timeout said:
How did you do on Saturday?
You would have to ask. LOL
Actually, I shot a clean with the Savage in Saturday's match as well, but I shot the wrong balloons at 440. The problem was the way they had the balloons set up (which could have been completely avoided by simply putting bench numbers on the targets). They alternated red, white, blue and yellow balloons for the ten benches. The balloon bags were placed much closer to each other at the 310 yard range because of limited space. At the 440 and 540 yard ranges they were spaced farther apart but the right color balloons for 540 were directly above the ones at 440. Not so for the 310 yard balloons. I had red and I shot my 310 yard balloons first. By the way, you only have 10 minutes to shoot 14 balloons (4@310, 5@440 and 5@540) with 17 rounds, so you don't have any time to waste. In the heat of the hurry, I raised my front rest straight up from 310 yards to 440 yards and found myself on a bag of red balloons, so I shot them. After I shot all five, I realized what I had done and notified the range master (Terry Balding). I then went on to shoot the right 540 yard balloons and came back and shot two of my own 440 yard balloons with the two extra shots I had. That was good enough for a tie for fourth place. I lost the tiebreaker and got fifth. I was furious with myself for making that mistake as I would have won it outright with the clean, and the first place prize was about $150.
I had a huge handicap I could not overcome in the custom qualifying round Saturday. I had no spotter who could see vapor trails to call my misses (they are allowed and almost a necessity during qualifying rounds if you miss a shot). I cleaned them at 310 and 440, but I could not find them at 540 without a good wind call on my misses (the wind was very switchy). I had a widely spaced bag of balloons and was unable to find them by trial shots, so I didn't qualify for the custom match Saturday. There are no sighters on match days and not knowing for sure where my custom was dialed in at 540 was part of the reason I chose to shoot the Savage in custom on Sunday. After three cleans in a row with it, I was pretty confident it was well dialed in and could do the job, and it did with two more cleans and a great tie breaker to win the custom class Sunday. I felt a lot better after that.
This was the second annual balloon match held at the Columbus, WI Sportsmans Club and they are modeling it after the defunct VHA jamboree balloon matches insomuch as is possible. Terry has learned a great deal in the course of running the two matches and will hopefully have the bench numbers on the targets next year. I was not the only one to shoot the wrong balloons. We as shooters are learning match strategy. No spotters are allowed except for qualifying rounds. The top ten scores qualify for the shoot-off match and no spotters are allowed, so if the wind is switchy and you miss, you better hope you have a way figured out to tell which way it went. It is NOT easy. There was a wind switch after I broke the second of five balloons while I was shooting 540 in the factory shoot-off round Sunday and it took all three of my spare rounds to get the switch figured out. (I developed some top secret tricks that help figure it out since then.) I had just enough rounds left to finish the 540s (I started at 440 and cleaned them) and come back in to 310 and nail them. My other cleans were accomplished without missing a shot and I had three rounds left over each time. After I did that in the custom shoot-off Sunday with my Savage, Terry walked over and said, "The way you do that makes it almost look boring."
Not hardly, Terry! Thanks for a great match and a great time!
BTW, Mark Antes won the custom tie-breaker Saturday with a remarkable 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (1x) on the 600 yard NBRSA target. Great shooting Mark!
