Memorial Day Shooting

Northbrook ATA

Shot at Northbrook today. Missed first target out of the house in singles, missed the third one out and then missed two more to end first trap with a 21. Uh oh, this is shaping up for a disaster. Regrouped and hit 74 of the next 75 to end with a 95. Committed some serious mental errors but was able to correct so a good lesson. Handicap didn't start much better, started with a 22, then went 25, 21, 24 to end with a 92. Again a few targets behind where I want to be but my average is moving higher so its coming together.

Sporting Clays US Open

My Dad shot the 28 gauge event at the US Open yesterday in New Jersey. He shot pretty good and sounds like they had fun.

We had our first decent day in awhile in Illinois yesterday. I went out to the club with Cal for a bit. I shot a 24 at singles with lots of chips, no dirt balls. I shot a round of handicap from 25 yards and went 17 straight before missing 5 of the last 8 targets. Tried one more round of handicap which didn't go well and then quit. Partial victory, usually I just keep blasting away til I am really frustrated. My eyes were tired and it just wasn't working.

A friend of mine brought out a 20 gauge semi-auto, 12-1/2 inch LOP and 23 inch barrrel. Cal took a couple of shots at low house #7 on the skeet field but the gun was still too big for him to hold comfortably.

Tough Shooting At Maywood

Maywood had their Illini Indian shoot today. It was very, very windy. In singles I shot 25, 24, 24, 23 for a 96. I was happy with that score considering the conditions. The high singles score was a AA shooter's 97, I tied for first place in A class with that 96. We shot off late in the day and I missed one while he missed two. I was happy with winning the shoot-off, good experience to get.

I was pretty confident that I could shoot a good handicap score but that didn't happen. There was no squad before us so I rushed to the trap to find everyone waiting for me. Missed the first target out of the house and then another one. Finished the first trap down 5 targets. Shot a 22 on the second trap and figured I could salvage the score. Shot a 15 on the third round and then a 22. So a 79. I had a really hard time seeing the targets, the wind made them very inconsistent as well. The high scores in caps were 88s, two from 20 yards and one from 27 yards. The 27-yarder won the shoot-off.

Great turnout, they had 90 shooters on a pretty crummy day early in the season.

So a tough start for handicap but today's handicap targets were an abberration from how I have been shooting. So on to the next event.