in Caswell County. He is also working part time at the airfield in Chapel Hill. Jeff has already been practicing for the Dixie Grand and shot 3 afternoons this week at the Rock.

Trapshooting dates for 2011 have been posted with a few clubs still to report. It doesn’t look like there are any less trapshoots in NC with the exception of the Ft. Bragg club. I know they will be hosting a reduced schedule and we hope to get down there to shoot this year. Rockingham will be hosting a 500 bird singles marathon in early April so please mark your calendars.

Has anybody heard anything out of “Sweet” Lou down in Florida? Maybe I will drop him an email or give him a call to see how he has been doing. Dan moved back and you never know maybe Lou will come see us maybe for the NC State Shoot. Speaking of another Lew and we are speaking of Lewis Wyatt. Last year Lewis planned to attend the Grand with his son and he never made it. He was wrecked by a lady that sideswiped his motor home on his way to pick up his son. Lewis was ok and his motor home was totaled and he has purchased another similar vehicle. I had the pleasure of watching Lewis assist his grandson shoot a BB gun at stationary targets at the Rockingham Gun Club. The entire scene was heartwarming and I have pictures to prove it.

I had the pleasure of talking to Jim Daughtridge the other day. He is doing well and has been playing a lot of golf and has shot very little. We encouraged him to come on back out and shoot with us in 2011 and he stated that he might get back in the shooting scene as soon as it warms up.

Pete McCall is shooting again according to info on trapshooters.com. It looks like he is shooting with one eye and evidently broke a 50 straight in an event. He has had some vision issues for quite some time and it has really curtailed his shooting. We wish him the best and we hope he will head to NC in 2011.

That is about it for my return back to the blurb. My hope is to post a blurb every Sunday night for your reading pleasure on Monday morning. Some may be lengthy and some might be short you will just never know. With gas predicted to go as high as 5 bucks a gallon it remains to be seen just how much shooting folks will continue to do. For those of you that don’t shoot as much we will try to keep you up to date on what is happening in North Carolina.

Since I posted on Thursday night I ought to have enough juicy info to post by Sunday night. According to Jimmy Wilson the Nuti’s are going to drop by the club for a visit and Dan will be there also.

Have a great Friday and weekend and we hope it doesn’t snow 6 inches Tuesday…..
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb April - June 2011

Post by smokem »

Weekly Blurb 6/27/2011

We are just a week away from the 4th of July Holiday weekend. Time sure moves along when you are having fun and in some semblance of good health. We had three shoots in NC this weekend and some good scores were broken. Camper Dan told me about the possiblity of a two day shoot this weekend near Mebane NC. Hopefully this will be confirmed by sometime Monday morning.
Watauga had a good turnout and it looks like the weather was marvelous. George Sudderth won the singles, doubles and probably the HOA. Grainger Pierce from Gastonia sporting a new Kolar won the caps and congrats to him on the 1/2 yard punch. SPY2 worked his mojo on SPY100 by providing succulent hot dogs and juicy cold watermelons. After lunch and after SPY100 partook of the goodies SPY2 took advantage of him and whipped him by 5 targets. Read all about it in the Watauga GC writeup.

The Elmo Matkins shoot was held Saturday and Winky Mabe got his name placed on the "Challenge" trophy. He posted a 280x300 and tied with John Miller who won the singles event with a 194x200. Chase Reese took a trip to the pattern board with Lewis Wyatt and wound up winning the caps with the lone 92. Not enough shooters for a punch and that young fellow will be on the 27 before you know it. Terry Roush made it out for a visit and Hunter Galloway sat the bench scoring for the entire 300 bird event. Don Solomon made it to the Rock and wound up winning his class in singles. Luckily we were able to give away Remington factory shells for the events. Also Andrew Carroll made it up and was limping with a bad hip and a bad heel We really appreciate him coming up to shoot with us.

Ray Shisler has visited with Steve Karas and Steve is putting up a good fight after his stroke. Ray and Steve had made plans to attend the Cardinal shoot in Ohio in August. Not only did Steve have a stroke he also lost his young grandaughter only a month or so before he had his stroke. Evidently Steve's grandaughter died due an overdose of a drug that her boyfriend gave her . According to Ray the drug was 5 times more potent than morphine. She went to sleep and never woke up and possibly stopped her respiratory system. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

I called a couple of my friends in Indiana Saturday. Greg "Fudd" Shaffer and Jerry Bruns are two of the fellows I shoot with at the Indian shoot. They will be traveling together to Bradford and hopefully we will get to squad with them for the singles and caps events. Both fellows have been working on restoring M1 Garands for the local VFW. Evidenlty they use them to fire blanks for their ceremonies and salutes. Both fellows are looking forward to the trip and meeting the crippler.

Karole Miller tipped me off that Doug McKinney had been involved in a car accident and the only important detail is that he is ok. We tried to send an email to him last week and possibly have a bad address for him. We were looking for the scores from the DCWC shoot and hopefully we will get the info soon. Along those same lines - the Doug House Memorial is right around the corner so make plans to attend if possibe.

The Zone is not too far off either and please use the pre-squad.com if possible. I haven't taken a look at the NC site to see who is coming. I hope I can make the Zone but the wife might not issue me a hall pass after getting back from Bradford. I remember the Zone in 2005 and it was a good Zone for me. I got a yard for a 97 that put me on the 25, broke 95, 97, 97 in doubles and had to shootoff against Mark Isner and won a carryover with John Stillwagon. That was when I was shooting the KX-5 and the Browning Special Trap.

I got a copy Trap & Field from 1966 and there is a picture of JC in it. I will try to scan it and put it in his HOF thread for your viewing pleasure. I broke a 71 in 1966 in caps and was only 11 years old at that time. If you have any old Trap & Fields with early NC articles please let me know.

Ok - we are going to wrap it up and we hope everybody has a great week leading up to the Holiday weekend. It seems like anytime I plan to head out of town I have to work twice as hard preparing for the trip. We will try to post the info on the shoot this weekend when it becomes available. We have some pictures remaining to put up for the Elmo and the LCS and hope to get them up Monday night. I want to give a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim & Buckeye, Tim & Thea, Cliff, Bob in Ohio, Solomon brothers, Fudd & The Bruns........Smokem



Weekly Blurb 6/20/2011

Good morning and what a beautiful morning it is in North Carolina. Another week has come and gone and we had two shoots in NC this weekend. The Pennsylvania State shoot is over and also the Tennessee State shoot is in the record books. We had a rather in-depth look at the Tennessee State shoot with Addison competing and it can be found in the lodge section of the website.
Coharie shot this weekend and had a low turnout but better than their 6/26/2010 event. A rather new shooter won the singles, Gorgeous George Brown won the caps and Mac took the doubles (50 straight/1st 50) and the HOA. If you have never been to CSL you need to put it in your schedule. Just about the time you think you have figured CSL out it kicks your rear one more time. Hopefully we can get down their and spread some lead on a trip to see my mom on the coast.

The Durham County Wildlife Club hosted a shoot Sunday and we hope to have some scores either Monday or Tuesday. I have some fond memories shooting at DCWC and it involves a 194x200 I broke in singles in say 1969ish. I believe it was one of my 1st or 2nd 98's in singles as a kid. They use to also have turkey shoots and I took several birds home for Granny to cook. The Doug House Memorial shoot will be held on the 9th & 10th at the DCWC. We would like to make it but will be shooting somewhere else in the country.

The Watuaga Gun Club will host their monthly shoot on June 25th. They will offer a typical 300 target program in the beautiful NC mountains. George and Tom will roll out the red carpet for all that attend the event. This is going to be a good warmup for the shooting nucleus in that group. BamBam will be honing his skills for the Zone because that is an event t where he tends to shine. Tom Pitts and Tom Shelley are the sleepers and they might just win one of the events outright because they are due. Morg is about to break out of the box and will hopefully take Miss Kitty to the big dance on the hill. Only time and targets will tell the tale of the four horseman.

The Rockingham Gun Club will hold the 1st Annual Elmo Matkins Memorial shoot this Saturday the 25th of June. Elmo passed 4 months ago Friday and Lane and I stepped to the line Saturday morning and left post 1 open for old Elmo. Lane laid 25 smokeballs out and it was about 8:30 in the AM before anybody else arrived. For most of you that knew Elmo you know that he was a man of a few words but he loved the sport and the people involved in the sport. We will be shooting 200 singles and 100 handicap targets since Elmo didn't shoot any doubles to speak of. He claimed until the day he passed that he didn't register those 100 doubles targets that showed up on his ATA card. Then on Sunday we will have the Lewis Class "non-registered" shoot at 2pm - 50 singles & 50 caps 1 yard back from your ATA handicap yardage. We always have fun and we hope you can join us...

The crippler took his rebuilt AL-2 out to the Rock Saturday and got it tuned in. He evidenlty had some help from JT Brewer getting all the parts swapped out from his other gun. It is amazing what you can find on trapshooters.com and it includes the gun parts that we got for JC's gun. Monday he will be picking up his AL-391 tube that has a nib welded onto it to deflect shells when he shoots doubles. Since he shoots next to me I can do away with that blinder I had made that is in the shape of a pie plate. He is getting all geared up for the Konne-Yaut shoot and had his hair cut really short. I asked him to consider getting it cut in a mohawk and he said those folks might think I am crazy.

We had the pleasure of meeting a Mr. Kim at the Rock Saturday. He was shooting a brand new Beretta 682 combo and man what a nice gun. He normally shoots skeet but has decided to give trap a try evidently. Glenn Brewer has been coaching him a little bit and it looks like it is working for Mr. Kim. He evidenlty is a businessman and has a couple of international food stores in Greensboro and Charlotte. I took a few pix of him shooting and will hope to get them posted soon.

I actually got to see Chris Shoulars shooting Saturday and it is good to see him back on the line. He is involved in school and missed the NC State Shoot. His dad Scott was shooting Saturday also and was sporting a rather new looking BT-99. I never knew that Scott was a lefty but I do now. Hopefully we will see both of them at the Elmo this Saturday.

Jeff Galloway had a few issues at the NC State shoot and it included problems with his soft comb on his soft touch. The soft comb had become hard and was cracking and rubbing his cheek. Even with all that aggravation he managed to win at the shoot. He sent his comb to Keith Heeg and got it back last week. He has yet to test it out and Keith told him not to use petroleum products on his face because it would dry out the comb. Heeg advised for him to use "olive oil" if he needed a lubricant to keep his face sticking on the comb. I guess I will just use the face powder as long as that works for me.

The Southern Zone is only a few weeks away and I hear tell that folks from far and wide will be attending our location. We got folks coming from Kentucky to shoot in NC. Ken Duncan wanted me to let everybody know that they can pre-squad at www.presquad.com. I learned one lesson and this is it. Doubles on Sunday morning - if you shoot early on the lower 1st four fields - good luck on seeing the right hand bird. I might not make it to the Zone this year and might only make it up for the caps only on Sunday. It sure would be nice if I could get somebody to fill in the gap with taking pix at this event. I can't be everywhere all the time even but I would if I could.

From what we can tell the shooting supplies are going up in cost dramatically. Shot is $40 a bag and primer prices have crept up also. It is very interesting the number of shooters relaoding these days. All the targets I shot at the state shoot were with shells I loaded myself. Let me take that back, I shot Wally World feds on my 2nd shot in both my dubs events. It is very satisfying to win with your own reloads and save a buck or two. Like Joe Nimer used to say - I am on a fixed income.

The PA state shoot has just wrapped up and you can look at all of the scores on www.rjstuart.com. It looks like the lady shooters really stood out this year with Rachel Hopkins winning the non-resident HOA and HAA. Stephanie Sandler was hot all week and she took a lot of the resident lady awards if you check the website. Even Dave Shaeffer was back on the scene and he is headed to the MD state shoot in a day or two. We are going to need to make an effort to attend one of their shoots one year. I hear they run a top notch event and have some great trophies also. Even MD shooter Gary "Old Smoker" Sutphin showed up in the winners column and I am glad to see him shooting well.

Addsion Callan made it to the Tennessee State Shoot and shot well considering all of the interesting issues he had to overcome. You can read all of the info for yourself - got to "The Lodge" then Out-Of-State shoot info. I have never been to the TN shoot but from what I have read it might be a good thing that I haven't. Hopefully they can all the kinks worked out for future shoots including the Zone.

Well - that is about all I have to offer at the moment. Hopefully news from around our trapshooting community will flow in this week. We missed Lewis at the club Saturday and heard that he was out galavanting around in his motorhome. If have any interesting bits of info to share please feel free to contact me at my published email address. I want to get a shout out to Lew, Lou, Camper Dan, Big Jim & Buckeye, Tim & Thea, Gail & Bobby, Bob in Ohio, Carolina Girl, Shooter, Cliff and Charlie Brown.....Smokem.....



Weekly Blurb 6/13/2011

Greetings from Jamestown NC and the Dallas Mavericks are NBA Champions. And how about that Jeff Gordon finally winning another race in a season at Pocono! Oh this is the weekly blurb isn’t it? Hats off to those folks and we will discuss some trapshooting winners here in a little bit.
Buckhorn hosted a two day shoot this weekend and we hope to get all of the scores Monday. Camper Dan sent me some pix for the Saturday event and hopefully we will get the Sunday info Monday. Like I posted – there were three 99’s in the singles – two 96’s in the caps and two 97’s in the doubles.

Two shoots upcoming with Coharie on the 18th and Durham County on the 19th. I will get the CSL program up and hopefully we will have some info on the DCWC very soon. I haven’t checked the weather for the weekend but I would imagine it will be toasty. Hopefully both locations will have good turnouts and we can’t wait to see who will wind up on the leader board.

The Watauga boys Spy100 and Spy2 shot well at the NC State Shoot! They were loaded for bear and Tom Pitts won “B” Class Singles and Tom Shelley won “C” Class singles on Saturday! They cut up and act crazy but they really love to give George a hard time? George don’t pay any attention to them and let’s his shooting do his talking. They have a shoot the 25th and head up there to see them boys in action.

It looks like shot has hit 40 dollars a bag according to Lane Murray. Shooting isn’t cheap but the cost keeps on going up and up. I shot reloads at the NC State Shoot and had pretty good success. JC says he likes his reloads better than factory loads. He has switched to using Green Dot and I might go to Green Dot for caps loads after my Clays runs out.

There is a lot of shooting in the upcoming weeks and don’t forget the “Elmo Memorial” at the Rock on the 25th. They will offer a 300 target program that includes 200 singles and 100 caps. Elmo wasn’t a big doubles shooter so they opted to drop the dubs. Dan Johnson is the only person to break 200 at the Rock and he did it with a Perazzi if I am not mistaken. They got the ERAD delay fixed on field four and hope to get that wild left bird tamed down before the shoot begins.

Tom Cox’s son Dave graduated Saturday and we wish him the best on continuing his education or finding a job. He is always a great help at the Rock and hopefully he will come out to see us in the near future. This upcoming Sunday Hunter Galloway’s granddaughter Kelsey will be christened at the St. Pius Catholic Church. For those of you that know Andy that is his daughter.

Looking a little further into July we will have the KY and VA state shoots. I have attended both shoots in the past and shot in Berea in 2003. Both clubs are great but it sure was hot in Kentucky. Several have expressed interest in attending those shoots and we wish you the best. If I could get by with it I would go to the VA shoot Friday – Monday with Tuesday being a rest day. Then I would drive the 500 miles to Bradford PA for the Konne-Yaut Indian shoot on Wednesday and shoot Thursday – Sunday with a travel day Monday.

Last but not least the Zone is in July and I hear tell that folks from near and far will be coming to NC to shoot the Zone. Some folks are coming all the way from Kentucky to shoot from what I hear. Could it be the ERADS and the good targets that we throw in NC? Not sure but the question is why was the attendance so far down at the NC State Shoot this year?

I hope everybody has a great week and maybe we will have more news to share next Monday. Info gets a little sparse after a State Shoot and I like to report fact more than fiction. It is a fact that I can make stuff up that sounds real, just ask SPY2. I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim the Dog Commander & Buckeye, Tim & Thea, Carolina Girl & Dervin, Bob In Ohio…………Smokem



Monday's Bonus Blurb 6/6/2011

Monday went by pretty quick and we are looking forward to our first night at home since Wednesday. I hauled the Crippler over to the Gun Vault in High Point today. We found him an AL-2 minus the wood and barrel for a great price. JC filled out the paperwork and the fellow asked him – are you going to stay happy like that all day?
Tommy Brown wound up being the NC State Team Points Captain last year and I think I found out one of the keys to his success. He told me that hot peppers are good for your eyes and he eats jalapeno peppers all the time. He asked me if I had ever seen a Mexican with reading glasses and I drew a blank. When he realized I didn’t have an answer he said – see there that is why they have such good eyesight – peppers. So – I have a pot of jalapeno’s growing out back and I will take some pictures of their progress. I am looking forward to my averages going way up real soon. I might have some issues finding folks to squad with however.

I had the pleasure of eating breakfast with SPY 100 – SPY2 and Morg owner of Miss Kitty. They said they had info on a woodchuck that I might be interested in. It seems that the woodchuck has been gnawing on his stock trying to get it right and it was a work in progress. They told me that the woodchuck was saving all of the wood chips and was going to place them in little glass containers to be given out like lucky four leaf clovers. They could be called BamBam Chips or maybe he could call them SudderDust?

Along the same lines I heard that Morg took Miss Kitty to the beauty shop and got her a pedicure. Yep a little trim and I wonder if the adjustment will bode well for someone that won HOA AT THEIR CLUB SHOOT? How is it that when we shoot the best scores we want to change things, can somebody explain that to me? Morg I think you might need a little vile of that SudderDust in your shooting bag!

Guess who showed up at the NC Homegrounds? He was the NC State Singles Champion in 1991 and he could hit a target as hard and fast as any shooter I have ever seen. He brought his lovely wife and cute little son up for a visit and it was great to see him for sure. Are you scratching your heads – it was none other than Michael Bryant. Maybe one day he will get back to shooting and get his son involved also.

I have more things to talk about and discuss so keep on checking back for more info from the NC State Shoot. Oh – Sunday afternoon Mrs. Keever said she needed to see me. She said I had a little money coming but she had a problem. Someone had initialed my name and took my money with them. At first I really thought this was a legitimate mistake until I viewed my initials beside my name. After I processed the info in my brain I asked – who took it? She said he is right over there and you guessed it – Jimmy Wilson was the culprit. He was grinning like a big cat after a good meal. Evidently the look on may face gave him enough enjoyment for the moment to give me my money back.

When I start the blurb again we will be talking about the Watauga boys, Camper Dan and other interesting issues.



Weekly Blurb 6/6/2011

Good morning from Jamestown NC and we hope you are looking forward to a great week! It is tough getting back to work after hanging out at the gun club with all of your friends. For you retired folks I guess that doesn’t apply to you now does it?
First I would like to say hats off to the NCTA and HOF boards for a great NC State Trapshoot. We had great weather, great target setting and the refs were awesome as far as I was concerned. The 3S program and pre-squad.com worked great and with a few tweaks it will work great for the NCTA.

Billy Thigpen had shooters to the line on time and I heard nothing but good things about the way the shoot was run. The shootoffs were handled well and it was nice to get away from the Homegrounds at a decent time each evening.

Also, we appreciate the Non-Denominational gathering that is held at 8AM on Sunday morning. It was nice to see my friends in the service and we appreciate the always enlightening Bob Schultz sharing the word. I made the comment as we were dismissed that the NC handicap champ had been in the service in 2010. I stated that it might be one of the folks in the room that might win that event. The fellow that won it in 2010 was none other than “CHASE REESE” and yes he was in the room Sunday morning.

We would like to say happy birthday to Joy Duncan and she did not tell us how old she was? Also, Bill Howe shot at and broke his 100,000th doubles target on Thursday. He had a cake and I got a picture of the masterpiece. Last but not least, Jimmy and Jeri Wilson celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on Sunday the 5th.

Charlie Brown brought his “A” game to the NC State Shoot and he shot well. I told everybody to look out for him a week or so ago and he did not dissapoint. He won the singles with a 199 and a shootoff and also HOA and HAA. I took time to watch his squad shoot doubles Sunday. Larry High, Trey Wilburn, Cassie Hammond and Charlie were murdering some doubles. I actually was able to photograph birds in the air when Cassie called for her targets – she is that quick.

Doubles were won by Ray never changing Gaultney with a STRONG 98. He is an amazing doubles shooter and if I am not mistaken he is still shooting his 1100’s. He also wound up 5th in the caps event on Sunday. He still after all these years shoot no singles targets if rumor proves me right.

Handicap – the wonder child has done it again and yes Chase Reese has won the NC State Handicap Championship – BACK2BACK. He broke his 1st 100 in singles Saturday and finished with a 197. He had an off day in doubles after breaking a 98 earlier in the week. We are real happy for him and I will bet his momma can’t wait until he starts driving. Chase also won the NC Junior with that 197 on Saturday.

NC Lady Champ – Karole Miller has made her mark since her arrival in the TarHeelState. Her 192 Saturday got her in the NC record books forever and she followed that up with a 94 in the caps on Sunday. Rumor has it that she could be heard calling for targets on traps 11 & 12. The only thing odd about that was that she was on the other end of the line. Jackie Roush took the RU spot with a good 187 and good shooting Jackie.

NC Sub-Jr – Addison Callan had a great shoot and wound up breaking another 99 Saturday to go along with a 96 for a 195. Hunter Wright was the RU in the event and good shooting also to Hunter.

I have gotten in a little deep and it is getting late after a looong 4 days away from home. We will take a little time Monday to collect our thoughts and dig into some funny stuff that we discussed over breakfast with the Watauga crew. Evidently they have inside info on a woodchuck that is loose at the club.

I have a ton of pictures that I haven’t put up yet or captioned. I took a lot of pix of folks shooting with targets in the air and some breaking the birds. Watching trapshooting is almost like watching paint dry but we try to capture the memory of the shooters in the squad at that time in that event.

I would imagine that Joy and Ken will submit the shoot report and we will get it posted as soon as humanly possible. I would also like to say thanks to the folks that had kind words about this website, my pictures and the weekly blurb. Sometimes I wonder why I take the time to do it and then it suddenly dawns on me – I like to do it!

Check back Monday or Tuesday for more info from the State Shoot and it actually might be some funny stuff. The Buckhorn Gun Club will host a 2-day shoot this coming weekend on the 11th & 12th. Get out and go shoot if you missed the State Shoot.

The Crippler JC Nunn laid it on Lewis Wyatt in the singles and the caps but Lewis tore him a new one in the doubles. I have a few pictures of them with their fists balled up like they were going to duke it out. You are going to laugh when you see the pictures!

Have a great week and we would like to give a shout out to Lew – Lou – Camper Dan – Big Jim and Buckeye – Tim and Thea – Bob in Ohio – Charlie Brown – Carolina Girl And Darvin we missed you…..




Weekly Blurb 5/30/2011


Greetings from a warm and toasty Jamestown NC. The first three days of the week were hot and it looks like Memorial Day will soar into the 90's. I would like to say thanks to all of our Veterans and to all of our men and women serving here in the US and abroad. Also we need to remember all the men and women that have lost their lives in service to this great USA.
Watauga held their monthly shoot Saturday and look who crept out of the broom closet. Morgan Shaw shot well and we hope to see his smiling face at the HG. Bam Bam was almost perfect with a 99 in the singles with Morg winning the caps and the HOA. Tom Pitts stood atop the doubles podium and good for him. Harlan would be proud of you for sure TP. Mark your calendar for June 25th when Watauga holds their next registered shoot. Oh I about forgot that Shelley got his tail whipped by Pitts in case you were wondering.

Rockingham held their monthly non-registered trapshoot and boy was it hot. I got to shoot post two beside JC and he was "GRINDING" the targets. I got into a "look at my smokeball JC" and got a little careless. We had some new young shooters at the match and they did rather well. Collin O'Bryant broke his first 25 in singles and was a very happy little fellow. We had two tied at the top with 94's and it went downhill from there. Luis Gonzales had a strong 93 and a 47 in the caps on the backside. Lewis told JC that he hammered him and if JC hadn't had issues with the ERADS he probably would have hammered us. Mark your calendars for June 25th when we host the 4th Annual Elmo Memorial. We will shoot 200 singles (Dan Johnson is the only person to break 200 registered at the Rock) and 100 handicap. Also we will host the Lewis Class Fun Shoot on June 26th at 2PM - we hope you can join us..

Lane Murray is back in the good old US of A and he looked like a happy man today at the Rock. He had been on a cruise and was glad to be back on Terra Firma. He has promised some pictures and maybe just maybe he will allow me to post them on our "Travelogue" section of the site. We have one fellow still out of the country and he should be back from Italy Tuesday.

I looked at a thread on trapshooters.com about a shoot that got tornadic like winds and turned trailers over. The pictures are tough to look at and thank goodness nobody was hurt. It might have been in Mason and the word was that it had been rainy, muddy and windy all week. Severe weather seems to be prevalent in the last month and we hope we will be spared this week in Bostic.

Well - it is upon us and folks are already at the Homegrounds getting ready for the North Carolina State Shoot. Weather - 97 wed - 93 thurs - 94 fri - 97 sat and yep 97 Sunday. Folks - it has been awhile since folks have shot in this type of weather. Hydratrion and nourishment are key ingredients to keep you safe in the sun. Do a Google search for "Heat Stroke" and become familiar with the signs - for goodness sakes.

We are hoping for a great turnout this year and I know there will be some super scores broke at the shoot. Wed and Thurs show scattered t-storms and then fri - sun it looks a little less moist. Folks are plotting and planning to travel and we hope to go up sometime this week if work allows. If you haven't made reservations it might be tough getting a good room. I believe that the campground is sold out and that is a great sign.

The NCTA will be using 3S for registration and scoring and it should be interesting for sure. If you did pre-squad it will be great checking in with the staff and much quicker. Also be sure to check on the Chili's deal where they are donating 10% of the ticket to the Hall Of Fame. Also - there will be a cookout on FRIDAY afternoon after the festivities with grub provided by Bob Schultz. You might not be aware that a non-denominational service is held at 8AM on Sunday morning. Bring your Bible and possibly back by popular demand - Bob Schultz will spread the bread.

Well - I am about to fall asleep and hope I didn't make too many typos. Oh - Dan sent me a picture of his new home and it looks great. That will come in handy when he gets back to shooting this fall. I had a little chat with Jim Daughtridge Friday and he is doing well. He won't be joining us at the shoot and only registered 150 targets in 2010. We sure would like to see him back on the line really soon.

Have a great week everybody and you know that I will be taking pix and doing a little overview from the State Shoot. It will be over before you know it so enjoy every single second of the experience. Want to give a shout out to Lou - Lew - Camper Dan - Big Bad Jim & Buckeye, Cliff, Bob, Jim, Tim & Thea, Carolina Girl and Tater....



Weekly Blurb 5/23/2011

Greetings from a warm and toasty Jamestown NC. The temps soared today in NC for a glimpse of what summer might feel like. There were three shoots in NC Saturday and we have reports from all three of them. There is only one registered shoot prior to the NC State Shoot and then the big event in Bostic is upon us.
I reported earlier in the week that Steve Karas had suffered a stroke. I called and left a message for him and have yet to get a return call. Tom Cox passed a card around for folks to sign at the shoot Saturday. We wish him the best and pray that he can return to shooting very soon.

Mac Herring sent me the shoot report for Coharie and it looks like they are training some new shooters in that neck of the woods. It was great to see that Ron Sherwood is back to shooting and I remember the day he broke his 1st 100 and it was at CSL. I have promised to get back to CSL to shoot and I hope it happens this season.

The Rockingham Gun Club hosted the "Joe Nimer Memorial" shoot Saturday. We had a healthy turnout and some good scores were broken. There were four 98's in the singles, a lone 93 from the 27 in the caps and a Kentucky All-American broke a 98 in doubles. Kevin Parrot won the HOA but NC shooter Charlie Brown got a spot on the memorial trophy. The weather was great early and then the clouds started filtering in. We had an honest to goodness "non-flipping" handicap shootoff between John Miller and Ted Carwile. They shot it off on trap one where John struggled and where Ted broke a 25. John was the eventual winner as the winds calmed and the sun was setting. He broke a solid 24 for the 24.5 and mashed all 24 that he broke.

Old Hickory@Bostic held a registered event Saturday and looks like Henry McGinnis won the singles, Ray Gaultney won the caps, Bob White won the doubles and Henry "White Hat" won the HOA. Looks like the Red Hats might have finally broke a better score that the folks on the hill. Elwood need to get his pen out and do some ciphering.

The Watauga Gun Club will host the last trapshoot in May and the last registered shoot before the NC State Shoot. The folks do a great job putting on a shoot and they will make you feel more than welcome. Watauga somehow manages to return monies to the shooter when they shoot good. They provide a great lunch also and watch out - it is so good it can put you to sleep before the handicap! BamBam - Spy100 - Spy2 and Morg will do everything they can do to make your shooting an enjoyable experience.

I was chatting with Jerry Oxyer and he is the brother of Tom Oxyer from Ohio. Tom is good friends with Roger Shaffer and they are some great folks. Jerry told me that he attended a registered shoot in Winchester and all they got in was the singles before a storm rolled through and they cancelled the last two events. Jerry said he broke a 92 and that is the worst singles score he has shot in years. Hopefully Tom will attend our state shoot in June and maybe we will get to see Jerry in NC one day!

I usually don't use the blurb for a soapbox but here goes. Clubs across our state publish dates for registered shoots. Some clubs are blessed to have members that work at these shoots and sacrifice their time to provide a good experience for the shooter. Just like Church 10% are doing 90% of the work. Normally at most shoots the singles event is shot - lunch is served and then the caps event begins and the the doubles. Normally that is just basic protocol unless huge crowds arrive for the event.

Over a period of time I have encounterd shooters that are more interested in how a shoot is run instead of just enjoying the shoot. I have had folks complain about having lunch after singles and about how long it took to serve lunch. I have folks complain about how quick an event is turned around and it just seems that you cannot please anybody anymore.

Here is the grim reality of the situation. Folks are cutting back and that is a fact just look at the shoot attendance. Ft. Bragg has cut it's schedule back and Charlie Brown has no registered shoots this year. If it keeps up there might be more clubs that cut back on registered events or do away with them altogether. I guess the question is - do folks want to shoot or do they want to complain about the shooting event? Is it the targets or the time it takes to shoot or what will it be next?

Let me say that I too have been guilty of being critical of issues at clubs so I guess what goes around comes around. Helping run shoots has given me a greater appreciation for the folks that put themselves on the line to keep the ball rolling so to speak. If I don't like the way a club runs things or if I have questions about the way things are run - I don't shoot there. It is really simple for me and if I do show up at a club I will abide by what the shoot manager says and "try" not to 2nd guess the shoot establishment.

Anyway - I am really looking forward to the NC State shoot and we hope that you will be able to attend. The NCTA will be using the 3S cashiering program and they will also use it for the telephonic Zone in July. Several clubs run it and they include Durham County, Watauga, Rockingham and there might be others. If you haven't used presquad.com you will have until the 25th to get signed up. From what I hear the fellow that created 3S will be onsite to assist the NCTA in the transition.

We have two shooters that are abroad at this time with one in Italy and the other on a tour ship somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. We hope that they will have pictures to share and stories to tell. I know that they both hate that they are so far away from their guns and both will be back in time for the NC State Shoot. If you travel somewhere exotic please take a moment to send a picture or two - please.

Good news for a PA/NC/PA/NC transplant. He was recenlty evicted from his current abode but will move into his own abode Saturday the 21st. We are happy that he has taken shelter in his new home and thus will never be called again - fungi. I also heard that this fellow might get back to shooting sometime this fall and that is great news for sure.

I hope everybody has a great week and you better get your shells bought or loaded before the State Shoot. With the Memorial Day weekend coming up folks will either be at Boone or practicing at their local gun club. It is raining pretty hard and a storm is a coming so I better get off of the computer. JC shot this Saturday and managed to win "C" class singles. He has pretty much quit shooting doubles and he said he wasn't much in the mood for shooting Saturday. I am interested to see what kind of scores he will break if he gets in the "mood".

I want to give a shout out to Lou, Lew, Dan The Man, Big Jim & Buckeye, Tim & Thea, Carolina Girl, Cliff and George and the SPY brothers..



Late Weekly Blurb 5/16/2011

Good Monday morning to all and a return to work from a shooting event is never fun. We hope everybody had a great weekend and looking forward to a great week. We fell down on the job it looks like but we got to keep the ball rolling. There are quite a few things to talk about and a lot of shooting in the upcoming weeks.
We hope to get the shoot report from the Walt Gorman Memorial and will post them when available. We will be discussing the South Carolina state shoot in depth a little later. We have three shooting events in NC this weekend and they include Old Hickory@Bostic, Coharie and Rockingham. Currently Coharie has a 1,100 mid50 pot and the Rock had a mid50 pot at about $2.200 . Wherever you wind up shooting this weekend we hope you have a great time.

The North Carolina State shoot is just weeks away and we hope to see a lot of folks at this shoot. We hope that the weather will cooperate and maybe some rain in the evenings would keep the dust down a bit. Pre-Squadding is available this year if you would like to speed up the onsite registration process. Remember that we have a state of the art clubhouse but shelter is minimal except for the shelters to the left and the right of the clubhouse. It could be a hot week in NC so prepare accordingly.

We had a great time at the South Carolina State shoot and enjoyed all of the NC trapshooters that stopped by our tents. NC was well represented at the shoot and the list includes Terry & Jackie Roush, Billy Thigpen, George Sudderth, Jeff & Hunter Galloway, Roger Shaffer, Charlie Brown, Larry High, Tommy Brown, Bill Howe, George Ponton, Jef Solomon, James Ivey, Lane Murray, Addison & Jim Callan, JC Nunn, Freddy Redmon, Gary Hicks, Greg High and Marty Hill. If I missed anybody please bring it to my attention.

First let me say thanks to the SCTA and the Spartanburg Gun Club for the effort put forth at the shoot. We had a great time the entire five days that we attended the shoot. They had a new cashiering group and some new help at this year’s event. The weather was great all five days and cooled off during the weekend. We did have a few storms in the evenings but not 1 target was shot at in the rain. The trophies were great for both in and out of state shooters and I have the pictures to prove it.

Several NC shooters won trophies and they include Addison Callan, James Ivey, George Ponton, Charlie Brown, Freddy Redmon, Tommy Brown and there were others. I need to take a look at the pictures I took to get a better idea of all the folks that won. The targets were good and they ran banks all week until the singles on Saturday. They ran a “wave” like Georgia does and we were under the impression according to the program that they would run odd/even traps for the weekend.

JC Nunn posted a 91 on Thursday, 94 on Friday and a 93 on Sunday in the caps events. He managed to wind up in Open Senior Vet shootoffs with Bill Howe on Friday and GA shooter Joe Doris on Sunday. He didn’t win either shootoffs but it sure was good to see him out there smoking targets. He broke a 23 in his last shootoff Sunday and Mr. Doris broke a 24 at the ripe age of 71. You gotta admit that JC can still compete even at the age of 87.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mike Sharkey at the shoot and he is a chiropractor from the State Of Delaware. Nice fellow and told me the story about his days in school at the chiropractic college in Spartanburg. Evidently Mike spent a lot of time at the gun club during his downtime from school. He is getting geared up for his state shoot in a couple of weeks. It looks like the Callan’s will be attending and maybe Jim can get some good shots of that club.

That is about it for now and I might have more info a little later in the week to publish. I hope everybody has a great week and hope to see some of you at the Rock Saturday – if my wife let’s me go after being gone for 5 days.. Hey to Lou, Lew, Dan, Jim & Buckeye, Tim & Thea, Cliff, John W – Jinxx and Tamara..



Weekly Blurb 5/9/2011

Well here we are approaching the middle of May with a whole lot of trapshooting going on. We had three shoots last week and some big shoots this week in NC and SC. We had some impressive scores posted from the Buckhorn site and we hope to have scores from Old Hickory and Buncombe real soon.
The youngins and I mean youngins Chase Reese and Addison Callan showed off at Buckhorn this weekend. Addison tied Charlie Ackroyd for the 200 target singles crown with a 196. Chase "BangBang" Reese posted a 98 and then a 97 for his lifetime high doubles score. He tied All-American Kentucky shooter Kevin Parrott with a STRONG 195x200 in the doubles event. John Miller had his hat blasted after his first 100 in singles competition Sunday. He was all smiles and got his 100 straight pins from Terry Roush.

Old Hickory @ Rocky Mount will host the Walt Gorman Memorial shoot this upcoming weekend. Walt was a great fellow and highly thought of around the club. He was tragically killed in an accident and he is sorely missed for sure. They will have a dinner on the grounds Saturday night for all shooters and will be offering a drawing for a flat of shotgun shells on Saturday and Sunday.

South Carolina will hold their State Shoot at the Spartanburg Gun Club this Wednesday - Sunday. Weather is looking typical for this time of year and at least it won't be 90 degrees each day. It will be interesting to see if attendace will be up based on the big crowd that showed up at the Georgia State Shoot. We will be posting reports and pictures from the club when possible.

We are less than a month away from the North Carolina State Shoot. Folks are being asked to use www.presquad.com to sign up and I believe it will be left open until May 25th. I have been asked why the charge is $4 when SC is $2 and trapshooters.com listed a state shoot that is offering the service for free? Maybe a portion of it will be donated to the HOF or something like that? Also I have posted info about Chili's donating 10% of the proceeds from 4-10PM June 2nd. Those proceeds will be donted to the HOF and thanks to Chilli's for the help.

I had a chat on Facebook with Terry Jordan Sunday night. He was back in Ontario and commented that he sold his 1000th Sparta wall chart this week. That is a milestone for his chart and at this time he has 621 Vandalia models floating around also.Terry is one heck of a shooter and he shot very well in Florida early this year. If you wind up buying a chart tell him Fred sent you.

JC has been slipping up to the Rock lately and practicing for the SC shoot. He has had some gun problems and I believe he needs some parts for his AL-2. I had a little problem with my loader and JC was nice enough to offer to load my shells if I needed him to. That was sure nice for the offer but I got my 9000G working just fine. He will be mowing Tuesday and I told him not to hurt his trigger finger for sure.

Dave Daily has been off for two weeks and has been laying on Myrtle Beach this last weekend. He will be joining us this week for the SC State Shoot and we hope that he will be able to shoot his Browning. Recently it has been marking his face and he is trying to figure out how to keep that from happening. Ever since he had his double knee replacement I have now become the most bolegged shooter on the squad. Seeing us shooting side by side made folks rub their eyes on a hot day. They didn't know whether the heat was distorting their vision or what?

Tom Shelley has been holding the fort down in Boone and I quizzed him to see if there was any dirt to dig up on the mountain? He scratched his head and didn't have any juicy news to share. He did mention that George was headed down to South Carolina and that there might be a few more Boonies in the mix come the weekend. We would like to see some of the Watauga crew in the Palmetto state.

Keep Dave Shaffer's girlfriend in your prayers please. Andrea is having some medical issues and Dave is assisting her in the trying time. Andrea was part of the New York crew of refs that traveled and worked at the South Carolina state shoot, I know I have met her and she is a very sweet lady. We will try to keep you posted on her situation when information is available.

That is about it for now and we have about 5 minutes before the midnight hour. I have managed to keep the weekly blurbs a coming on a week to week basis. I hope I don't bore folks to tears and one thing I do need is info. If you have something that you would like to share please feel free to email me at freddydacrusher@hotmail.com. Oh - Phil "Gator" Berkowitz is going to attend the NC State shoot according to presquad.com. It will be good to see old Phil and hopefully he will shoot good in NC. Want to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Fungi, Big Jim & Buckeye, Tim and Thea, Bob Batke, Cliff - Mongo and last but not least Sharisse.

We tried to get the blurb up last night but the website was unavailable......





Weekly Blurb May 2nd 2011

What a beautiful start to the month of May and we hope everybody had a great weekend. We have a lot of things to talk about and very little time to do it. We had two shooting events in North Carolina and the GA State Shoot wrapped up yesterday. We have two shooting events in NC this week with Rocky Mount next week along with the South Carolina State Shoot. Last but not least the NC State Shoot is only one month away - can you believe it?
Rockingham hosted a Lewis Class shoot with Lane Murray taking the top spot. JC Nunn took the 2nd Lewis and VA shooter Roland Whitely took the 3rd spot. Tom Pitts was nice enough to post the scores from Watauga and Tom Brown won all events except the caps. George Suddreth managed to break a 92 to win the caps on his own turf. The GA State Shoot is over and I know of two NC shooters that got in the winners circle. Addison Callan won SubJr Doubles earlier in the week and Jeff Galloway won A Class Doubles in the Doubles Championship Sunday. Hopefully all the GA scores will be posted this week.

I had the chance to talk a little to VA shooter Charlie Rinehart Saturday. Charlie doesn't have a computer and I commented about all the pictures I have of him floating around on the internet. He mentioned that he had a friend that read tarheeltrap.com and his name is Cliff Leutholt. Clifford was inducted into the New Jersey HOF in 2003 and I have copied the writeup of his induction below.

Clifford J. Leutholt, of Browns Mills, began shooting in 1961 when he heard a series of shots being fired near his new home. Curiosity led him to a trap range, he borrowed a gun, bought a box of shells, went out and hit 18 x 25 and was hooked on a new sport. A quick learner with much talent, his scores improved steadily. Shooting for less than 2 years, Cliff enjoyed the competition and was already posting winning scores at local club championships. During the 1962 Westy Hogans, he won the Handicap Runner-up trophy in a shoot-off after posting a 95. Over the next two years, Cliff won club singles championships at Pine Valley GC, Quaker City GC and Atlantic City GC, only dropping one target in each of those races. He secured the High Gun Handicap crown in the New York Athletic Club's Champion of America event in 1964. The same year at the New Jersey State Championship he was crowned Singles Champion with a score of 196 out of 200.

Cliff is a three-time NJ State Singles Champion, winning titles in 1964, 1975 and 1977 with scores of 196, 197, 199 respectively. In addition to his singles title in '77 tournament, Cliff nailed down the 2nd place Open Doubles laurels, Class AA honors in the All Around and was the top Over All winner with 866 x 900. He nearly earned a fourth Singles Championship in 1978 when he had to settle for Runner-up after breaking 200 straight and going five extra innings in the shoot-off with Larry Russo. He was the NJ State All Around Champion in 1970 with 374 x 400 and won the Open All Around Championship in 1975. In 1978 he was Runner-up in both the long yardage event in the Handicap and All Around championships. Cliff was a member of the New Jersey 1st Team in 1977, selected to the 2nd Team in 1978. He has complted and won trophies at annual shoots in several states. He has won the New Jersey Southern Zone Singles and Overall Cham9iponships several times and has been Hi Gun Champion at the Northern Zone.

By now you should know that Cliff likes to shoot. Someone once bet him that he couldn't break a clay target with a BB gun. Well, he admits that it took him a couple shoots fo figure where the gun shot, but he broke 8 out of 25, under the lights, while standing on top of one of Pine Belt's trap houses and won the bet.

Cliff is a Patron member of the NRA and a life member of the ATA, Pine Valley GC, Pine Belt SC and the Armingdale GC, which he was once a part owner (now Howell TC), and Country Lakes GC. He was also a member of the now defunct Quaker City and Roxborough gun clubs in PA. He has served many organizations over the years. He is a part president and chairman of the NJ Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs and also served as Chairman of the Sportsmen's Conservation Foundation of NJ. Cliff has been a member of the Cavaliers for nearly 30 years and won the coveted Rose Bowl in 1990.

In 1983, Leutholt acquired Country Lakes GC in Browns Mills and operated the club for nearly twenty years, until he sold it in 2001. Cliff is well respected for his shooting ability and his willingness to always help both young and new shooters become more proficient.

At the end of the 2002 target year, Cliff has registered 127,600 singles, 77,250 handicap and 37,050 doubles targets. He remains an active shooter and enjoys visiting the clubs, talking to old friends and making new ones.

Charlie will be traveling to Millington in September when Cliff is inducted into another Hall Of Fame and it is possibly the Eastern Shore Hall Of Fame. Trapshooting is full of stories of scores that were broken and targets that were missed but the big story is the friendships that last forever. We hope Charlie has a great time and heck maybe JC and I will ride up to Maryland and get a few birds in.

Two shoots this week with the BIG50 Thursday at Old Hickory - Bostic. Then Saturday and Sunday Buckhorn will host a two day shoot. This could be a warmup shoot for the South Carolina State Shoot or the Walter Gorman Memorial Shoot at Old Hickory Rocky Mount. Where you plan to shoot we hope you have some great scores to post. This weekend I have a birthday party Saturday then get to babysit Saturday night with a Carolina graduation Sunday - won't get much shooting in before the trip to SC Wednesday.

Al Bost gave me call tonight to firm up his shoot program for the 14th and the 15th of May. They have named it the Walt Gorman Memorial shoot in memory of a fine gentleman that tragically lost his life in a freak accident. The Old Hickory club is a great trap club and they really roll out the red carpet for the shooters. They have sausage biscuits for the shooters for breakfast and will have a dinner on the grounds Saturday night. For more info go to Trapshoot Dates for more info on lodging and camping spots. They will also be offering 1 dollar tickets for a chance at a flat of shells on Saturday and Sunday.

The South Carolina State Shoot is next week and folks are preparing to head to Spartanburg for this historic shoot. The gun club at Spartanburg has survived the test of time and outlasted the Piedmont GC Greensboro - Tarheel GC Advance - Pinehurst GC Pinehurst. As I have stated before that the SC Association goes out of there way to provide great trophies for the out of state shooters - some of the best. They also provide a free fish dinner with all the fixins on Saturday night after the Championship Singles. We will be providing pictures and scores if possible on a day to day basis if time allows. Also you can pre-squad at pre-squad.com for $2...

The North Carolina State Shoot is just ONE MONTH AWAY - can you believe it. Joy Duncan aksed me to mention pre-squad .com and to use the service if possible. It will cost you $4 to use pre-squad.com whether you sign up for one event or for the entire program. That fee is a one time only fee and will only be charged once just to be clear. Also - Chili's in Forrest City is returning 10% of the proceeds on June 2nd from 4PM - 9PM. The monies will be given to the Hall Of Fame as a fund raiser for the Homegrounds.

I hope you have a great week and it looks like a little rain around Wednesday in our area. It remains to be seen if the numbers will be up for SC and NC similar to the GA State Shoot. There are a lot of things that attract people to big shoots - good weather - good targets - good food - good trophies and folks playing the options. I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Fungi, Lou & Steve, Big Jim & Buckeye, Carolina Girl, Thea & Tim, Clifford and Ambrosia.




Weekly Blurb 4/25/2011

April is about gone and May is upon us in just a few days. This was a great weekend to practice and hopefully we will have the scores from the Buckhorn shoot real soon. The State shoots are getting ready to crank up with the Georgia State Shoot this weekend. This is the fun time of the year for shooting in the Southeast and it will be cold weather again before you know it.
Two shooting events this weekend and it looks like the weather is going to be wonderful. The crew at Watauga cranks up their season this Saturday and we hope they have a crowd in the holler. Pitts - Shelley - Suddreth - Morg and others will roll out the red carpet for all that attend the shoot.

Rockingham will host a non-registered Lewis Class shoot this Saturday and it will be a trap event. The last LCS was a trap/skeet combo that was a bunch of fun. The format will be 25/16's - 25 from the 20 - 25 from the 22 and 25 from your current ATA handicap yardage. Tom Brown won the last odd format event in dreary weather conditions.

JC and I slipped up for some practice Saturday and when I got there he wanted to shoot the Lewis Class format that will be shot this weekend. We stepped to the line and commenced to pounding with me on 1 and the crippler on post 3. I ran the trap and he dropped one commenting that he raised his head on that one bird. We stepped on the 20 and I broke a 22 and JC a 23 so we were tied going into the third round. We stepped on the 22 and when the smoke cleared he was 1 up in 75 after another 22 and him breaking a 23. When we went out to shoot the last round the sun started peeking through the clouds. When we finished I had managed to nip the crippler by one measley target with him breaking another 23 and me running the trap. He asked how bad a I beat him and I had to give him the news and he looked at me and said - well I still got it!!! Anyway - I wrote our scores on the dry-erase board and commented - I spotted JC one yard and he spotted me 33 years. Sure was fun for sure!!

Folks were able to slip away for the Holiday with Hunter and Debbee at Bald Head Island and Lane Murray at North Myrtle Beach. The Galloway's had a great time and Debbee had a craft/ jewelry show to attend. Lane had some R&R with the family and he managed to drop by the Myrtle Grove Gun Club. Lane said that the drive into the club was a little tricky with hood size potholes in the road. He managed to talk with Bill the club manager and he commented that several houses had been built in the Myrtle Grove property. I don't believe that I will see it in my lifetime but it sure would be neat to have the South Carolina State shoot in Myrtle Beach. I believe that my wife would actually attend if it was in MB...

Looking forward to the South Carolina State Shoot in Spartanburg May 11th - 15th. We have a lot of SC shooters attend our State shoot and I believe reciprocity is a good thing. South Carolina has some of the best trophies for out of state shooters and they have a "FREE" fish fry for all shooters on Saturday night. I try really hard to squad so that I don't have to smell that fish when I am shooting my 2nd 100. We will have our old squad back together with Redmon-Daily-Galloway-Galloway-Nunn for the 200 singles on Saturday. Dave will be unable to stay for the Sunday events as business will be calling.

Looking a little further into the calendar we have the North Carolina State shoot June 1-5. The NCTA will be using www.presquad.com for the first time this year and the cost is $4 whether you sign up for one event or for the entire program. If you have a computer and a squad of folks you normally shoot with, please take a look and take the time to sign up. After you add your squads you will get an email confirmation of your squads which is handy. When you get to the NCHG your squadding time will really be cut in half or more. The staff on hand will be willing to assist you if you don't pre-squad but it sure will speed things up.

Also please make a note of the following info please. The local Chili's in Forest City has agreed to donate 10% of the proceeds for meals purchased on Thursday June 2nd between 4PM and 9PM. The monies will be donated to the North Carolina Hall Of Fame and you will need to get a coupon from Mrs. Keever in the clubhouse. I have broken bread at Chili's and they have some great food for sure.

I called up a shooting friend of mine in Ohio Friday and he is headed down to the South Carolina State shoot. Bob Batke shot with us in SC several years ago and managed to make it to one of our Hall Of Fame shoots. He is a fine fellow and it will be great to see him after all these years. Maybe he will go out with us Thursday night to eat oysters at the local sports bar.

Facebook has netted me a few friends and I ran into Bernie the other night. He will be attending the NC State Shoot and we might even get to see Charlie Ackroyd at the event. Bernie evidenlty bought him a new doubles gun and we can't wait to see it in action.

I trying to think of anything I missed and let me see. Oh, it looks like I got a little feedback from the "growth" comment last week and we were assured that payback would be coming. Also, I did ask about and it was confirmed that Ken Duncan was back to shooting trap and that is great news for sure. I can't wait to snap a shot of him in action and like I said before - look out Charlie Brown. Ok it is getting late and I would like to send a shout out to Lew, Lou, Big Jim & Buckeye, The Crabtrees, Fungi, Mario & Luigi and Big Juicy.


Weekly Blurb 4/18/2011

What a week and a tragic week also in the TarHeel State. Our prayers go out to all of the families that are in shelters due to all of the tornados that ripped through the state. Also for the folks that lost family members our prayers are with you during this time. I have yet to hear of any of our trapshooting families being affected by the storms.
The Dogwood is over and we hope that all of the scores will be available early this week. Attendance looks similar to the shoot in 2010 and the weather might have thinned out the crowd on Saturday. From what I hear James Ivey III won the caps today with a 96. Tom Pitts took one of the handicap places with his solid 91. Karole and John Miller shot well at the Homegrounds and we know they are looking forward to the State shoot. Sunday was a great weather day and a real improvement over the wind and rain on Saturday. I did hear that Ken Duncan shot this weekend and we are glad that he is back on the line. I also heard that "TN" Richard Colley made it to Bostic along with his Daughter and I hate that I missed seeing him.

Charlie Brown really shot well at the Southwestern Grand and we tried to keep up with him during the event. Early in the week the event had weather issues also and then got much better later in the week. There are a bunch of pictures of the San Antonio club on trapshooters.com and the facility looks amazing. We can't wait to hear about his trip when we can get him on the phone. Bob Goodman, Cassie Hammond and Jim Blevins all took trophies home from this event and sure glad to see someone we know "Winning".

Easter week/end is upon us and Buckhorn is holding a shoot on Easter Sunday. I am sure that folks will be out practicing this weekend and I am off Friday. Watauga will host their first registered shoot the 30th of April. I know they will roll the red carpet out for all that attend. Also the 30th the Rockingham Gun Club will host a Lewis Class Shoot with a twist on the format. Shooters will shoot 25 singles targets - 25 from the 20 and 25 from the 22 with their last 25 targets shot from their "official" ATA yardage. This turned out to be a lot of fun with Tommy Brown winning the event.

We are ramping up for the heart of the trapshooting season and it is upon us. April showers bring May flowers and the GA State - SC State - NC State - KY State - VA State - Southern Zone and the list rolls on and up to the Grand American. Fun times are ahead for those of us that can find the time and money to attend these trapshoots. I guess we are blessed for a great sport and the folks that are associated with it. I assure you that I will be taking pictures at all of the events that I attend and be warned - my favorite pictures are of folks asleep.

I will try to unravel my earlier Watauga Cartel predictions and here we go. I predicted that George would whip Tom P and Tom S and boy was I wrong again. Since George and Tom P sat out the singles and the caps Saturday, Tom S won out on those events due to the other fellows sitting on the porch. Sunday's doubles found Tom S nipping both George and Tom P by "ONE" target and this made Tom S feel really great going into the caps. Fast forward to the caps and that is where the wheel finally fell off for Tom S. Tom P not only whipped George and Tom S in the caps he managed to take a trophy back to the high country. So as far as predictions go I missed terribly and will try to do better in the future. I think maybe my prediction helped the fellows determination to prove me wrong.

I hope everybody has a great week and and even better Easter holiday weekend. We hope to see some of you at the range and remember, do not eat the green grass in the Easter basket. I want to sent a shout out to Lew & Steve, Lou, Dan, Big Jim & Buckeye, Gail and Bobby, Bobby Hill, Luigi and Takesha.




Weekly Blurb 4/11/2011

What a week and we hope everybody had a great weekend. Monday's storms created some real problems for the area and we are glad that none of the gun clubs were damaged due to the storms. We actually lost power in one our homes for 24 hours. Needless to say we hope we don't see that kind of weather for a long time.
One shoot in the state this weekend and it was at the Buckhorn Gun Club. Saturday started out a little misty but dried up toward the end of the day. John Miller broke a pair of 98's in the singles and Tom Kanas broke the MID50 Pot on his way to a event winning 95. I wonder how much real-estate he got for the money and the caps win. I have no info on the doubles and hope to get all the scores posted soon.

The Dogwood at the Homegounds is right around the corner and it looks like the weather will cooperate for the four day event. I am not sure of how the turnout will be but we hope they have a good crowd. If the weather holds we might try to slip up for the 300 target day Saturday. This will be your last chance to get some birds in before the NC State Shoot in June. John and Karole Miller will be experiencing the NCHG for the first time and we hope they ENJOY....

I almost forgot that the Watauga Cartel will make an appearance at the HG for the Dogwood. Tom Pitts has been worshiping at the Harlan altar and really showed some real improvement in doubles at the end of the 2010 season. Tom Shelley will be conjuring up his training from his mentor George "BamBam" Suddreth better known as "Long Run Sudd".. Sudd just got his tubes back from Kolar and he might have convinced me to send mine off in a few short days. I hope they can convince Morg to make the trip and finally take Miss Kitty out for a date. Here is the way it will go - Sudd will whip both Pitts and Shelley and Pitts will whip Shelley or maybe not?

The ATA's EC is meeting in San Antonio this week and w
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb July 4th, 2011

Post by smokem »

Good morning and we hope that you have a great July 4th Holiday Monday. Quite a hot weekend for shooting with both Buncombe County and Buckhorn hosting trapshoots. We have a shoot report from BGC and hope to get Buncombe's up sometime early this week. Two trapshoots scheduled for this week with a BIG50 at Ft. Bragg Wednesday the 6th and the Doug House Memorial at Durham County the 9th and 10th.
Buckhorn had a good 2-day shoot and here are the highlights. Saturday John Miller broke a 99 to win the singles, Glenn Alford wons the caps with a 93 and John Miller also won the doubles with a 96 - Richard Drake won the HOA with a 274x300. Sunday Glenn Alford won the singles with a 98, Karole Miller won the caps with a 92, John Miller won the doubles with a 91 and Karole took the HOA with a 273x300. Buckhorn will shoot the 6th and 7th of August so please mark your calendars to attend.

The Southern Zone is right around the corner and it looks like a crowd is a brewing looking at pre-squad.com. It looks like we will have visitors from out of state and that is a great sign that the shoot will be well attended. Indiana ATA delegate Roland King will be here with his running buddies and we hope they shoot well at the Homegrounds. We hope to make it at least one day if not two.

The VA State is almost over and they will wrap up Monday. The Kentucky State Shoot is over and I have a few winners to report. Keith Ditto won the singles - David Riddle won the doubles with the lone 100 and Jr Nick Nadeau from Tennessee broke the lone 100 out of state from the 26.5 to win the caps. Danny Haycraft broke the lone 99 from the 20.5 to win the caps Sunday. Keith Ditto won the HAA with a 396 and the HOA with a 987. I will post a link to all of the scores in the Out-Of State Shoot Info section.

We have a little trip planned to the PA moutains this week and looking at the weather the high temps will be in the high 70's. That is correct trapshooting in the cool PA mountains with minimal heat. 900 targets with 300 Thursday and Friday - 200 Saturday and 100 Sunday. We are hauling the crippler and we hope he shoots as good in PA as he has been shooting in SC and NC. We will keep you posted and hope to have some pictures each day.

We apologize for this being such a thin news week and we hope it picks up in the next few weeks. Of course my email is always available for juicy tidbits of information that I can embellish and prepare for public consumption. I want to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim & Buckeye, The Millers, The Solomon Brothers, Bob in Ohio, Cliff in MD, Tim & Thea and last but not least Ljutic Lane Murray. Have a FUN 4th and Smokem............................................
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

A Day Late Blurb 7/12/2011

Post by smokem »

A Day Late Blurb 7/12/2011

Oh well – it looks like I am falling down on the job doesn’t it! We hope everybody had a great week/end and hopefully we will get some scores for the Doug House shoot this week. With the Southern Zone this week all NC shooters are getting ready for this big multi-state event. We wish all the competitors well and can’t wait to see who the big winners are.
With the weather extremes that we are experiencing this week it looks like Thursday – Sunday in Bostic will be great. There are chances of t-storms but the overnight lows will be in the mid 60’s. That is great news for all associated with shooting at the Zone. Looking at Nashville and Odessa it looks like Bostic will be the cooler place to shoot for sure.

We made our trip up to Pennsylvania and man what a trip it was. We took our time rolling up to Bradford and what a beautiful area in that neck of the woods. We stayed at a Best Western that used to be a Ho-Jo and it turned out to be a nice place to stay. We rested well and ate well the entire trip and even made a few sightseeing runs during our stay.

The GPS worked flawlessly from JC’s to the Best Western and from the Best Western to the Bradford Gun Club. The road going up to the club was a rutty mess in spots and those four wheel drives trucks flew up and down that road. We used Google to look at the club from the air and it sure was different when we got there.

When you turn into the club the camping is on the right and the entrance to the club is on the left. When you wind around the bend to the right the view opens up and there it is. You drop down into the club property and the traps are on the left and the clubhouse is on the right. There is a large covered pavilion to the right above the clubhouse and the maintenance building is near that.

The upper four program traps are on separate terraces and the lower four traps are all on the same level. The background is trees and the shot has stripped all the leaves off the shot fall surfaces. In front of one of the traps there is a oil pump that wasn’t moving thank goodness and other than that it was a normal background

I have always heard that PA Gun Clubs ran a tight ship and I got to experience it firsthand. They have 8 program traps and they start two squads in the middle. Odd numbered squads go left and even numbered squads go right. The national anthem was on time and the call to the line was simple and to the point. The squad hustler could see the two starting traps which allowed her to keep the squads on the line and on deck.

There were no empty 1-15 squads and that was a change from what we see at NC and SC shoots. They shot 25 to a trap and that worked well for the most part. Turnaround between events was quick and all the trap personnel were great and consisted of young local kids from the community. The targets were great and even with wind incoming and outgoing they managed to hang in there all four days.

JC shot well each day and even managed to get a punch Saturday for a 93 with 94 being the top score. He managed to capture a handicap runner-up award in the paleface category. I do have a picture of him getting his card punched by the way. I on the other hand didn’t do too well and I guess I have a year to get ready for Bradford next year. Also, they use all orange White-Flyers and they really stand out in front of those trees.

I have a ton of pictures to post and hope to work on them this week. The weather was super with overnight temps in the mid 50’s and daytime temps in the very low 80’s maybe. I never had a bead of sweat in my eyes for four days. There were however some super flies that kept biting folks but the all natural no-deet stuff I had kept them away from me.

They had a working kitchen on site and they served breakfast and lunch it was some great food. You could get coffee all day and the clubhouse was a true log cabin structure that was open and spacious. One of the bathroom stalls was built for a 5’ man I do believe. I can only imagine the Bradford Gun Club in the winter with those wood stoves burning.

The only rain we witnessed was Friday morning and it was a frog strangler. As we were driving to the club we noticed rain hitting the rain-x on my windows. I told Jay that it was raining and he said it looked like heavy dew. Well that dew turned into a killer rainstorm with vivid air to mountaintop lightning.

When we got to the club it had let up a bit and we headed for the clubhouse. As I was walking to the clubhouse a cloud moved into the club and it looked like something off a movie set. Then the storm started again and rained even harder. One group of starting squads had to shoot in the downpour but that was it. When we got to the line it was drying up and clearing up.

One last story before I end this blurb and JC got me. Several years ago I couldn’t sleep at a shoot in Bostic. I got him up early and we headed for breakfast. When we finished he told me he was going back to the room because I got him up too early.

JC tends to snore a little bit sometimes and I normally go to sleep listening to my mp3 player. Friday morning I woke up abruptly and all the lights were on and JC was totally dressed from head to toe and had his new NC State 2011 ball cap on. Normally I always get up before he does and this was a bit different.

I asked him what was going on and he said that it was 6:30 and it was time to get up. So I jumped up and not really needing to fix my hair I was out the door and headed to eat breakfast at the hotel breakfast room. As I am walking down the hall I am thinking something is wrong. I notice that the lights are off in the breakfast room?

As I walk into the hotel lobby the night clerk pops out and says can I help you? By that time I am looking for my cell phone to confirm what I am thinking. As I get my eyes adjusted to look at the clock on my cell phone there it is. I have my own travel clock and it was set for 6AM. JC had asked me what time my clock was set for and I said maybe my clock had stopped due to the battery running out.

I look at my cell and I cannot believe my eyes – JC woke me up at 4:30AM not 6:30AM and I was standing in the lobby of the hotel with the night clerk thinking that he had two hungry crazy North Carolina boys on his hands. JC didn’t have a whole lot to say and we headed back to the room. I had the bright idea of thinking Perkins was open so we headed down there.

No Perkins wasn’t open but I did manage to fill the Pathfinder up with gas and we headed back to the room. As we walked in – JC says – well I am going to take a nap – wake me up at 6…… We both slept about 30 minutes and finally got to eat breakfast at the regular time. He got me back but that won’t happen again you can bet on it.

All in all we had a great trip – JC shot well and the new folks he met from PA were very gracious and accommodating. He is now officially a Konne-Yaut Indian and will get his patch at Bradford in 2012. He will be able to compete for all of the trophies and we will be in Bradford at the 93rd Annual when he turns 89 – Lord willing.

Everybody have a great week and have fun getting ready for the Southern Zone. I will not be able to attend due to other commitments and I am on call. If someone could like take some pictures that would be much appreciated. Want to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim & Buckeye, Thea & Tim, Karole & John, Cliff, Bob in Ohio and the Konne-Yaut gang..

PS – I have set a section up for the Konne-Yaut group on the site and we hope to use it with Jimmy Wilson’s blessings to keep up with some of the folks (birthdays/sick/deceased) info during the year. The lovely and talented Tamara Mook will hopefully be helping with some of the info that will be posted in the category.
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 7/18/2011

Post by smokem »

Greetings from Jamestown NC and what a great weekend. The big news is the Southern Zone and all the scores from the event. The experiment to get the scores on the web was a great success. I could monitor the scores as they were being submitted and that was awesome.
The weather varied for the four days from sunny and warm to rainy and cool. Evidently folks had to wear jackets and pants just to keep warm. Jeff Galloway sent me pictures from the first three days and we hope to have some more from Sunday. Your site winners were Bob Goodman with a 200 in singles - Clay Jones with a 97 in doubles and William Ward with a 97 in Handicap.

. All in all there were some great scores broken at the NC homegrounds with folks from KY, VA, SC, WVA, DE, IN, GA, TN and who knows where else? Bostic pulled more shooters than the other sites and it will be interesting to see how much bigger it was than 2010. It will also be interesting to see what sites will be utilized in 2012.

I could take a lot of time to talk about how good everybody shot but that would take days to do. When you combine a great location, PAT traps, ERADS, good refs and great organization only good things can happen. I am sure that folks that shot in Bostic for the first time will be back again.

Joy Duncan was nice enough to send me the shoot report for the Bostic site only. I would imagine that the full Southern Zone report will be soon to follow. The NCTA moving to 3S trapshooting software has been a plus in my opinion and it sure has streamlined the operation - before - during and after the event is over.

Tom Pitts sent me the program for their two-day shoot this weekend. The 11th Annual Glenn Miller shoot will start out with the "Ironman" Saturday with 300 handicap targets and 200 doubles. Registration begins at 9 with shooting starting at 10 in the morning. Sunday will offer 100 singles - 100 caps and 50 pair doubles with shooting starting at noon. I will be at Tweetsie Railroad Saturday and might try to sneek back up their Sunday. Also - their MID50 pot is at $885 and it is sitting their waiting to be collected.

The Grand is right around the bend and with it staring the 2nd of August it will end before my 56th birthday and 26th wedding anniversary. They are already whining and moaning about the possibility of severely high temps at Sparta. Last time I remember the Grand in Vandalia got awfully hot also.

I got an email from John Woolsey regarding Martin Milano. We haven't heard from Martin in awhile and he frequently shot at the Buckhorn Gun Club. Sad to say but Martin passed away suddenly and we have very few details. He worked in the IT industry and possibly worked for a school system. He will be mssed and our prayers got out for his family with their loss.

Ok - have a great week even though it will be HOT. I am going to try to get out and shoot a bit and really want to slip down to Coharie in August and then roll down to the coast to see my mother. I went to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim and Buckeye, Tim and Thea, Cliff, Bob in Ohio, Roland, The Solomon Brothers and the Konne-Yaut group.
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 7/25/2011

Post by smokem »

It is finally raining a little bit here in Jamestown North Carolina. With the temps hot and humid, some folks are staying inside from what I hear. On a lighter note Jeri Wilson celebrated a birthday and we hear she had a little gathering at the Buckhorn Gun Club Wednesday night.
The Watauga Gun Cub hosted the 2-day Glenn Miller shoot this weekend. Darvin Cornett came out of the woodwork to take the top spot with local Tom Shelley taking runner-up and got two ½ yard punches in handicap along the way. Sunday news is as follows – George Suddreth won the singles with a 99, two 94’s tied in the caps with Winky Mabe from Rockingham GC one of the shooters. George won the doubles and the HOA from what I hear. Tom Pitts will bring us all up to date Monday or Tuesday.

Ft. Bragg will hold their BIG50 shoot this Wednesday the 27th. Weather is looking a bit hot with temps in the mid nineties and partly cloudy. Ft. Bragg is a great place to shoot and they shoot an all orange target with a great background. Marty Hill and Greg High do a great job running the shoots and we hope they have a great turnout.

The Grand is just a week away and NC shooters are preparing to head to Illinois. I should have a better feel for who is going by next Monday. Weather looks good for the event unless there is a big heat wave during the event. High for August 2nd is only 88 with low temps in the 70’s. That will be great for the shooters and the event staff for sure.

With all the money that is going to be given away I hope that the numbers go way up for 2011. The economy is taking it’s toll on some events around the country and we hope that the 2011 Grand proves everybody wrong. I know that a lot of excitement was generated by the $100,000.00’s that was given away in 2010. It looks like it will be an even more interesting event this year by far.

Looks like Krieghoff has a new gun for sale the KX-6. There are pictures floating around the internet and the gun looks interesting. I would guess it would be more like a top-single unlike the KX-5 which was more like a mid-single. Folks on trapshooters.com are putting the spin on the gun and I can’t wait to get my hands on one to test drive it. I might be in the market for a gun like that since I can’t seem to break a decent score in doubles anymore. Is anybody looking for a good clean Kolar combo?

August is chocked full of shooting in North Carolina. Just about every weekend has a shoot and some weekends have two shoots on the same day. My goal is to slip down to CSL the 13th and then run down to see my mom at the coast. That is right before my birthday and I know she will be glad to see me. I just updated the shoot date list to include two shoots for Buncombe and one for Durham County.

One of our local shooters is on a trip and is currently in Washington State I believe. He got to go up in a private plane today and see the sites from the air. I can’t wait to see the pictures and he is also is having dinner in the Seattle space needle at the time of this blurb being written. I believe he will go on a train trip and then will get on a cruise ship that sails to Alaska.

Ok – that is about it and we hope everybody has a great week. Maybe we will get even more rain across NC and that would be great. If anybody knows who won at the Doug House shoot please let me know. I want a send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim & The Birthday Girl, Tim & Thea, Carolina Girl & “I’m Back” Darvin, Cliff in Md, Bob in Ohio, Solomon brothers, Spy2 whipped Spy100’s rear, Shooter and the Chaplain…….Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 8/1/2011

Post by smokem »

We had the blurb ready last night before midnight and could not access the website.
August is here and so is the heat and humidity! Temps have risen and some outdoor activities have been suspended due to heat. We had a little storm rumble through the South side of Greensboro Sunday night.

Most of you know about Pete Davis passing away and are thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time. He was a great man and will be sorely missed by the trapshooting community. You have got to admire the way Phil took care of his father until his passing. Funeral arrangements have not been published at this time ad we hope to have the info soon.

Buckhorn is hosting a two day shoot this upcoming weekend on the 6th and 7th of August. Weather is looking good with highs in the low 90’s and a chance of scattered thunderstorms. The program will be determined by Wednesday and Jimmy will send out an email as soon as the info is available. If you have any photos of Pete when he was younger I would really like to get a copy. I would like to post it in the HOF section of the website.

Jim Callan is recovering from some surgery and we hope he is doing well. It is an interesting condition that he has and we hope that he will be back to shooting in the very near future. He has been on the road shooting with Addison all season and has also been traveling for business.

We have a few folks vacationing around the country. One family will be back from Alaska Tuesday and we can’t wait to see the pictures. Also, I called Dave Daily and he was headed to the beach for a week and he lives at the beach. Evidently they have a time share right on the ocean and own a home inland.

The Grand starts today and the weather this week looks a lot cooler than it did in 2010. Next week it looks like the temps start ramping up with a projected 99 on Friday and 82 and rain for the GAH. Saturday a storm blew through the area and turned a travel trailer over in the campground.

Right now there is a flood warning alert for the Mississippi River, Excessive Heat Warning and a high pollen level for the Sparta area. With the high temps and the high humidity the heat index will be in the mid 100’s up until Wednesday. Folks will need to be on their toes watching for signs of heat stroke.

I know of several NC shooters attending and they include the Galloway’s, Lewis Wyatt, Bill Howe and Billy Thigpen and I am sure there are many more. Oops I forgot Bob Schultz and Dennis Taylor should be there. We will try to get Terry Roush to get us a list of all of the NC shooters at the event.

I posted a link to a video of men shooting trap in 1926. Joe Potosky posted the link and it is an interesting piece of film. If you get a chance to take a look at it you will be amazed at how much fun these guys were having. I really need to start taking videos of folks shooting instead of still pictures.

Just got of the phone with Jeff and they arrived in Sparta safely and they are staying at the HIE in Sparta. That should make the commute much shorter and Jeff feels like it will be much better for him. They normally stay in Chester and that might be 20 or so miles away from the Grand. I also got off the phone with a fellow on the Disney cruise ship “Wonder”. He was standing on the bow of the ship watching float planes land in the bay. He is 4 hours behind EST and they will be sailing for Vancouver at about 3AM our time.

Oh – I did get some scores from the Doug House shoot from Carolina Girl. I will try to get them posted Monday. I hope everybody has a great week and try to stay out of the heat. Going to send a shout out to Lou, Lew, Camper Dan, HOF Jim and Birthday Girl, Thea and Tim, Solomon brothers, Spy100 and Spy2 kicked your rear, Shooter and the Chaplain. ---- Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 8/8/2011

Post by smokem »

Good morning and we hope everybody had a great weekend. There was shooting going on in North Carolina and of course at the Grand American in Sparta Illinois. We have local shooting news and some information from the Grand also. One thing that North Carolina and Illinois have in common is the heat. We made a trip to Buckhorn Saturday and it was taosty to say the least. Folks were sweating like they had been dipped in a pool upside down.
The Buckhorn Gun Club celebrated the memory of North Carolina Hall Of Fame inductee Pete Davis with a two day trapshoot. It was well attended and there were some good scores broken. We had folks show up from Pinehurst and Blowing Rock and of course the locals came out for the festvities.

Jimmy Wilson kicked the sand around in the sanbox and won the singles and doubles Saturday, singles , handicap and HOA Sunday. Winky Mabe won the handicap and HOA Saturday with Kevin Parrott winning the doubles on Sunday. Folks you really gotta love to shoot when you step out in that kind of heat. Karole Miller's face was so red Saturday I had to take a picture of her.

I had the pleasure of meeting Travis Alfrey from the Pinehurst area and he mentioned that he shoots skeet with Tilden Downing at Ft. Bragg. Steve Watson had to represent from the Watauga Gun Club and he really enjoyed the targets at BGC. I believe he broke his first 25 in competition at BGC and we hope he will make it back to BGC real soon. I also met Braxton Ragan's dad Lt. Charlie Ragan and we talked about some interesting topics revolving around law enforcement. Jimmy Wilson told Lt. Ragan not to beleive anything I said and "most" folks do what Jimmy says like Jack - yeah right....

Coharie shoots this weekend the 13th and we hope they have good weather and a great turnout. The weather is calling for temps in the high 80's with a REALFEEL of about 97 and sunny. They have two traps and use ERAD voice calls with a great background. The lunch is always very good and Mac usually winds up winning the HOA. I am not sure of what the MID50 pot but it should be getting up there. If you make it to CSL tell them Freddy says hello.

Lane Murray is back from his Alaskan adventure and we cannot wait until we see the pictures and here the stories. He was gone what seems to be two weeks and I know he is glad to be back home. I know for sure he has been at the Rock the last two days shooting and trying to unwind from his trip. Hunter probably has stories to tell about his adventures and we know he will be entertaining telling us about it.

The Grand is cranking up for the last week and it will be an exciting week for sure. Most of the handicap events so far have been won with perfect scores if I am not mistaken. One fellow Steve Huber completed his Grand Slam with a 100 in caps this week. One fellow won the caps one day and then broke a 99 the next day in the caps. What I am trying to say is that these folks showed up with their "A" game for the Grand. I think Harlan Campbell has only missed 13 targets out of 1200 or 1300 targets.

The weather has cooperated with a few storms here and there but it has been HOT. I guess folks can still break great scores in scorching hot weather. There are some shooters that have not missed a singles target all week. Eric Munson is 399x400 in doubles this week and might not miss another doubles target thrown.

Some of our NC folks have gotten on the board with Charlie Brown being the first to win a trophy. He won a SrVet RU in doubles, Jeff Galloway won a AA RU doubles trophy and Lewis Wyatt came close to winning a SrVet handicap trophy after a three round shootoff Saturday night. Lewis said that he was soaking wet from perspiration and worn out after the shootoff. I am not sure how everybody did today but I do know that Jeff broke a 199 in singles and 97 in doubles Sunday.

Jeff Galloway has been posting pix and we appreciate him taking the time to take them. I told him to focus on his shooting and if he could snap some pix that would be ok. It looks like Jeff and Hunter are shooting with Lewis and his son Steve. This is Steves first trip to the Grand and I would imagine that he is in awe of the place. We hope all the NC crew shoots great the rest of the week. Wouldn't it be great if one of our NC crew won the GAH or 100k?

That is about it and it looks hot all week here in Greensboro. We will try to get info from the Grand and if anybody gets any phone calls please just pass it on. I would like to send a shout out to all the folks at the Grand, Lou, Camper Dan, Big Jim Jack and Buckeye, Tim and Thea, Solomon Brothers, Ragan's, Spy Crew.... Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Late Weekly Blurb 8/15/2011

Post by smokem »

Good morning to all and by this time most of our NC shooters are home from the Grand. It was fun keeping a check on all of the folks and I am sure some have stories to tell. It was pretty quiet here on the home front and with Coharie postponing their shoot most folks just got out to practice.
I believe we have two shoots this weekend with both Old Hickory at Bostic and Rocky Mount shooting. Hopefully the weather will hold up for the weekend and please get out shooting if you can. I know the White Hats will be conjuring up a big number for the singles and we hope the Red Hats can squash that score the 27th.

JC Nunn has been practicing here a bit and broke 48 in singles and 49 in caps middle of last week. Then he jumped out Saturday and broke 46 in singles and 46 in caps. I told him he would have to shoot better than that to win at the Grand. I got the impression that he isn’t showing me all he got and look out at the Hall Of Fame in September.

I was tickled to see some old trapshooting souls back out on the line. Pete Pearce, Davis North aka Ollie and Doug Henderson showed up Saturday with Davis’s son. They shot several rounds of trap in the heat and they all looked like they had a great time. Hopefully they will be back more often and might even shoot some registered birds.

As many of you know Jimmy Wilson will be inducted into the North Carolina Hall Of Fame next month. Come on up and come to the banquet to participate in this fine mans induction. Camper Dan Johnson will be doing the honors and it will be fun for all I guarantee you. Dan has been sifting through all of the many stories that his fellow shooters have freely offered for use in this ceremony.

It looks like TarHeelTrap is down Sunday night and it might be due to power. I have tried to be sure these blurbs get posted and you might be reading this late Monday. If so we apologize and we might get it posted by 8:30 Monday morning. I have been fighting a sinus condition and it is about to wear me down. Hopefully the doc will get me fixed up after my appointment at 11.

What can I say about all the good shooting by our North Carolina shooters? Lewis Wyatt, Charlie Brown, Jeff Galloway, Bill Howe, Fred Daniels and I am sure there are many more. Also our friends from surrounding states did well also. I really don’t have time to discuss all of the winners and I tried to post them when they were made available.

From all indications the attendance at the Grand was up and the weather cooperated for the most part. The winner of the 100,000 dollars was 13 year old named Logan Taylor from Russelville Alabama. He shot himself into the shootoff and will enter the 8th grade when he gets back home.

The Grand American Handicap winner is Keith Parrott from Kentucky and is the little brother of All-American Kevin Parrott. Keith broke 100 and then had to shootoff against another shooter that came in with 100. I know his family so happy for this young man and already folks are giving him a hard time on trapshooters.com. Terry Dean set them straight and hopefully the peanut gallery won’t be too rough on the youngster.

It is about 3:34 Monday and it looks like the site is back up thank goodness. I talked to Tommy Brown and he was up at the Rock today practicing for the HOF shoot in September. Only 38 days until the Hall Of Fame at the Homegrounds and we are looking for a big turnout.

Ok that is about it for now and we hope to get some feedback from Charlie Brown, Bill Howe and some others about how many they had to go in the shootoff for the COC event. NC is proud of all of our winners and for those that represented NC trapshooting at the Grand.

I want to give a shout out to Sparta Lew, Lou, Camper Dan, HOF Jimmy & Buckeye, Thea and Tim, Bobby and GP, Solomon brothers, SPY Crew, BamBam and Miss Kitty, Shooter and the Chaplain, Cliff in MD, Bob in Ohio, Doug Ollie and Pete, Tommy Gun Brown and Burt – Smokem……
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 8/22/2011

Post by smokem »

Good morning and we hope you had a great weekend. There were three shoots in NC this weekend and some great scores were broken. With Irene brewing out in the ocean it will be interesting to see what the weather will be this weekend. The target year is winding down and there are two shoots left that will count on this years averages.
Both the Watauga Gun Club and the Rockingham Gun Club will host shoots on the 27th of August. Both clubs will offer a typical 300 target program and at this time the Rockingham MID50 pot is about 2200 bucks . Hopefully the programs for both shoots will be published sometime Monday.

Lots of shooting took place in North Carolina this weekend. John Miller shot well at OH&RM and got a punch to put him back on the 25 yard line. Chris Ricketson won the caps at OH&B with a 90 and got a 1/2 yard for his efforts. Jimmy Wilson broke 199x200 on Sunday to end the target year with a 99+ singles average. All in all a lot of folks broke some good scores and thank goodness the weather was nice.

Doug Starr broke out his new Caesar Guerini today for some practice at the Rock. He broke down and bought him a true target shotgun and the results were impressive. He screwed the IM in and hurled 7/8ounce loads at the OD WF's and most of his hits were solid hits. I got to hold the gun and it seeemed well balanced and felt great when I mounted it. I am looking forward to seeing him shoot it at our fun shoots and possibly a registered shoot in the near future.

J.T. Brewer has been experimenting with 3/4 ounce loads and using the new Alliant powder Extra-Lite. This is some super clean burning powder and I got to see just how clean his barrel was. I believe I will be burning some Extra-Lite in the very near future and also running some 3/4 ounce loads through the Kolar for practice. JT broke a 50 straight and then a 49 in singles with this light load a week or so ago.

I have been doing my best to keep up with info to post in the blurb and I guess I better start writing things down. Camper Dan Johnson should be back in town after a trip back up into Yankee land. He took a trip up to see Mary and Anthony and from what I hear the trio will be at the HOF banquet. It will be great to see both Mary and Anthony and I just can't wait to take a picture of Mary - she really loves to have pictures taken of her.

Dave Daily was heading out to Wisconsin for a business trip. Here is a tip - if you live at the beach chances are all of your relatives will come visit. Dave and June have been busy all summer with friends and family showing up in Myrtle Beach. Uncle Rick Daily will be visiting Dave during the Labor Day holiday. Hopefully I will get down to visit the crew and get my toes in the sand.

Roger Shaffer has been out shooting a bit more and I have actually seen him shooting twice in the last two weekends. His wife is about the same and he visits her all the time. We hope he can get out and shoot a lot more and I think his gunsmith business is doing great also. If you need a good gunsmith you need to get in touch with Roger.

I called my friend Bob Batke this week and thought he might be at the Cardinal Center shooting. Unfortunately he said that he was a bit under the weather and had been to the doctor. They did some tests and hopefully they will figure out what is going on with him. I fought an ear/sinus issue since before I went to Bradford so I know how he feels. Ihope he gets to feeling better real soon.

Ok - the well is running dry and we hope everybody has a great week. I got some traveling to do in the next few months and we hope to make it to the HOF for James Wilson's HOF induction.

I want to send a shout out to Sparta Lew, Lou, Camper Dan, HOF Jimmy & Buckeye, Thea & Tim, Solomon Brothers, SPY Twins - BamBam and Miss Kitty, Cliff in MD, Bob in OH, Chaplain & Shooter, Bill & Billy and howdy to the White Hat Nation......Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 8/29/2011

Post by smokem »

Where in he world did the month of August go? It just flew by for me and here we are almost into September. Before you know it Halloween, Thanksgiving and then here comes Saint Nick. Irene sure did some damage on our NC coast and we hope all of our NC shooters properties escaped damage during the storm. I know folks are looking forward to the upcoming long holiday weekend and there are two shoots in NC to attend.
As Irene blew through we had two registered shoots scheduled for the day the hurricane slammed the NC coast. Rockingham had the winds and the overcast conditions to contend with and the folks that arrived to decided to hold a non-registered Lewis Class "FUN" shoot. Winky Mabe and Lane Murray tied with 87's and I will post the pix from this event maybe Monday. They also had a 25 from the 27 for bragging rights and Sparta Lew Wyatt whipped the other three contenders. Ronnie Maunel had it won until his last post - post three. He dropped three on that post and Lew wound up getting it done. The Rock will hold it's next Lewis Class shoot on the 3rd of September.

Watuaga Gun Club escaped all the heavy winds and managed to attract a good number for their shoot. Morg Shaw was the top man in the singles, Bill Howe won the caps, Morg won the doubles with Tom Pitts capturing the HOA. They had 17 singles and handicap shooters and 13 doubles shooters and that was a great turnout. Looks like the Ragan's and Richard Drake slipped up in the holla. Braxton (I call him Baxter) broke his first registered 25 and wound up with a 94. I am glad they had a good shoot and we hope to make it up for the Chicken Wing Fling - Lord willing.

Buncombe County shoots the 3rd and Buckhorn has a two day shoot on the 3rd and the 4th. Buncombe will probably shoot a typical 300 target program and Buckhorn has yet to announce their program. Buncombe throws some fine targets and BGC will probably mix it up a bit and might even throw the feedbag on Saturday night. If you want to get a jump on targets for the next target year - you got it.

Ran up to the Rock Sunday for a little practice and the traps were filled with some young shooters. We shot some 7/8's that JC cooked up and also some 3/4oz that JT cooked up. I wound up with a 46 in a moderate wind and those light loads were shall we say "light". They still hit the targets hard and heck what more could you ask for. I got to shoot a little bit with Hunter and Jeff and Jeff had been working with a gal that attends Page High. The weather was great and glad to see some bright sun on the targets.

Looks like the ATA bumped up the daily fee to three bucks from two and from what I hear it could have been more. With NC at 3 bucks and the ATA at 3 - 100 targets will cost you anywhere from 30 - 34 bucks. I guess we should be thankful that we have lot's of places to shoot, a great national organization and an amazing Homegrounds. In 2011 I shot 8 days in NC and 12 days out of state and only 4000 targets which is a 600 target increase over 2010. Remember, your experience and target totals may vary...

Correction - Joy Duncan pointed out that the NCTA daily fee is $3 not $4 and I am not sure where I got that from. We apologize for the confusion.

Have a great week and a great Labor Day weekend. We hope to get out somewhere and shoot because I need the practice. Hopefully Buncombe County and BGC will have some great turnouts and good weather. I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Sparta Lew, Camper Dan, Big Jim and Buckeye, Tim and Thea, Solomon brothers, SPY Twins, Cliff in MD, Bob in Ohio, Da Ragans, Chaplain and Shooter and the crew at Lizard Lick Towing.....Smokem....
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 9/5/2011

Post by smokem »

Greetings from a dry and about to be drenched Jamestown North Carolina. The weather is wreaking havoc around the nation with the Nascar race getting postponed and the WVA game getting delayed on Sunday night. Thank goodness the weekend was great for trapshooting and we have feedback from two events.
The Rockingham Gun Club hosted their monthly Lewis Class Fun shoot Saturday. We had 12 folks show up and we had great weather. Junior Andrew Kung led all shooters in the singles with a solid 49 with three 48’s shot by Lane Murray, Lewis Wyatt and Roger Shaffer. JC Nunn and Charlie Rinehart had 47’s and the caps were the deciding factor. JC Nunn managed to break a 46 with the next high caps score broken by yours truly. JC’s 47/46 was the top score with Roger Shaffer breaking a 90. JC took top spot, Roland Whitely took 2nd Lewis and Dick Steinert took the 3rd Lewis. Next RCGC LCS is October the 3rd.

Buckhorn held their monthly two day trapshoot and had great weather both days. Saturday winners included Glenn Alford singles, John Miller caps and John Carter doubles. Sunday’s winners were John Miller singles, caps and Dan Johnson won the doubles. The HOA winner for Saturday was John Carter and the HOA winner for Sunday was John Miller. In case you don’t recognize John Cater that is Lou Carter’s son and yes Dan Johnson did with the doubles on Sunday and was classified AA even though he hasn’t shot registered in about 4 years.

I had the pleasure of meeting the one and only Braxton “Baxter” Ragan. Baxter is one good looking young man and really enjoys trapshooting with his dad. I appreciate him not whipping me for messing up his name the first time I wrote about him shooting and winning at the Buckhorn Gun Club. Maybe one day we will have the pleasure of shooting with him at BGC or even RCGC.

I went to BGC to carry some 1 ounce loads to Dan Johnson. I got to the club a little late and Dan was able to use my “special” light loads for his 2nd 50. I did manage to video his first post to see if my “special” loads were rocking him off the gun on the 1st shot. You can see the video yourself and yes I now know how to post video to the web. So take a look at the BGC pix and the video in NC Trapshooting then Trapshoot Results.

I noticed two fellows practicing on trap 3 the bamboo jungle. As my eyes focused I noticed an HOF inductee Marion Erwin shooting. I walked over to where his car was and we had a conversation about why he was out practicing. Marion will be attending a 800 bird shoot in Utah in October. The shoot is being put on by a fellow named John Huntsman and it includes trap, skeet, sporting clays, wobble and who knows what else. Marion will be attending the upcoming HOF shoot and plans to shoot the entire program to get ready for this event. If you have never met Marion please try to look him up at the HOF.

Hopefully I will get a shoot report from Buncombe this week and don’t forget that Ft. Bragg will host a 2-day shoot the 10th and 11th of September. Ft. Bragg has cut back on it’s schedule in 2011 and this is your opportunity to shoot at a great gun club. I understand that several folks will be attending just to help out the Ft. Bragg club in running the shoot.

The HOF banquet is only “20” days away and Anne Ewing and James Ray Wilson will be inducted into the North Carolina Hall Of Fame. I was doing some research on Anne Ewing and Googled her name to find an article that was published in Sports Illustrated in 1964. It mentioned that she had won the Annie Oakley women’s title with a 92 and 50 shooters attended the November event.

I contacted the Hall Of Fame and asked Tami to look for a T&F article that probably appeared in January 1965. She did the research and sure enough she found the issue and the article. I called JC and I read out the names of all the folks that attended the shoot in 1964. When I got to the end of the list he commented that almost all of the folks I read out were dead. The only other person we knew was alive was Chip Hagan and that is Senator Kay Hagan’s husband.

James Ray Wilson is a little on edge about his induction ceremony and we are trying to assure him that it will be business as usual. Dan Johnson has been giving great thought to his induction speech and has done a lot of research to get heart warming stories about this mountain of a man. The only caveat about this process is that Jimmy has assured me that if Dan gets off track and if anything goes awry I will suffer physically after the banquet. I am going to be sitting very close to Baxter’s dad Charlie and hope he has the taser and the pepper spray in case James gets loose.

I hope everybody has a great Labor Day Holiday and it looks like it might be a wet day for sure. I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Sparta Lew , Camper Dan IS BACK, JR Wilson and Buckeye, Charlie Brown, Thea & Tim, Solomon Brothers, Baxter & Charlie, Roush’s, Duncan’s, Cliff In MD, Bob In Ohio, Konne Yaut’s, SPYTwins, BamBam & Mrs. Kitty, and everybody else out there…….Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 9/12/2011

Post by smokem »

I trust you had a great weekend and hopefully looking forward to a quick week. With the 10 year anniversary of 911 yesterday I will not take a lot of time to discuss it. It was a terrible event but what is more terrible is that the liberal press and our government has chosen to water down the issues and completely failed to discuss the terrorists that were responsible. Last time I checked this is the USA and we have freedom of speech for now anyway.
We were all saddened by the news of the death of Charlie Smith Thursday. He was the heart and soul of the trap program at the Old Hickory Rifle & Pistol Club at Bostic. Charlie ran a monthly registered shoot and also a monthly BIG50 shoot that was very popular. Just recently Charlie and I started the White Hat vs Red Hat competition that gave folks another reason to shoot a little better. The White Hats under Charlie’s guidance managed to whip the Red Hats quite handily several times. Charlie will be buried today at 3PM at the Davidson Memorial Baptist Church.

Ft. Bragg held a two day traps shoot over the weekend and at the time of this writing we only have the Saturday report. Looks like Gorgeous George Brown won the singles, Morris Carroll won the caps and Karole Miller won the doubles and the HOA. Not sure of how many folks they had because they didn’t list the number of shooters. Hopefully they had a big day on Sunday and we will post the info as soon as it is available.

We have three trapshooting events coming up this weekend. Both Rockingham and Coharie will offer typical 300 target programs this Saturday the 17th. The Durham County Wildlife Club will host a traps hoot on Sunday the 18th of September. Hopefully Kim McKinney will post the program before the weekend.

The next big event on the horizon is the NC Hall Of Fame shoot at the Homegrounds. Typical 300 target days on Thursday and Friday with 200 singles on Saturday and 100 doubles and caps on Sunday. If you have never been to the banquet you need to come to this one. Ann Lauritsen Mason Ewing and Jimmy Wilson will be inducted in the NCHOF. Dan Johnson will be presenting Jimmy Wilson and it should be fun for all believe me. I believe that Hunter Galloway and I will share in presenting Mrs. Ewing since Hunter and I were both shooting when she shot at Pinehurst.

I took some more video this weekend of folks shooting trap. I got a video of Lew Wyatt, Lane Murray, Scott Shoulars, Leo Weber and the tailgunner. You can get to them by going to NC Trapshooting Then Clubs News. Hopefully I will be getting more and more video of folks shooting in the future. I might even get some interviews of some of our more colorful characters in NC trapshooting.

Terry Roush went to a memorial shoot for Pat Ireland at the Bluefield Gun Club Sunday. I might try to get some info about who all was there and who won the events. I know that Terry and Jackie will be attending the service for Charlie Smith Monday so maybe I can catch them on the drive up. Pat Ireland was a fine gentleman and always a pleasure to talk to. I got a kick out of his wife dropping him of and him hauling his gun and stuff to a spot at the club he was shooting at.

Ok – Monday is here and I have a BIG week ahead. Lots of things need to get done and I got to stay focused to get it all accomplished. I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Sparta Lew, Dutch, Big Jim & Buckeye, Thea (can’t wait till the banquet) & Tim, Solomon Brothers, Baxter & Lt. Ragan, Cliff in MD, Bob in Ohio, SPY Twins, BamBam & Miss Kitty, Duncans, Roush’s, Shooter & Winky, Bill Howe, Charlie Brown, Derven & Carolina Girl……..Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 9/19/2011

Post by smokem »

Greetings and we trust everyone had a great weekend. Three trapshoots in NC this weekend with DCWC the only reporting club. We do have some basic info from Rockingham County. Also the Hall Of Fame is this week and that should be a great event.
Rockingham County shot Saturday with Tommy Brown winning the singles, doubles and HOA. Ronnie Manuel won the caps with a 95 and JC Nunn broke a 94 and missed that fat middle 50 by 1 target shooting 7/8 ounce reloads.

Durham County had a big turnout Sunday with Ike Branthwaite winning the singles, Wayne McLurkin winning the handicap Tom Brown winning the doubles and the HOA. Hopefully we will get a full report from RCGC and CSL early this week.

Jimmy Wilson is on site and stated that the showers should be up and running by the HOF Thursday. That will be great for folks to be able to shower at the club. If you don't have a motorhome it helps to have a shower for the common folk so that they will smell fresh on the trapline. I haven't checked out the weather for the week/end and I hope it is dry and coolish.

Tommy Brown and Ronnie Manuel practiced together this week and both broke 100's in singles practice. Tommy jumped back out on the 27 and broke 50 straight in caps. He decided to shoot one more singles round and wound up missing his 175th target. Tommy is going to be right for the HOF this weekend.

It looks like the warden will be in town this week and will have Camper Dan on lockdown. Mary Johnson and Anthony should be in NC this week and will be attending the HOF this week/end. It will be great to see Mary and I haven't seen Anthony in forever. Oh, do not take any pictures of Mary - she doesn't like it. So, leave the picture taking up to me.....

Ok - it is going to be a short one this week and I would like to send a shout out to Lou, Sparta Lew, Dutch Johnson, HOF'r & Buckeye, Mrs. Tingle, Thea & Tim, Charlie Brown, Solomon Brothers, Roush's & Duncan's, Baxter and Lt., Cliff in MD, Bob in Ohio and if I missed anybody - please forgive and remember to ...........Smokem
User avatar
smokem
Posts: 2284
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 pm
Location: Jamestown, NC
Contact:

Weekly Blurb 9/26/2011

Post by smokem »

What a great weekend for trapshooting in the TarHeel State. I hope that you and your family had a great weekend and looking forward to a good week. Of course the focus of this blurb could possibly be the NC Hall Of Fame shoot that wrapped up at the Homegrounds Sunday. All I can say is that fun was had by all and some had more fun than others.
I didn’t get a feel for total attendance but I think that we were up for this year. It was good to see all the new faces from out of state and some in state shooters that we normally don’t see at the Hall Of Fame. Weather didn’t really play a factor except for overcast skies and a few rain drops here and there. Saturday and Sunday the winds were minimal at best and it was really great for breaking good scores.

It started off Thursday with Henry McGinnis whipping everybody with the lone 100 in singles. Handicap was won by sharp dressed Vincent McGlynn with the lone 98. I guess you are wondering whether the doubles winner’s name started with an “Mc” and yes James McWilson won the doubles with a 97.

Friday started off with the doubles and Tommy Brown won with a 96. Singles were won by Mr. Perfect James Wilson with 100 with Neil Alexander breaking a 100 for the Vet honors. Handicap was won by Darvin Cornett with a 95 and Charlie Brown taking the SrVet honors with the same score.

Saturday is the story for the ages and let me share a little bit of it with you. The winner of the singles Saturday quit shooting registered at the end of the 2007 target year. He ended 2007 with a 97.55 singles average, 87.75 handicap average from the 27 and a 93.75 doubles average. This fellow moved back to PA to get his son in a better learning environment and also get his son involved in a sport they both love.

Anyway, times got a little tough up in old PA and all the prayers paid off finally. This fellow moved back to NC to take a job and I guess I better get back to the shooting story. This fellow had sold his smokepole to a NC shooter that won the NC State Handicap Championship in 2008. It was pitiful situation for the fellow considering he was back in NC right close to his old bud Jimmy Wilson.

This fellow showed up at the Buckhorn Gun Club and everybody and I mean everybody was glad to see him. He helped pull and score and just was willing to lend a helping hand anyway he could and to also cause Jimmy Wilson as much grief as humanly possible. As time went on this fellow got to wanting to smell some gunpowder and he commences to shooting and swinging the gun some.

Since he was around a bunch of nice people he got a chance to shoot Jimmy’s gun and also was allowed to shoot another Kolar that is owned by Bobby Page. So, this fellow decides he is going to shoot some registered birds and I was there the day he broke a solid 95 in doubles to win the event and I have it on tape.

So, this HOF thing comes up with his old bud James Wilson getting the nod to be inducted into the NC Trapshooting Hall Of Fame. Seeing as these are good friends Jimmy asks this fellow to do the honors at his ceremony at the banquet. Little did Jimmy know that this fellows plan was being put in place to get the Hall Of Famer off his normally perfect game.

This fellow that quit shooting in 2007 that moves to PA and then moves back to NC in 2011 that starts practicing and then shooting registered and then is asked to speak at an HOF banquet that borrows a loaner gun from a local at BGC and comes to the Homegrounds and manages to tie his other good friend Lou Carter and winds up winning the HOF singles title with a 198 and the best thing about that 198 was that Jim got to watch this fellow break the score! Yes – there was no punctuation in that sentence….

Yes – that man is Dan or as I like to call him “Camper Dan” Johnson. I would like to say congrats on that fine score and we can’t wait till you get back to shooting full time very soon. As I said above he tied his good friend Lou Carter that came up from Florida and also John Carter shot with his dad at the HG.

Sunday started out a little grey and dismal and the doubles targets were a little hard to see. The tall lanky non singles shooting local Ray Gaultney won the doubles with a solid 99 and the handicap was won by Darvin Cornett with a 96. The HAA was a tie between Darvin Cornett and Jeff Galloway with them being co-champions for the event.

I am going to take a break before I discuss the Hall Of Fame banquet and just say thanks to all of the people that contribute to make the HOF and all the shoots at the Homegrounds possible. I know the NCTA and HOF board help and work and also the Duncan and Keever families work tirelessly to provide the great shooting environment. I had a special little pc project that I needed access to a pc and a printer and Mrs. Duncan allowed me access to get it done – thank you very much. What I am saying is that I personally don’t want to take things for granted and I hope our NC shooters don't take things for granted either. If you really appreciate the effort these folks put forth take the time to say thanks.

The Hall Of Fame banquet was wonderful and the induction of Anne Ewing and Jimmy Wilson was how we shall say – enlightening. We had the pleasure of the attendance of 5 daughters of Anne Ewing and they were Kit Mayer, Bobbie Listerman, Jennifer Cameron, Fay Ewing and Marguerite Ewing. The family brought some great pictures and also the Model 32 that she won most of her trophies with. I took pictures of individual items but I didn’t get a good picture of the table.

Words just cannot do justice to the life of Mrs. Ewing and her shooting accomplishments. I will do what I can to post the pictures and to also stay in touch with Fay Ewing in case they find more info and pictures in Pinehurst. I believe Marguerite will be the one that does the searching for info on her mother. Kit Mayer talked about her mother and her accomplishments and we all knew that it would be emotional and it was for all that attended. I believe Jim Callan will be sharing the pictures he took and I recorded that portion of the banquet while she is speaking and when the presentation is made.

Then there was Jim Wilson and the induction/roast that was presented by Dan Johnson. It started off with stories (one of which I was involved) and another where farm animals were involved (I wasn’t involved with the animal part). Dan talked about how Jim had won many trophies over the years but that there were folks in the audience were the real trophies. Dan said that Jim was a man’s man and that is true I believe sort of like a gentle giant a bowlegged gentle giant is more like it. It was an emotional presentation but my favorite part was at the very beginning.

As you know Jimmy is big boned and he loves to wear Carolina blue golf or t-shirts with pockets. Let’s face it – the bigger you are and the more times you wash a shirt they tend to shrink up a bit. So if you are a big boy with a tiny shirt and you bend over to pick up the paper chances are there is a bad moon rising.

I carry a camera a little bit and I have witnessed the situation above and have photographic evidence of one James Wilson. In fact I posted it in the loop of pix I brought to the HOF banquet. Anyway, I scoured the internet and found a triple XL baby blue, round necked, short sleeved, SNAP CROTCH onezy sort of like a baby wears. Yes your mind is wandering and yes that is a big baby – correct.

I purchased the onezy and had JIM embroidered on the garment and immediately contacted the presenter Dan Johnson. We never could really figure out how to present it to Jimmy and then it dawned on me. What if I roll it and put it in a bag so it seems like it is a present? Yep – I had a bag from a gun shop in High Point with a business card stapled on it. I put tissue paper around it and Jim opened it up like he was supposed to and when he stood up and let that big onezy unfurl it was priceless. His faced turned as red as the bag and you could hear folks gasping in the crowd. The best thing about all of this is that I recorded the whole thing.

I would also like to thank the ladies that prepared the clubhouse for the banquet. It takes a lot of time to get everything ready and it really looked great. The house was packed and I have pictures to prove it. The catering by Big Dave was good and the strawberry shortcake was my favorite.

We ate breakfast at Denny’s Sunday morning and Tom Pitts and Tom Shelley showed up to eat. It looks like Pitts wore Shelley out for the 400 targets over the weekend and maybe next time Shelley. Now that Shelley is hauling the “SpyShack” to the Homegrounds he has had a lot of visitors. BamBam and other folks come over to tell war stories and drink firewater according to Morgan. Let me be clear about one thing and that is that BamBam does not drink firewater.

Ok – I got to wrap it up and get some rest. We have two trapshoots in NC this upcoming weekend and they are at Buncombe County October 1st and Ft. Bragg the 1st and 2nd. I got all my pictures up for both days and I will try to get them captioned sometime. Also a few need to be straightened up so you don’t have to lean your head over.

I would like to send a shout out to Lou & John, Sparta Lew, Camper “Love You Man” Dan, Big 1zy & Buckeye, Thea & Tim, Solomon Brothers, Braxton & Lt, Cliff in MD, Bob in Ohio, Derven & Carolina Girl, Shooter & Winky, Charlie Brown, Ewing Sisters, Mrs. Tingle…….Smokem
Post Reply