Match Report 7-5-2020
(Match report prepared by Jeff Swartz)
The Inaugural Field Target event at Fairfield Sportsmen’s Association was held on July 5th, 2020. The weather was sunny and clear with not even a hint of a breeze to be found. The only word that describes the heat on that day is “oppressive” as weather reports noted temperatures of 92-93 degrees in the area.
Sight-in was held on the archery target range and the FT course was laid out on the 3D archery course and utilized some of the same lanes as well as a few new ones created for the FT event. The targets on the course ranged in difficulty from a low of 18 Troyer to a high of 43.3 Troyer. The overall course was rated as 30.5 Troyer, making it a solid “moderate” level of difficulty. The lanes with shooting positions in direct sunlight added to the difficulty as did the targets tucked into dark shaded positions or positions that alternated from sun to shade and vice versa. While the shooters trail is mostly flat and level, there were some targets positioned steeply down into a gully. The course was intended to be fully AAFTA Grand Prix compliant, but due to last minute attempts to move firing positions forward into the shade, two lanes dropped a yard or two below 40 meaning there were only 8 of the 10 required 40+ yard targets. The target that proved to be the most difficult was the far target at 30 yards on the forced position kneeling lane where only 12.5% of shots taken were recorded as hits. There were two targets with 100% hits at 18 and 33 yards, and both were among the 4 targets with the lowest difficulty.
Thirteen shooters were in attendance representing three Field Target classes. In the well represented Hunter PCP class Don Baum and Mike Clark had a close battle where Don pulled out the win with a 53 as opposed to Mike’s 52. Donnie Reed was a few shots back in third place with a 49. Eric Jones bested his only other competitor in the Hunter Piston class with a score of 39. The only competitor in the WFTF PCP class did not finish due to a gun malfunction.
Awards were presented in the thankfully air conditioned club house. All shooters were entered into a raffle at no additional charge for this inaugural event as a thank you for supporting this new venue. The two major prizes, $50 gift certificates to Baker Airgun, were won by Eric Jones and Katrina Demerle. Congratulations to all of the class and raffle winners.
Ryan Spanagel and I took on this endeavor for the love of the sport and to bring quality Airgun Field Target events to the Cincinnati area and add another venue in the state of Ohio. The two of us may have done all of the physical work, but we had help and support along the way. We want to thank Fairfield Sportsmen’s Association for the opportunity, financial assistance and help whenever we needed it. We also want to recognize a couple of Airgun industry companies that also helped make all of this happen. Pyramyd Air provided us with a huge discount on a bulk order of targets, which is significant considering we had to go from 0 to 30 targets in a very short time to be able to hold a match. Dennis Baker of Baker Airgun also supplied us with a generous donation in addition to gift certificates and airgun related prizes. Thanks to Baker Airgun, we will have raffles for $50 gift certificates and other prizes at every match for quite some time. And last, but not least, we want to thank everyone that showed up for the match. Your participation is the only thing that makes holding these events worthwhile.
A very sincere thank you to all!
Jeff Swartz
Ryan Spanagel
