Well, I'll tell you. Howard did get his personal best Nationals at 23rd in Limited 10. Congrats!
Ben got second in C Limited 10 and best overall junior shooter. Congrats to Ben!
All and all a pretty successful week. Brad won B Limited 10. Larry was in the top 50.Danny was at 101. Frank had a good time.
Now the end is near. We have to wait until tonight for the results. The awards ceremony is at 5:00. We will learn the answer to all of the big questions tonight. Will Ben win C Limited 10? Will he win the junior division?
Will Howard have his best finish at Nationals? Will either of them remember their guns?
Here we are on stage 12, our next to last stage.
Finally, here is a picture of the whole squad. It seemed like things ran smooth and everyone got along. What a great squad!
Before every stage you get a chance to see the stage and plan how you are going to run the stage. Here is a picture of the squad going through one. So far things are going good. Ben was winning Limited 10 C as of the end of this day. Howard is 16th overall. Dan and Frank are also doing pretty well.
Here is Dan W. another member of the squad.
Here is Steve "chupacabra" R. He has one of those fancy cameras.
Here is the husband and wife team on the squad. The Canadians Steve and Catherine D.
After Day 2 of shooting Howard, Ben, Danny, Frank and I went on a side trip to Idaho. It was only about a 30 minute drive.
We kind of just drove in to say we'd been to Idaho and Howard and Danny wanted to scout out the hunting. We also stopped by a area with old cedar trees. They were pretty big.
This is what Danny and I look like after our bladders feel less pressure.
We saw a ton of deer and a couple of rabbits. We were also lucky enough to see this moose. We weren't fortunate enough to have the guns with us.
On our way back we also ran into 18 elk, not literally. Makes your mouth water, doesn't it?
Here is the stud, Ben, knocking down a few targets. He has really been quite good so far.
You can tell the stress has been hard on him. Here he is sleeping between stages. Others in the squad are getting a little jealous of the 12 year old.
Day two we started on stages 17 & 18. Here is Howard on 17. You had to depress a button to make a sound and light go off. If you weren't holding the button you got penalized for every shot fired. There was also a pressure pad that activated a disappearing drop turner.
The first range command is "load and make ready". It is where the shooter actually loads his gun. I thought this was a nice picture of Dan. He had a nice day today.
I had some help in making the video a little better, Larry was nice enough to shield the glare with an old target. It helps keep the picture clear. It is almost like a real Hollywood production out here.
Ben has been pretty hot these first couple of days. Here is a picture of him in deep concentration at "load and make ready".
Frank has had a few real nice stages. Here he is on stage three hosing some targets.
The boys are squad 33. There are 9 people in the squad and a tag along today. We are generally on top of things. There has been no one stuck behind us and we have been waiting behind other groups. It is kind of nice.
Other than Howard, Ben, Danny and Frank there are six others who are associated with us. It is called a squad. This picture is of Brad. He is a very nice guy. He is the other guy that I am taping this weekend.
Here is Larry. He is a master and a real nice guy. A lot of people look to Larry to see how to handle a stage. He and Howard are both type A personalities. You would think it would be hard dealing with them both, but they really work well together.
Tommy is the guy from the east coast that tagged on to our squad for day two. He is a great open shooter and is always a pleasure to shoot with.
Yesterday was the first day. The guys shot stages 15 and 16. It was very leisurely. Some did better than others, but no one was DQed or did really bad. The weather was mostly favorable.
The stages were fun. It makes those of us here as media want to participate. There really are some fun stages here.
The range is a little dusty, but it is huge. There are 18 stages set up and room for way more. Howard said he had 10 at Izaak Walton and maybe he could fit a couple more. It is a huge place.
We finally got out to the range this morning. We did a full scale scouting out of the situation. We looked at and examined all 18 stages.
All of them ran through the stages and went over game plans. Here is a shocker... it didn't rain the whole time we were there looking over the range. Oh, yeah it did sprinkle a little after the actual shoot began.
Howard, Ben, Frank and Dan all shot three stages today. I think overall they had a good start. Howard and Ben especially. They shot three stages today, six tomorrow, seven Friday and two on Saturday. Keep checking for details.
