Smithmoor March 22 Write-up

[jackrabbit]

Fellow Shooters,

We had an unbelievable blessing of a day on Saturday! After most of the front range has suffered endless days of heinous winds, Saturday proved to be the most beautiful day we have seen in some time. The flags barely flickered all day. We did surprisingly wake up to about a 1/2" of snow which made the grassy areas white, but it melted off fairly quickly. Temperatures rose into the low fifties by afternoon, and we elected to shoot from outside the shed on the concrete out front. With 23 shooters, we threw the paper target into the rotation for a fifth station. It was a great day for sure.

Coralee's folks, Tom and Bev Reed, volunteered to bring out lunch for the group yesterday. It was very good and very appreciated. Lamb and noodles, along with a lettuce salad and a vegetable tray was the main course. Ceph Jones brought a super red velvet cake and Coralee whipped up some of her bread pudding for desert. Coralee also baked a couple of loaves of banana bread and had them out for those of us (me especially) that like a mid morning snack. We had the barrel stove burning hot the whole day. Although it wasn't cold, the warmth of the stove still felt nice to warm hands and visit around.

I am always amazed that the weather doesn't seem to affect the scores as much as I think they should. Although we had several shooters shoot some of their better scores, we didn't see any super high scores that it would seem like the blue bird conditions would allow for. I know I shot my personal best score is some pretty tough conditions and it makes me shake my head that I can't seem to do as well when I have great conditions to shoot in. That's how shooting goes. I know I heard several shooters saying at the match, "If it were easy, we would call it golf!" Regardless of the score, the nice weather sure makes it easy to have a good time shooting.

Our fund raising game that we often play was won by Dick Farmer this month. We call it Turkey Lotto and it works by tracking how many times each particular turkey was hit throughout the day. It is entertaining to watch as often one turkey will pull ahead, and then for some reason shooters will stop hitting it and another one will pull ahead. I thought that after having it for several matches,one turkey would become the obvious choice as it would most often get the most hits. It hasn't proven true and there doesn't seem to be anyway to outguess which one will win. This month Dick won by buying turkey #8 and it received 20 hits. With 23 shooters, that means only three shooters missed that turkey all day. Kind of amazing. For the record, last month it was turkey #10.

We are experiencing a quickly shrinking A class! It makes me smile as that means our shooters are improving and moving up. Mary Zang was our winner in A class this month with a 24. This is her last AA score that she needed to move into AA class. Good Job Mary! Walt Farmer was our high A class paper target with a 215. It is rather amazing what a challenge it is to shoot a good score on the paper target.. In AA class, I was very pleased to be able to award my Dad, Gary Smith, with the 1st place pin and certificate. He has been been working hard to shoot better and we are very proud of him. If he had been playing this game 30 years ago,he would have been tough to beat out for match winner as he was a super riflemen in his younger years. He taught me what I know about marksmanship. Good Job Dad!. For our paper target in AA class we saw Ceph Jones turn in a very respectable 236 to be high score. 1st place AAA goes to perhaps our most steady shooter, Joe Kapler. There was a three way tie for 1st place with Tom Reed and Tom Wengh also shooting 28's. Tom Wengh opted to bow out of the shootoff, which left Tom Reed and Joe to battle it out on the turkeys. We allowed 7 minutes for unlimited sighters and 5 turkeys for score. If there was a tie, we would go for sudden death. Showing his nerves of steel, Joe calmly smacked the swinger a couple of times and then walked through all 5 turkeys, knocking each of them down. Tom took a bit to get sighted in and started his shots for score behind Joe. He smacked one and two, but missed #3, giving the win to Joe. Good job guys, I love to see the stiff competition! High paper target in AAA class was Kevin Finney with a 240. In master class, I was very pleased to award 1st place to Jim Rodebaugh. There was actually a tie in Master class between Dick Hennebry and Jim, but Dick had to head into the symphony again this month and didn't have time to participate in the shootoff. Jim has been working very hard to improve his shooting and it appears all of the effort is paying off. Good job Jim! High paper target in Master class was Dick Hennebry with a 244, only edging out Jim by 1 point.

I wish to whole heartedly thank everyone for all of the support and for coming out to shoot. We have a great bunch of shooters and it is truly a pleasure putting on the match each month. Plans are coming together for our Winter Series Finale next month on April 8th. The prize buckles have arrived and were on display this match. Look for pictures of them and the match on the facebook page. It is going to be fun! At this point, the weather forecast for next Saturday looks favorable for being able to hold our big bore match at Smithmoor West. I have a new barrel and load to try out and I sure hope we get to shoot. Watch for updates via email or the facebook page later in the week. We are planning a Historic Target Rifle match for the 25th here at Cody's shooting shed and hoping the weather allows us to have the match at Watkins on the 1st of April.
take care and hold center,
Cody Smith

Shooter Paper Chicken Pig Turkey Ram Total Place
Master
Michael Rix 236 3 10 10 6 29
Cody Smith 238 5 10 9 10 34 MW
Jim Rodebaugh 243 1 10 10 9 30 1st
Dick Hennebry 244 1 10 10 9 30 High Paper
Travis Purdum 228 0 7 9 9 25

AAA
Joe Kapler 225 0 10 9 9 28 1st
JD Farmer 225 1 10 7 6 24
Mark Pachares 223 3 8 3 5 19
Tom Wengh -- 0 10 9 9 28
Tom Reed 234 1 10 8 9 28
Coralee 225 3 8 7 2 20
Kevin Finney 240 0 9 8 10 27
Monte Reed 208 3 9 7 7 26

AA
Ceph Jones 236 0 6 7 7 19
Dick Farmer 0 4 6 5 4 19
Gary Smith 226 4 9 8 8 29 1st
Steve Anderson 207 1 7 3 3 14
Jerry Zang -- 0 5 5 4 14
Greg Bybee 197 1 9 3 3 16
Mike Venard 198 5 10 6 6 27

A
Mary Zang 212 0 10 8 6 24 1st
Walt Farmer 215 0 7 5 5 17
Brian Mallin 214 1 7 4 3 15