New Members

Three officers, four members, and four sons (11 total participants) had a good time at the 7/1/06 Sporting Clays and Skeet Shoot at the Capitol City Trap and Skeet Range. We started at 7:30 AM to beat the heat. It was overcast, which kept it from getting too hot. We shot five stations (10 birds each) on the Corporate (Hunter) Course. Capitol City had their "Emerald Open" two weeks ago and overall the course was great. It was not overly challenging or overly easy, with the following exceptions. Station 3 was a bit too easy. I, Randy Rowley, went 10/10 on it and our group went 55/80 (including two 13 year olds on their first shoot). Station 4 was a bit too hard. The best scores of our group for this station, by Kenneth Kidd and Hunter Chance, were 3/10 (I went 2/10 on it). Our group went 15/80 on it. The right to left low bird gave us the most trouble (we went 4/40 on it). Joe Schram came in first place with 32/50. I came in second place with 31/50. Ron Denison (shooting his new Benelli Super Sport 2) came in third place with 29/50. He was followed by Larry Dowden (shooting his son Adam's 20 gauge Benelli) and Kenneth Kidd (shooting his new 20 gauge side by side that he won at the 6/17/06 Ducks Unlimited Sporting Clays Shoot) with 27/50, Jim Gault with 19/50, first time sporting clays shooter Jordan Chance with 16/50, and first time sporting clays shooter Hunter Chance with 6/50. The group shot a combined 187/400 or .468 (compared to the .351 that we shot on our last, 5/20/06, shoot, which was on the Masters Level Course).

Joe and I had a good competition. On our first station (Station 1) we both broke 7/10. On our second station (Station 2) Joe went up by one bird. On our third station (Station 5) Joe extended his lead to three birds. On our fourth station (the challenging Station 4) we both shot a miserable 2/10, so Joe maintained his three bird lead. On our fifth station (Station 3) Joe went 8/10 and I went 10/10 (as previously mentioned), falling one bird short of tying him.