Day 3 of the 2010 TargetLine Cup dawned warm with clouds around but the rain was now a non-event in everyone’s mind. That’s due in part to the fine shoot management by David and Maryam Niederer, Steve Schultz, Casey Chase, Tim Miles, et al. and also because every shooter knew that it was going to be another day of hard work to turn in a good score. This was NOT a gimme shoot. Skeet in the woods? No F*#$-ing Way! What it was however, was fair. To be truthful, I think the Green course was a bit of a beat down on the lower classes though. It’s not fun shooting less than 50% but I’m not the one who says that’s an unfair scenario. NSCA shooting is not an averages game any more so what percentages should a particular class shoot? I know that the scores did fall out pretty evenly down through the classes which is the mark of a good championship class course.
This however was the day on which I shot the White main course set by TargetLine partner in crime Tim Miles. This is the first time I have shot a Tim Miles course so I don’t have any history to go on. While Schultz has a Euro, Peckham-ish style, Miles’ is definitely all American and the courses complimented each other well. White main displayed shallow quartering away birds, high floating fade-away’s, trap shots, direct incomers and the events only rabbit. Definitely classic sporting targets and the course shot a little easier because of it but they were championship worthy birds. Main event champ Bobby Fowler had this to say, "Green course was very interesting, good terrain and targets were on the stiff side. White course was more friendly because there was less distance. Overall, hard on Green, medium on White. Couldn’t ask for a better place to shoot."
Several shooters including Fowler pointed out White 6 and White 12 as particularly good targets. "Most people were over leading those." said Fowler about White 6 which was a pair of right to left high-climbing crows, one a standard the other a 90mm. You didn’t need the lead you would expect even though the targets were well out there. No doubt because they were loosing steam quickly as they climbed.
"White 12 was a quartering away target to the top of a berm followed by a quartering away tower shot." said Fowler. "[The tower shot] If you don’t shoot maintained lead, you would never hit it. You have one shot at it and you have to throw the gun up into the lead and shoot." This was a phrase repeated often over the weekend in different variations. These targets were set in a way that a maintained lead or better, an intercept method was the move of choice. I shoot a lot of pull-away and I tell you it was rough to use that technique on a lot of the presentations if you weren’t precise and aggressive about it.
I spent the morning finishing out my last 50 on the FITASC event. Having shot P1 and P2 on Saturday I had P3 and P4 left to go. Shooting straight through from one to four it felt as if the parcours became progressively harder. However, on inspecting the scores, P1 seems to have given shooters a hard test. Most likely the E bird was a culprit, a fast, low quartering away standard. You had to shoot 2 feet beneath it. That was the rub, it was impossible to tell it was dropping!
P4 was definitely the cream of the crop and the hardest. The traps were set in a deep ravine with the hoops on top and they had a lot of separation between them. Here the birds were mostly below your feet and hugging the terrain. The D bird from a medium sized tower complimented the set to give you a high long one to shoot at. Except for the B chondel all of the birds were as different as they could possibly be from all three pegs. Brilliant. Schultz is at his finest when he sets FITASC and these two parcours were sublime. There is no more fun in the world, outside of family, than to stand in the hoop and shoot well set FITASC. The event was won by Ben Brunton in a shoot-off over Brandon Powell.
Very much worthy of a mention is sub-junior shooter Zach Charbula who’s 178×200 score put him into M3 in the main event. The kid can shoot, D’ya think!? Main event Lady champ was Deeann Massey and in the FITASC Sandra Cogdill. Main Junior was Theo Ribbs and in the FITASC Abel Spire. Fowler who has been shooting a new high-rib Blaser and is working with them on a new medium sized rib summed up the event by saying, "This was a good win for team Blaser. They have worked real hard to get me back into the winners circle." Check the link below for the full run down of class and concurent scores.
My thanks go out to David Niederer and Steve Schultz for all of their help with these articles and getting me to the shoot. It was a blast, do not miss the Fossil Classic coming up October 2-3, 2010. It will be a good warm-up for Nationals.
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