Much Anticipated Disaster Under the New Shootmeister Fails to Materialize. 

The rampant rumors of a seventeen station course consisting of nothing but going-away rabbits and minis thrown direct into the sun coupled with a lunch menu of tofu and bean sprout salad were thoroughly debunked at the very successful debut SSC shoot under the direction of the new Shootmeister and his team of experts. Even the SSC’s uncanny ability to defy the weather forecasts remained in tact as we wasted yet another costly set of waterproof score cards on our outing to Callaway Gardens on the 21st of January, 2006. Although the thick gray skies did not provide a great deal of illumination for our baby-boomer eyes, neither the morning nor afternoon flights encountered any significant amount of rain.

I arrived at around 12:30 to find the membership hunched over prodigious slabs of seared meat provided by the caterer that I have nicknamed "the Flintstones" because the portions that they serve remind me of the Flintstone cartoons, where Fred and Wilma would always be sitting down to ribcage of brontosaurus or drumstick of pterodactyl. At Saturday’s shoot, it seemed that both delicacies were on the menu. In spite of the gigantic amount of food that was consumed, the afternoon shooters somehow managed to hoist themselves from the tables and waddle down to the course to attempt a round of sporting clays.

The targets ranged from tricky to downright difficult. Add to that the dusk-like lighting conditions and you produce a par of 84. The course featured of a lot of true pairs where it was difficult to judge which target to attempt first. Station three offered a high, incoming teal along with a slow looping crosser from the left. The teal had almost reached its apex before you even saw the crosser emerge from the trees, but I thought the best way to shoot the station was to wait and kill the crosser first and then take the teal just as it began to fall. I had pretty good success with that approach to the station, but I watched a number of shooters take the teal on the way up and attempt the crosser as it was falling off to the right. I even observed one fellow START with the teal as it began to DROP and then swing rapidly to his right and shoot the crosser when it was two feet off the ground! I would have thought that was the absolute most difficult approach to the station, but he ran it. Nobody likes a showboat. Shooters faced similar choices on stations one, seven and eleven where it wasn’t obvious which target to take first on the true pairs. The station that produced the most four-letter words from the SSC ranks was station two with its brace of rabbits thrown as quartering battues. Most shooters started with the far bird, which began its flight as a left-to-right knife-edged crosser but curled around in mid-flight to become a right to left target that was also DROPPING! If you got it quick, it was pretty straightforward, but who could see it in that light against the wooded background? By the time you finished with the first one, the second flying rabbit was out about 35 yards and dropping like shares of Enron. By this point you could actually see some of the orange face of the target, but it didn’t help much as you jabbed your barrel someplace underneath the orange blur and snapped off a quick shot. I did witness a few hot-doggers who ran this station as well. Whatever happened to sportsmanship?

The Original Shootmeister (now retired) finished his morning round in sole possession of first place with a truly remarkable 88! It took Rod Pinkston from Division One to equal Bert’s performance in the afternoon, thus sharing the top gun honors. In a rare statistical anomaly, both Division One and Division Two were won with the same score. Bert and Rod can fight it out in the same Division after today, because Bert’s 88 earned him a trip back up to Division One. I think I can speak for all my compatriots in Division Two when I wish Bert a LONG and fruitful stay up there. Troy Peak’s aggressive shooting style was well suited to the Callaway Gardens course as he blew everybody in Division Three out of the water with his 85! What’s he doing in Division Three, anyway? Vic Flores, undoubtedly using his tighter-than-tight chokes, topped Division Four with an 80. Jim Moon was high gun in Division Five with a 75, a score that got his butt kicked up to Division Four where raffle tickets are a little harder to come by. An epic battle between arch rivals Judy Miles and Harvey Schwartz ended in a tie for high gun in Division Six. And last but not least, four shooters in Division Seven performed well enough to qualify for a raffle ticket.

There has been quite a bit of movement between divisions lately. In addition to the ones already mentioned, the following shooters have been moved up a division over the last two fun shoots: Arthur Estes (4), Gene Gammill (2), Ken Jones (4), Buddy Newberry (2), Don Wallen (3), Jim Watson (6) and The Rafflemeister (2).

The threat of rain may have kept a few members from venturing out with their expensive shotguns, but the first shoot of the Bud Weiser era brought out 109 hearty souls who shot a total of 116 rounds of sporting clays and ate untold quantities of brontosaurus meat.