Good Monday morning and only two days away from the 101st North Carolina State Trapshoot. Some folks are already on site and others are traveling today to the Homegrounds. No registered shoots in North Carolina over the weekend but folks were practicing all over the state from what I am hearing. The weekend weather was great for getting out and working on all the bugs before the big shoot this week.<p>
From what I hear Jimmy Wilson and Dennis Taylor were working on the traps Sunday. That is a lot of work and somebody has got to do it. Tom Shelley and Tom Pitts ran Shelley's new hacienda up Sunday and Sudds heads up Monday. Good news from the hills and that is Morgan Shaw will be shooting the weekend and it will be great to see his smiling face. ATA President Terry Roush will roll today towards the shoot and we had the pleasure of seeing him at the Rock for orientation on Saturday. Danny "Lobo" Lloyd will be rolling in from the coast and I know he is looking forward to putting some lead on some clay birds. Oh, Darvin and Donna are in Bostic and it is amazing how Darvin can layoff the sport for 6 months and walk out and break 100 straight! JC and I will start shooting Saturday and it will be great to see everybody at the shoot!
I had an interesting few days this week and it started on Thursday. I was invited to shoot at a Sporting Clays event that was hosted at Shanes Sporting Clays for the GTCC Foundation. I ran up to Lewis Wyatt's to borrow a reduced length AL-391 for one of the fellows on our team. I ran over to the Rock and shot a round before heading back home. Friday morning I arrived at Shanes about 7:30 and met the guys on our team. Captain Randy Shepherd is the Personnel & Training Captain and is also one of our competition snipers. SHP Officer Jay Carter and SHP Officer Brantley Walker rounded out our team.
After breakfast and a safety orientation meeting we headed shoot some practice near the parking area. All of us shot pretty good and headed over to station 11 and somehow I got picked to go first. I broke all 6 of my targets and that is about all I remember from there. GTCC provided a scorer and two ladies operated the controls to pull the targets. One of the gals was a Doctor and I commented that I had never had a doctor pull targets for me before. Jay Carter had never shot the course before, Officer Walker found out a day before the event and had to work until midnight Thursday night, Captain Shepherd had never shot sporting clays and had never shot the gun Lewis loaned him?
Have you looked up the definition of a mulligan lately? According to Wikipedia - Mulligan (games), when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action. I noticed the sign at the sign-in table and it said "Mulligans $10" and really didn't think much about it. When the awards were given the Piedmont Natural Gas team produced the best cumulative score and also included the best shooter Richard Powers with an 82. The winning score was a 300 and our ragtag thrown together team produced a respectable score of 290 with no mulligans. Not sure how many mulligans the PNG team bought but the money was surely for a good cause. Everybody had a great time and I assured Mr. Powers that we would hopefully Lord willing meet again at Shane's in May 0f 2015. I told him that I worked for the County and he advised me to start saving my money now for all of those mulligans in 2015.
Now for the rest of the story and I promise it will end soon. After the fun at Shane's Friday I rolled slowly over 158 and headed to the Rock for a little more practice. JT Brewer was there and Doc Gonzales were shooting and enjoying the beautiful weather. I was going to try to drop the loaner gun off to Lewis but he was not at home due to his sister passing way last week. I went back to the Rock on Saturday and shot a little more practice and worked with a new fellow named Ben Smith. He had a brand new over and under and he shot rather well for his first time shooting trap. I rolled over to see Lewis and gave him a rundown on the sporting clays outing. I mentioned who we shot against and his eyes lit up and he got to looking through his phone. He asked me if Tony Santoro was on that team and it looks like Tony and Lewis shoot skeet at the Rock. It looks like PNG imported Mr. Powers from Greeneville and local talent Tony Santoro from the Piedmont. Lewis shot on the PNG team in the Builders Association Event and they were the top team. Lewis said that just three of their scores not counting there 4th man would have won the event. I know that this doesn't really relate to trapshooting in NC but it does represent the fun and camaraderie that we need in any shooting sport.
That is about all I have for this report. I am sure I will have a ton to write about next Monday and that is always fun. NC folks are trying to get their name in the record books. In 2013 Charlie Brown won the NC Singles Championship after a shootoff with George Brown and Addison Callan. ATA President Terry Roush won the doubles with the lone 97 and Addison Callan won the State Handicap Championship with the lone 98. The HOA was won by Charlie Brown with 1233 and Addison Callan won the HAA with a 389. Just a trip down memory lane from 2013.
Have a great week and try to get some work done before you leave for the 101st North Carolina State Trapshoot. I hope that Lou made the trip to shoot with us this year but if not hello Lou down in sunny Florida and until next week .................................................................Sm
kemFor the NC State Shoot program mash on the link below:
http://nctrap.com/2014state.pdf
For the NC shoot calendar mash on the link from NCTRAP:
http://nctrap.com/shoots2014.pdf
For Southern Zone Shoot Info mash on the link below:
http://nctrap.com/sz_dates.htm
Piedmont Natural Gas - Top Shooter - Richard Powers
PNG Winning Team and GTCC foundation members. Tony Santoro is the tall fellow.....
Team scores and individual scores.........
Mash on the link below for pictures from the GTCC Foundation Sporting Clays Event:
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/smokem/ ... Event%20SC
