Monday, April 04, 2005
The Cajun Classic
I made it back from Baton Rouge safe and sound last night after shooting my 10th Cajun Classic field target match. This was probably one of the most enjoyable matches I have been to in a very long time. The weather was just perfect on the both match days and most of the practice day and of course, the food was fabulous.
It always seems to happen on vacation! I stopped for gas on Thursday on my drive to Baton Rouge and after fueling up I got into my car, stuck the key in the ignition and gave it a turn. Nothing. I tried again, still nothing. Great. I checked the battery terminals and tried cleaning them a bit but still no power. The battery was dead. The last time I had replaced it was when I was on vacation in Florida three years ago and it died in a similar manner in a Circuit City loading dock. After a jump start I was on my way again.
Friday started out with a chance of severe weather as I headed over to Walmart (at 7:00 am) to get a new battery. I had an hour to blow so I went looking for some fun targets to take out to the range. I knew that the BAC guys had the green army figures to put out so I didn't bother with them. I went over to the candy isle to see if they had any chalky type candy that might be fun to shoot. I didn't want anything that might be sticky or gummy since the course was right behind the 50 yard target holders.
Not finding anything there I headed over to the pharmacy area to look at pills that might work. Years ago in West Palm Beach we used to shoot aspirin at 50 yards and that was a real challenge but they are a bit small for a day predicted to have heavy wind. I found a cheap bottle of Walmart brand antacid tablets that I thought would work. They were chalky so they should explode somewhat when hit. I needed someway of setting them on the target holders and thought of Playdough or modeling clay. I checked the kiddie isles and found a cheap set of off brand Playdough for a buck and I was set. For under $3 I had some fun targets! I set them up at the range and they worked great, they would be a little cloud of "smoke" when they were hit and both the playdough and tablets will disolve in the elements.
Practice day was interesting, the wind wasn't too bad in the morning and I managed to get a pretty good zero, but boy was my rifle vibrating a lot. It was shooting pretty good, I had it tuned by Paul Watts originally but late last summer it was starting to vibrate a bit so I opened it up to take a look. That was a big mistake, I couldn't help myself and put some spring tar on the spring which messed up Pauls tune. By this spring it started shooting rather harshly and that is how it was shooting this weekend. It made it very difficult to follow through properly and get good groups. The action is coming out tonight and getting shipped back to Paul tomorrow to get fixed. Pauls new trigger blade and the upgrades I made to the stock over the past few weeks made a big difference though. I found it much easier get into position and to relax. I also found that I didn't near as fatigued towards the end of the match which helped my score.
It was really nice to see all of my field target family again. This year Alan Otsuka brought his brother and a buddy of his and they were a riot! Richard Shimuzu was living up to his new name of "Field Target Paparazzi" taking photos of everyone at the range and then handing out the photographs to them the next day. The Atlanta crew was there as was a contingent from the Washington clubs and a big showing from Texas. A big group of us made our yearly trip to Pocorillos for lunch on Friday and enjoyed one of the best Muffalettas on the planet. Hmmmmm, Muffaletta. I had a chance to really catch up with some of my old friends too like David Slade, Jack Kirkendoll, and Wade Sutherland. I hadn't seen Wade in over a year so it was really nice to have some time to catchup on Saturday after the match.
The course setup this year wasn't overyly difficult this year, I didn't hear what the difficulty factor was but I would guess that it was around 29-31 average. There were some really difficult shots like a 5/8" at 38 yards on lane 13 of Belle Terre but there were a lot of really easy shots too. It was kind of fun to shoot some easy shots again especially since I didn't have much time this spring to practice. It definitely helped my score! I am not the kind of shooter that can just pick up a gun and shoot great like some of the other shooters, I have to practice and get into a groove before I shoot well.
I had been practicing my standing shots over the winter and was counting on my standing shooting to give me an edge at this match. That didn't happen. Many of you know Rodney Boyce, one of the Godfathers of Amercan field target, and this was supposed to be his last match before retiring from FT. Rodny who is in his mid 70's hated standing shots so as a tribute to him the course was setup without any standing shots! This was probably the first match that I have been to that didn't have any standers. Too bad, they might have helped my score!
I didn't win this years match, I only shot an 87 on a pretty easy course, but I had more fun this year than I think I ever did before. I think a lot of it for me was that I wasn't focused on winning as much as I was on enjoying myself and trying to shoot my best. That took a lot of the pressure off and allowed me to have more fun. I had accomplished my goal of winning the Cajun's so that monkey was off my back. I was able to go in and have more fun and enjoy the shooting more and that is really how I want it to be. Besides, I would have to have been shooting out of my butt to have beat Rod Bradley and Roz Sumpter, both of these guys were on fire and on my best day I don't know if I would have beat them. Rod shot a 91 and had an 88 or 89 1/2 on two windy courses. The other guy to look out for in piston class is Ken Hughes. He is shooting piston gun this year and he is learning fast. He was hot on everyones tail until late in the match on Sunday when his scope shifted. He managed to keep things going but not until after it cost him a few points.
With all the close scores most everyone thought for sure that there would be a bunch of ties at the top of the leader boards but when the dust settled there wasn't a single tie. We all ate lunch and the awards were handed out with 1st place pcp going to Bill Howarth having only dropped 1 shot over the entire weekend and the piston award going to Rod Bradley. We all said our good byes and headed our ways. The 2005 Cajun Classic was a great match and I will always have fond memories of this weekend.
It always seems to happen on vacation! I stopped for gas on Thursday on my drive to Baton Rouge and after fueling up I got into my car, stuck the key in the ignition and gave it a turn. Nothing. I tried again, still nothing. Great. I checked the battery terminals and tried cleaning them a bit but still no power. The battery was dead. The last time I had replaced it was when I was on vacation in Florida three years ago and it died in a similar manner in a Circuit City loading dock. After a jump start I was on my way again.
Friday started out with a chance of severe weather as I headed over to Walmart (at 7:00 am) to get a new battery. I had an hour to blow so I went looking for some fun targets to take out to the range. I knew that the BAC guys had the green army figures to put out so I didn't bother with them. I went over to the candy isle to see if they had any chalky type candy that might be fun to shoot. I didn't want anything that might be sticky or gummy since the course was right behind the 50 yard target holders.
Not finding anything there I headed over to the pharmacy area to look at pills that might work. Years ago in West Palm Beach we used to shoot aspirin at 50 yards and that was a real challenge but they are a bit small for a day predicted to have heavy wind. I found a cheap bottle of Walmart brand antacid tablets that I thought would work. They were chalky so they should explode somewhat when hit. I needed someway of setting them on the target holders and thought of Playdough or modeling clay. I checked the kiddie isles and found a cheap set of off brand Playdough for a buck and I was set. For under $3 I had some fun targets! I set them up at the range and they worked great, they would be a little cloud of "smoke" when they were hit and both the playdough and tablets will disolve in the elements.
Practice day was interesting, the wind wasn't too bad in the morning and I managed to get a pretty good zero, but boy was my rifle vibrating a lot. It was shooting pretty good, I had it tuned by Paul Watts originally but late last summer it was starting to vibrate a bit so I opened it up to take a look. That was a big mistake, I couldn't help myself and put some spring tar on the spring which messed up Pauls tune. By this spring it started shooting rather harshly and that is how it was shooting this weekend. It made it very difficult to follow through properly and get good groups. The action is coming out tonight and getting shipped back to Paul tomorrow to get fixed. Pauls new trigger blade and the upgrades I made to the stock over the past few weeks made a big difference though. I found it much easier get into position and to relax. I also found that I didn't near as fatigued towards the end of the match which helped my score.
It was really nice to see all of my field target family again. This year Alan Otsuka brought his brother and a buddy of his and they were a riot! Richard Shimuzu was living up to his new name of "Field Target Paparazzi" taking photos of everyone at the range and then handing out the photographs to them the next day. The Atlanta crew was there as was a contingent from the Washington clubs and a big showing from Texas. A big group of us made our yearly trip to Pocorillos for lunch on Friday and enjoyed one of the best Muffalettas on the planet. Hmmmmm, Muffaletta. I had a chance to really catch up with some of my old friends too like David Slade, Jack Kirkendoll, and Wade Sutherland. I hadn't seen Wade in over a year so it was really nice to have some time to catchup on Saturday after the match.
The course setup this year wasn't overyly difficult this year, I didn't hear what the difficulty factor was but I would guess that it was around 29-31 average. There were some really difficult shots like a 5/8" at 38 yards on lane 13 of Belle Terre but there were a lot of really easy shots too. It was kind of fun to shoot some easy shots again especially since I didn't have much time this spring to practice. It definitely helped my score! I am not the kind of shooter that can just pick up a gun and shoot great like some of the other shooters, I have to practice and get into a groove before I shoot well.
I had been practicing my standing shots over the winter and was counting on my standing shooting to give me an edge at this match. That didn't happen. Many of you know Rodney Boyce, one of the Godfathers of Amercan field target, and this was supposed to be his last match before retiring from FT. Rodny who is in his mid 70's hated standing shots so as a tribute to him the course was setup without any standing shots! This was probably the first match that I have been to that didn't have any standers. Too bad, they might have helped my score!
I didn't win this years match, I only shot an 87 on a pretty easy course, but I had more fun this year than I think I ever did before. I think a lot of it for me was that I wasn't focused on winning as much as I was on enjoying myself and trying to shoot my best. That took a lot of the pressure off and allowed me to have more fun. I had accomplished my goal of winning the Cajun's so that monkey was off my back. I was able to go in and have more fun and enjoy the shooting more and that is really how I want it to be. Besides, I would have to have been shooting out of my butt to have beat Rod Bradley and Roz Sumpter, both of these guys were on fire and on my best day I don't know if I would have beat them. Rod shot a 91 and had an 88 or 89 1/2 on two windy courses. The other guy to look out for in piston class is Ken Hughes. He is shooting piston gun this year and he is learning fast. He was hot on everyones tail until late in the match on Sunday when his scope shifted. He managed to keep things going but not until after it cost him a few points.
With all the close scores most everyone thought for sure that there would be a bunch of ties at the top of the leader boards but when the dust settled there wasn't a single tie. We all ate lunch and the awards were handed out with 1st place pcp going to Bill Howarth having only dropped 1 shot over the entire weekend and the piston award going to Rod Bradley. We all said our good byes and headed our ways. The 2005 Cajun Classic was a great match and I will always have fond memories of this weekend.
