By Rob Wright, Match Director

A big Thank You to Port Colborne & District Conservation Club for the use of this fine facility.

To Danny for his role as club liaison. For supplying the sight in targets and for setting up and tear down of the sight in range.

Dennis & Lanny for getting the course ready to shoot the day before. Dennis, also for providing most of the targets as well as setting up and tearing down of the lanes.

To all of you that attended – that arrived early, helped set up and take down – Thank You!

The wind that was howling for the previous day and a half continued blowing hard and had most people a bit concerned – but the people who set up some of the lanes obviously thought that the wind was not going to be enough of a challenge!  Some of the target placements were a bit devious.  I loved it – and from the smiles and conversation it sounded like most everyone did.  The silver wood duck target that was tucked in at the base of a tree on lane #3 caused the most chatter since with the changing light coming through the trees it was almost invisible until you had your scope on it (by the way that is a very pretty target Rob G!!!)  The rest of the course took advantage of the woods with a number of targets tucked into shadows or under the shelter of a fallen tree. I once joked with Rob G about using his lollipop target in a match since (as the name suggests) it is shaped like a lollipop with a thin stick and a narrow face plate around the hit zone – fine for Open and WFTF, but not much room to get a “1” for the Hunter Division.  I laughed when I came around to lane #1 and saw that the farthest target was in fact the lollipop!  As it turned out the duck was the most challenging target of the day for all shooters – only 6 people knocked it down with their first shot and 2 with their second, but no one made both shots. The scores on the lollipop were not much different than on any of the other far targets.  Two interesting points in the scoring data (interesting perhaps only to a data geek) are:

• No one missed the first target on lane 4.  Of the 30 shots fired at it, it dropped every single time.
• The second shot on lane 7 (standing) was impenetrable to WFTF shooters – no one knocked it down while 12 other shots from other divisions did.

We experimented with a few elevated targets and the elevated part worked fine but the untested targets let us down – they have now been sorted out and are ready for the next match. 

We had 2 first timers out to Port Colborne and based on their comments after the match I am delighted that they will be coming back again!  We also had a return visit from one of the originators of FT in Ontario – it was great to meet Tim MacSweyn and see him back at Port Colborne.

A couple people had technical difficulties that unfortunately took them out of the match and Marc S had scope trouble that cost him 2 lanes before he figured out his new multi MOA hold over and hold off and started knocking them down again – nice recovery Marc! 

The combination of the wind and the challenging set up brought the scores down a bit with no one in Hunter breaking a hundred, although a few of the usual top shooters in Open and WFTF rose to the challenge and posted great scores.

There were 16 shooters in total for this match.

Match Results:

Hunter PCP

Rob G with 98 / 120

Marc S  and Tom K tied for second at 95

Larry Y 92

Mike D  71

Hunter piston

Rob W 97 / 120

Shane R  74

Garry C  64

Danny K  59

Open PCP

Len J 57 / 60

Dennis E 55

Lanny H 49

Magdy H  DNF

WFTF piston

Tim M  50 / 60

Bob W  29

WFTF PCP

James L 45 / 60

A quick show of hands after the match says that we will have matches in both July and August – I look forward to seeing everyone there.  I also encourage everyone to think about how we can grow this sport and share this fun with more people.  Think about a friend or relative that you might be able to bring out – I am sure that we can come up with a loaner gun for someone who is interested in trying it out.

Once again thanks to the Port Colborne & District and Conservation Club, Danny, Dennis, Lanny, and all who attended and made this a great day!