Monday, September 11, 2006
That's my boy
Any trapshooters reading this will immediately know what this picture means. For all the other folks out there, it is a tradition in the trapshooting world to shoot a persons hat on the occasion of their first perfect round....25 out of 25. My 12 year old son Nathan broke his first 25 straight on the second trap of the morning handicap event at the Red Mountain Trap and Skeet Club on Sunday morning.
I was shooting on a long yardage squad two fields away when Nate did the deed, so I didn't get to watch. I knew immediately afterwards, though. I'm not sure which tipped me off first - the hole in his hat or the mile wide grin.
There were actually two kids from our SCTP group that shot their first 25 straight yesterday: Nathan and Brandon. Brandon got his in the second handicap event of the day. All of the kids were so excited that it was infectious. Even the grumpy old fogeys were smiling, and most of the conversations I heard started with the words "I remember..."
At last year's Arizona state shoot I made a deal with both of my kids. To fulfill my obligation, now that Nathan has broken a perfect 25 in competition, I will shoot my next competition event wearing these:
Look for me and my moose slippers on the line at Red Mountain on October 21st.
_
Opening Day
Labor Day means different things to different people........around my house it means opening day of dove season. Once again we attended the juniors only hunt sponsored by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The picture above was taken about an hour before sunrise. The young man on the right is Pedro, a member of our SCTP team who came along for his first taste of bird hunting.
As always, a grand time was had by all. Unfortunately I was too busy spotting and retrieving birds for the 3 kids to take any pictures besides this one. Pedro took first blood of the hunt with a wonderful crossing shot. Nathan took the "feathers and feet" award when he popped a dove with his full choke barrel at a distance of about 6 feet.....it looked like someone had turned a pillow inside out in the air. We weren't able to find a big enough piece take home. Kathy won the precision shot award by very neatly removing only the head of a flushing dove without touching the bird anywhere else.
We hunted for a couple of hours, then caught the hay wagon back to base camp where we had pancakes, eggs, and sausages prepared by the great folks from the Chandler Rod and Gun Club. After breakfast we took an outbound hay wagon to a different station and continued hunting 'till almost noon.
If you have kids under 17 and live around Phoenix, I highly recommend this hunt. Check your spring hunt regulations for next years schedule!
_
