Woods Walk Report: Good News & Bad. The good news is the storm system that plagued us all day yesterday blew through leaving us with spectacularly clear and cooler weather. Our trail walk was wet, but not dangerously muddy and slippery. Moreover, those who did attend, few though they were, enjoyed themselves immensely. We had experienced shooters to novices and every rank in between. We also had slightly more flintlock shooters (two of those were smoothbores) than caplocks and one inline shooter too. The bad news is that trying to get people, including our club members, to participate is like pulling teeth. This after ads in two newspapers, and this, as well as other websites, one of them local.
The targets were what you'd expect on trail walk: gongs at various distances, split the ball on an axe, cut the string, charcoal briquets on a string, cut the [playing] card, shoot the pencil (vertical), and so forth. Believe me, the lighting in the woods made even the "easy" shots much more challenging than they appeared. Needless to say, I hit some of the difficult targets (the briquet, pencil, string), missed some of the easier ones, and even managed to break one, but not both of the clay birds on either side of the axe head. The winner hit 10 out of 16 targets. I took 2nd place with 7, which was helped by my tie breaker shot (closest to the X on a 3" x 5" index card @ 15 yds.). NOT boasting here, just sayin'....
Incidentally, neither of the smoothbore shooters, who were highly experienced, could do better than 2, and that went to a fella shooting a smooth rifle. That really surprised me, as I thought they'd do much better. In light of that, I think I won't be using my smoothie next time, but it will be time to introduce my Isaac Haines rifle to the woods!
