South Island Sporting Clay Championships.

Packing everything to set off to Greymouth, I saw the news that showed the Grey river was 7 meters over normal, the pass was closed and flooding and slips were everywhere on the coast side. Oh fun. On arriving at the Greymouth early Wednesday afternoon expecting the worse I was pleasantly surprised that the weather out at the gun club wasn’t to bad if you ignore showers of rain, mud and water underfoot. In just two days 68 shooters were expecting four old style FITASC type fields to be set up and running so we had better get on with it. Graeme Brown, Steve Gill, Ron Madden from the S.I.S.C.S.C. had bought over 18 Pro Matic traps, along with locals Kimble Upfold, John Boyles and Brian Forrest rounded off the setting up crew.
The plan was to run 4 fields, one up on the local farm paddocks, one in the native bush and two fields around bush clad lakes. I think this worked pretty successfully, Saturday was set up a bit ‘softer’ being a trophy day with a few non competitive sorts and locals attending. Sunday was set with the knowledge that it was the South Island Sporting Clay Champs and places for North/South teams were up for grabs. There was plenty of variation on both days from tight close shots in the bush, curling and ducking targets, nothing was set level, and every target was curling one way or the other, to long crossers and going away rabbits on open ridges.
A special thanks must go to Jenny Forrest and Katrania Baylis who spent both days in the caravan cooking breakfast and beautiful gourmet burgers and toasties for lunch. The interesting fact there is Brian reckons Jenny would normally do anything to not be at the gun club, so it was a pretty special effort from the ladies. Also John Boyles, Kimble Upfold and Thomas McNutt who spent all weekend loading traps, lugging gear about and guiding shooters around the fields Just to keep the West Coast hospitality going a bit longer we had booked out a local restaurant for Saturday evening, and to those who availed themselves of it had, ham off the bone, whitebait patties and bar prices that only Auckland drinkers could ever dream of!
On Saturday a total of 68 shooter turned up for battle, something the organisers were well pleased with, which all is good for a return down the track, but don’t tell them yet!!
All in all an excellent weekend, and just to cap it off a great thank you speech from Mark Vessey saying the targets were of a standard, as good and as well thought out as any shoot anywhere in the world.
Saturday’s Trophy Day:
Brian Deadman 96
Mark Vessey 95
Geoff Wells 94

Sunday: HOA/AA
Mark Vessey 92
David Alley 91
Geoff Wells/ Brian Deadman 88, Brian Deadman 2nd. after shoot off.
A Grade:
Derek Morgan 84
Buzz Cronfeld 80
Rex Sandford 80

B Grade:
Garry Marsden 82
Tara Lawrence 78
Mitch Bodman 77

C Grade:
David Reid 59
Tim Scott 55
G. Bunting 53

Super Vet: Gordon PcPhee
Veteran: Rod Bryant
Ladies: Tara Lawrence
Juniors: James Simpson.
Ron Madden.