Oak Park Sportsmans

[JThompson]

I shot a Mother's day Match at this club, Oak Park in IL it was my first time there... I got on a squad full of jokers, so I felt right at home. The stages were all pretty close, but a couple of them were a bear for being cut in halves... You think the available A is bigger than it is. We usually just HC the whole other part of the target and it gives you a better sense of where the zone is. This was the first time I shot targets that way... I kept hearing Deltas called after I shot and I didn't think I had shot them. I looked at the hits and they were pretty much where I called, but that happened to be the C/D area.

Anyway, we had a great time and the weather was fine... damned nats were a pain in the butt... kept trying to get in your eyes. After a few stages the wind picked up enough to blow them out and all was well. It's going to be a nasty insect season with all the water we have.

I bailed out on a couple of stages that we had to shoot strong hand... my right wrist is a pile of crap, but I shot the other three pretty well; nothing earth shattering, but I worked on shooting on the move. The targets were pretty close, but the available A zone was pretty small. It made for a challenge to shoot moving. You could see all of the targets from two positions and most of the guys just shot one and ran to the other and banged the rest. I need work on moving, so I shot'm all on the move.

Oak Park allows first timers, at the club, to shoot for free.. (Thanks Randy!) so I didn't feel to bad about letting a couple of stages go without shooting. I had a chance to meet some nice guys and give a few pointers to some of the new guys... hope I didn't screw them up to bad. Thanks to Joe for stepping up to RO everyone, even if he is a bit of a range Nazi. lol Just kidd'n Joe... well mostly. He kept the squad moving, so the backups were not to bad.

Phil Strader was there... they just had a four day class and he was shooting with his students... he must have beat them pretty good cause you could tell they were tired. The guys I spoke with really enjoyed his class. I've had the pleasure to speak with Phil on a few occasions and he always has time to help a shooter, and is an all around good egg. His good attitude is infectious and I look forward to seeing him on the range.

About all I can say for my shooting was I didn't have any mikes... as close as those targets were they trapped a lot of guys into going to fast... there really wasn't a whole lot of A zone there. Two of the stages were a mirror of one another with the starting positions reversed to give the lefties an equal shot. Those were the two tight stages... I think Phil said he was just shooting As and down 14 on the first one. I think I was down in the 20s, but maybe a tick faster... It was one of those you can give up 3-5 points per target if you get sloppy. I'm really curious to see how I did in relation to Phil on those two. I have a feeling he will win by points and I will have a slightly faster time, but down to many points.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I slept very little.

Best,

JT

Edited May 10, 2009 by JThompson