Taken From The December Treasure Chest

by Rob.com

As long as I can remember (which isn’t saying a whole lot) we have gotten pretty lucky with the weather during our annual Turkey Shoot event. I guess our luck finally ran out this year: We lost our fantastic river bottom shooting location and we also got snowed on the entire day. Nevertheless, we bit the bullet and pulled it off again with great success. Thanks to everyone that came to help out and participate despite the foul weather. I think we all had a good time, especially the new pair of STH sharpshooters who won the prize money this year.

Over the past few years, my Dad and I have gone up the hill a few hours ahead of the group to set up the shooting stations. This year was no different except for the snow and the fact that I did not know exactly where I was going. Thanks to Jimmy Clements scouting efforts several weeks earlier, I knew “the spot” was off of Iron Mt. Road, about 1.5 miles beyond North-South Rd, on the left, up a ridge a little bit… and I didn’t remember many more details beyond that.

With my rickety rust-bucket trailer in tow my Dad and I arrived in the vicinity around 7:30 AM. After scouting the first turnout on the left I quickly decided I had better unhook the trailer or I might find myself in a tight spot that I couldn’t get out of. I then spent the next hour or so checking out every nook, cranny, road, landing, ridge, valley and turnout that I could find. I don’t think we ever did find “the spot” but we settled on a fairly large landing with enough room to accommodate all of the club vehicles. We went back, got the trailer and scurried as fast as we could to get things set up.

The gang arrived around 9:00 AM and Kathy Medley quickly set up her kitchen queen camp under the shelter of some nearby trees and we had hot stew and chili to warm our bones throughout the day. Nearly every tree in the vicinity had ropes and tarps tied to it and E-Z ups were set up where no trees could be found. It kind of reminded me of Winter Fun Fest… but with lots of guns.

The shooting course was similar to previous years: .38 pistol, .22 rifle and a trap (shotgun) range. To reduce the amount of running up and down the respective ranges, I decided to purchase some “auto-reset” targets for both the pistol and rifle courses. They seemed to work pretty well and held up to the beating of the bullets for the entire day. The targets were positioned quite close to the firing line: 10 yards for the pistol course and 15 yards for the rifle course. 15 yards for a rifle! Yes, and there were only a handful of perfect scores; a small handful. The trap range for the shotguns was much more difficult than in years past. I knew we would have 2 clay launchers once Carrol arrived, so I divided the 10 clays to be launched (for each person) into 5 from the right and 5 from the left. That decision humbled all of us. The best score on the shotgun range was a 7 and yours-truly, plus a few others, shot a perfect zero.

Taking into account the foul weather and the smaller than usual turn out we were all finished shooting by 2:30 PM. The winners were announced, prize money handed out and we cleaned up and got the heck out of Dodge while it was still daylight.

Our winner this year in the Women’s division was Chrissy Champion (Kim Kidwell’s daughter) with a total score of 14. In the Men’s division Kevin Kidwell took top honors with a total score of 25. Each winner was awarded with half of the entry fee earnings: $52.50 each! Congratulations to Chrissy and Kevin! Nice shootin’!