Clay Target Nation

The official magazine of the National Skeet Shooting Association and the National Sporting Clays Association

Onion Snow Open

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The Sportsmen’s Club of Forest County in Marienville, PA held their second-ever registered skeet shoot, the Onion Snow Open, on May 22. The Club was established in 1970 but didn’t have a skeet field until about 15 years ago. Club members Norm Wagner and Paul McConville were instrumental in the planning and construction of the field. As many as 20 skeet shooters use the field on Thursday and Saturday afternoons, and a number of these shooters volunteer to help get things done around the club. Registered monthly targets at the club have resulted in several new shooters being added to NSSA’s rolls in the past few years. 

This shoot was a two-gun affair, including 100 birds in each 28- and 12-gauge. The weather was relatively warm, but otherwise not especially nice — clear in the early morning and late afternoon, but windy with clouds and off-and-on rain for much of the day. Fifteen shooters participated. There were three flights, which meant a full slate for this one-field club. Allison Shaffer, Mark Eckert and Chris Kline, respectively, were HOA Champion (193), runner-up (191) and third (190).

The 28-gauge was first. Mark Eckert’s 95 made him gun champ, while Jared Shaffer’s 95 was good for runner-up. Class winners included Tom Shields (AA), Allison Shaffer (A), Evan Martin (B), John Avolio (C) and Norm Wagner (D).

A great lunch was enjoyed by all, with ham barbecue, macaroni salad, baked beans and several fresh fruit salads, followed by a large assortment of delicious desserts. Many thanks to Lois and Carol Shields!

After lunch, the 12-gauge event took place. Allison Shaffer’s 99 made her the 12-gauge champ, while Chris Kline, also at 99, was runner-up. Evan Martin, Jared Shaffer, Colby Eckert and George Gleich, respectively, took firsts in A, B, C and E classes.

Kudos to Tom Shields for overall shoot management and to Paul McConnville, Mark Williams, Dale Gallagher and Dave Smerker for their efforts before and during the shoot. Many thanks also to Casey Vensel for sign-ups, scorekeeping and posting, etc.

It was neat to again experience the “advance warning” of the exiting birds as they were thrown flawlessly from vintage Winchester traps.

– Contributed by George Gleich

Blackbird Open

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The Blackbird Open was held at Generations Skeet Club near Patton, Pennsylvania, on May 7. Thirty-four shooters participated in this two-gun event, 12-gauge in the morning and 20-gauge in the afternoon. The weather was overcast with scattered rain showers, mainly in the afternoon, but relatively warm and not too windy.

Chris Kline took HOA honors with a perfect 200. Pat Leyo and Mark Eckert both posted HOA scores of 197. Debra Meade was Ladies HOA champ with a 195. Great shooting by all!

Kline’s 100-straight won the 12-gauge event outright. Meade’s 98 was good for Lady Champion. Class winners in the 12 included: Leyo (AA-97), Jack Harshbarger (A-99), Meade (B-98), John Avolio (C-97), Don Steinert (D-95) and George Gleich (E-89).

Kline was also 20-gauge champ, but not until he bested Leyo and Frank Smithmyer in a shoot-off of 100-straights. Missy Vescovi was Lady Champion with a 98. Class firsts went to: Smithmyer, Leyo, Mark Eckert (99), Scott Hazlett (94) and Andrew Hazlett (86), AA, A, B, C and D, respectively.

Kudos to Ryan Holtz for running the desk and Michael Vescovi, who was chief referee. Non-shooting referees included Renee Calvert, Andrea McMullen, Alex Farrell and Braden Holtz — great job, refs! Thanks also to Pat Leyo for doughnuts and to Renee Calvert for cookies!

Many skeet shooters agree that recruiting young shooters is one of the most important tasks we face as a sport. Generations’ next generation of skeet shooters is on the way! Sub-Junior Luke Holtz (13) and Juniors James and Braden Holtz and Gabe Smithmyer shot on a squad with Gabe’s dad Frank who showed them how to do it with his 100-straight.

Nine pairs of parent and child competitors participated in this shoot. Families represented included: Harshbarger, Sutton, Hazlett, Vescovi, Steinert, Smithmyer and three sets of Holtz teams.

Junior shooter Zak Sutton of the Lawrence County Young Guns from Wampum, PA, shot and did quite well (two 95s). Sporting clays is the main focus of this group of several dozen young shooters, but they also participate in trap and skeet. Zak’s dad, Ed, shot his first registered skeet and finished with very respectable scores.

And speaking of young skeet shooters, Generations also hosted the PA SCTP Championships on May 20, with approximately 90 young people participating. Kudos to Joe Gans 3 for all his efforts with the kids!

– Contributed by George Gleich

John Scott / Henry Grubb Azalea Open

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Fort Bragg Clay Target Center hosted the Azalea Open on April 14-16. Early spring gave us some showers, but the 58 attendees had a fun weekend and posted some great scores. Congratulations to collegiate shooter Anna Wood, who won HOA with the lone 391. Her win was even more special because the former Henry Grubb was her mentor. In her free time, she would practice at Henry and Cheryl Grubb’s range. Anna actually hadn’t lifted her gun since the North Carolina State Shoot last September; obviously, the break didn’t dull her shooting skills. 

Gun champs:

Doubles—Josie Cloninger (99), the lone posted 99
12 Gauge—Chris Brown (100) in a 4-person shoot-off
20 Gauge—Addison Wallace (100), the only posted 100 and her first 100 straight in 20-gauge
28 Gauge—Stuart Brown (99), the only posted 99
.410 Bore—Anna Wood (99), with the single highest posted score

HOA winners:

HOA, Collegiate, Triple-Sub and Lady Champion—Anna Wood
Runner-up; SS champion and RM champion—Stuart Brown
Third—Otto (Chip) Simmons
AA1—Mark Smith
A1—Addison Wallace
B1—Ridge Pearson
C1—Joshua Wayne
D1—Briley Koller
JR CH—Addison Wallace
SU CH—Jason Shell
SR CH—Mark Smith
VT CH—Paul Stemac
SV CH—John Parker
ML CH—Timothy Riordan
MV CH—James Delosh
RF CH—Corrie Cloninger
FR CH—Bill Kluttz
2M CH—Scott Graham and Bruce Colclough

Many shooters look forward to returning for future shoots hosted at Fort Bragg Clay Target Center over the summer, including the U.S. Open.

– Contributed by Belinda Tiner

 

Alabama State Sporting Clays Championship

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Edward Guice, C Class Champion

The fall colors and cool, comfortable weather rolled in perfectly to support the 2022 Alabama State Championship at Bright Star Sporting Clays, October 6-9. Bright Star Sporting Clays is a family-owned operation that started as a few practice machines for owner Jason Jackson and his son. It has grown from its humble beginnings to a full course that throws more registered sporting birds than any other range in Alabama.

Jason brought in Corey Howell, of Howell Traps, and Dean Blanchard to set the courses and provide additional machines for the Sub-Gauge, AFS, FITASC, True Pair and Super Sporting courses. Shooters from Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida and one from Ohio attended to test their skills and enjoy the welcoming atmosphere.

The Prelim and Main Event were set in the wooded area of the property, while all other events were set on the rolling pasture land of the property. Jason wanted courses where everyone would have fun and still be challenged.

Corey and Dean delivered perfectly with courses that tested all but allowed everyone to break their fair share. The shadows and filtered sunlight on the leaves of the Prelim and Main courses presented added challenges of their own, beyond the wide variety of birds set.

The Friday Prelim finished up with a four-way tie at a score of 98. The shoot-off for all the ties were conducted on the Super Sporting course, but with 20 to 30 yards added to the shooting distance and throwing true pairs. It was  literally like a true pair long-bird competition and a lot of fun. The Prelim was won by Jeff Cramblit, with Brad Collins taking runner-up and Chuck Cranford winning the 12-gauge event.

The Saturday Main Event course ended with several Masters in the mid- to high-90s, but the leaders were Alex Ryan Clark of Georgia and two-time Alabama State Champion Chuck Cranford tied at 98. Chuck was having a tremendous weekend competing in 9 of the 10 events offered at the tournament. He ended up with four HOAs, one runner-up and a Master first.

For most, Sunday’s Main course proved more challenging, but not for Junior shooter Hunter Stover of Mobile, Alabama. Hunter succeeded in shooting an amazing score of 99, a full three birds ahead of the nearest competitor and enough to win him his first Alabama State High Overall title. Chuck Cranford’s scores were good enough to hold on to the runner-up position, and Alex Ryan Clark was third, also taking the Non-Resident High Overall.

Alabama shooters didn’t win everything; one of Mississippi’s top shooters, Steven Tzotzolas, stepped in and won the True Pair event. High Lady was won by Alabama Junior shooter and match photographer, Katie Skinner. For full results, visit ScoreChaser.com.

The Alabama State was very much a family-oriented tournament with many father/son, husband/wife pairs shooting together. For Hunter Stover and his father Benny Stover, it was a very rewarding crown to years of competition.

For Bruce Park, it was his first major tournament and also the first he had shot with his son Sumter, who won D class in both the Main Event and Super Sporting, while dad earned punches in a tie for C1 in Super Sporting.

All three of the Alabama NSCA delegates were in attendance, and all three took home awards. Rocky McCluskey was runner-up in AFS, Perry Johnson took A1 honors in both AFS and FITASC, and Steve Dickinson was M3 in the Prelim event.

It seemed as though everyone won something. Reviewing the payouts on ScoreChaser, over 80 of the shooters won a part of the very generous $18,000+ payout. The tournament sponsors were Albertville PowerQuip Kubota, Atlas Traps, Howell Traps, Comp-N-Choke, Sand Mountain Toyota, White Flyer, and Lake Guntersville Tourism Board.

Everyone seemed very happy with the tournament, thought it ran smoothly and was having a good time. The Saturday evening dinner was catered by the local SCTP group and was delicious. Thanks to all the SCTP shooters and family who took on the duties as trappers for the event.

Bright Star and the Jacksons wanted to put on a match where everyone had fun, promoted fellowship and camaraderie, and felt like they were a part of something, and it seemed the crowd agreed they succeeded. Many were already looking forward to and planning for next year’s event.

– Contributed by Jeff Cramblit

Photos by Katie Skinner

2022 MS Skeet Championship

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September 9-11 will surely go down in the history books as a weekend to remember in Mississippi! Starkville Gun Club hosted the 2022 Mississippi Skeet Championship, a shotgun wedding and the Mississippi Hall of Fame celebration all in one weekend. Thirty competitors kicked off the events on Friday afternoon with Jeff Sullivan (MS 2020 HOF) claiming victory as 2022 Doubles Champion. Then, with a quick change of clothes, Jeff walked down the aisle (under the front porch due to rain) and tied the knot with his beautiful bride, Penny Pittmann Spooner. Jeff shot his first 100 in .410 at SGC in 2010, so it seemed only fitting that this be the venue for his shotgun wedding. The happy couple generously arranged for a wonderfully lavish banquet of food and drinks in the clubhouse, which was enjoyed by all our shooters, spouses, family and friends. Dancing in the rain was captured on video! 

Saturday’s weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold and not too windy, and three competitors produced perfect 100 scores in the morning. Shoot-offs made Stan Salter the 12 gauge champion, Jessica Wolfe runner-up and Trip Jones third. In the afternoon, shoot-offs broke a three-way tie of 99; this time, Trip Jones prevailed as 20-gauge champion, David Gollott (MS 2021 HOF) runner-up and Jeff Sullivan third.

And then a fabulous steak dinner with our skeet family to honor our two inductees into the Mississippi Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame:

Tony Rosetti, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War with more wins and accolades in both International and American Skeet than we have room to list on this page, was the first to be honored. To his credit are four HOA World Championships, six Open Mississippi Skeet Championships, multiple Mississippi State Teams, world records, plus a 1972 Mississippi HOA score of 399 that set a state record that stood for 30 years.

Clark Hartness, a U.S. Army veteran also who joined SGC in 1992 after returning from Desert Storm, was also inducted. He has been an NSSA Concurrent All-American Team member for 16 consecutive years, with many state championship buckles to his name. He is super competitive but also a leader and innovator in the skeet world. Back in 1997, Clark was instrumental in the creation of one of the first state association websites posting news, scores and results. He has served as Secretary-Treasurer of MSSA since 1995, as NSSA Director for Mississippi since 1996 and Zone VI NSSA Executive Committeeman since 2018. In 2015, Clark led the first iZone VI Championship, which led to the launch of https://ishoots.org. Somehow, this man does all this, runs all our zone shoots, actively competes and still makes time to help anyone who asks. His contributions to our sport at a local and national level are unmatched.

Sunday morning conditions were pleasantly dry. Frank Callahan (MS 2018 HOF) won the 28-gauge championship outright with the sole perfect 100. Trip Jones was runner-up and David Gollott third, both with scores of 99. To close out the weekend, David Gollott took the .410 championship with an impressive 99, with Frank Callahan runner-up with a 98 and Russell Walker third with a 97.

David Gollott was the 2022 Mississippi State HOA Champion with an impressive score of 392. Congratulations to him, the gun champions and the 2022 Hall of Fame inductees.

The Mississippi skeet family may be smaller in numbers, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a more caring and friendly bunch of folks. I, for one, am blessed to be a part of this great group of people.

– Contributed by Susan Galloway

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