Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns NSCA registered shoots & honesty

Shot my second registered shoot today, E class obviously... My pard and I were partnered up with an AA class shooter who came alone from 2 hours away, never met him before. This particular shoot had a few trappers, volunteers from a college team, but not enough for every group. We kept our own score. Long story short, this guy kept calling dead bird on CLEAR losses. Not only that, on some of the lines I filled in he changed two 0's to x's when he was keeping score. Id say at least 5 bullshit calls plus the two he just blatantly changed. I kept my mouth shut because he was AA and he was 70 years old, but damn it pisses me off. There were only two AA shooters and he tied with the other guy, no punches and no money paid out.

Does this happen more often thani thought? Should I have said something? If it would have meant money or punches I would have told the people in charge of the shoot whatever the consequences. What a jerk. Makes me want to just go back to shooting for fun.

I shot a 79 by the way which I was real happy about and gave me a fourth out of twelve in my class. AA guy shot an 87 even with his 7 BS hits.

I shot registered targets for years and only saw that crap once. The vast majority of the guys you will shoot with are arrow straight, Mr AA is an exception and an azzhole.

Congrats on the 79! Its all work moving up from E but you will move fast, IMO A and B class are the hardest classes to get punches in, maybe because there are lots of guys or maybe I just didn't try hard enough. Seemed like I was there forever!

What club put on the shoot?

And yes it happens more than one thinks. Especially at score your own events. Those guys usually fall on their ass at shoots with good refs. Forget it and keep improving. You will be beating him shortly and so will all the other AA shooters.

I saw this a one shoot and called the guy on it, there were 3 of us that saw the miss to his call dead, all he said was ok.
I am a "D" class shooter trying to punch up, and I want every bird I can get, but ONLY if I hit them.

If it would have meant the difference between someone getting punches or prize money Id have said something. Just sucks to see a 70 yr old guy act like that. Ive shot with and met quite a few older guys in A and AA and most were super. They were all local guys though. Free with advice and tips and sincerely wanting to help me improve. I wish Id discovered the sport a long time ago. Going to another shoot sat.

Time will come when there is a ref and they will call dead bird when you know you missed. Take it, that's why they have a ref. Time will also come when they say lost and your squad mates say, "No way, he hit that bird. " What do you do then, when you know you hit it?

You will discover, like shooters there are good refs and bad refs. What do you do when you get a bad one? Or a good one that eventually makes a mistake after watching thousands of targets in a day. Hardest job on the course is being a referee. Never forget it.

The way the game is played, what's fair doesn't always happen.

I saw it a lot back in the day I shot in some of the ATA events.. Just one of the reasons I quit that outfit..

How was the score altered in ATA Lee? There is a ref scoring and pulling.

I looked at buying in to this range along with two partners. After going over the books and running the numbers and realizing it would be a hobby, not a profitable business, we passed. In order to cut down on fraud (shooting more than you paid for) we figured we would have to install a card system first thing which was close $20,000.00 Talked to a guy who installed one and he figured it would take two years for the reduction in fraud to pay for the system. It took 9 mos......there was that many clays shot and not paid for. Really surprised me, he was getting robbed blind.

Matarese told me you have to shoot at least a million clays a year to be profitable. He said to make a million bucks by owning a sporting clays range is easy, just start with two million!

Point is, its tough for a small range to hold a registered shoot and provide trappers/refs at each station and still make a profit. Im glad there are guys willing to struggle so we have places to shoot.

You don't need to make a million to be profitable. If you are only throwing clays as means of income then yes you will need to throw a lot of clays to be profitable. The Matarese's make their bread and butter on selling birds and bird hunting. But there are clubs around that I wouldn't call high volume that don't sell hunts or birds, that turn a profit.

Our club makes a mint renting the place out for outings and parties. Plus we get to market to all the people who come for a corporate outing or wedding reception, out membership has never been higher.

You can make money in this business but you need to sell more then targets. But like jackmountian said bless the guys that that dont have the facility to rent and just squeak by throwing targets for our benefit.

Corporate fun shoots is where clubs make the most money.

On the East Coast there was a time when there were few sporting clubs and they could make decent money on a registered shoot. Now there is a shoot every weekend at multiple clubs, and unless it is a special shoot most will go to the most convenient location.

You have to be creative in the business. Like passport said your facilities are an asset. Battue added corp fun shoots. Don't forget add on sales! Ammo, rental cart, food, lessons, and accessories.

What will bring in business is setting good targets. Most clubs don't and those that do are known throughout the clays world.

We do all the above but set targets like chitt and our shoot turn outs reflect it. Were a skeet and trap club first with all the trimmings, just wish we would get moving on our sporting clays

The ref was a good buddy of one of the shooters.. He got 'chips' at times when there was nothin'..

That, and the sand-baggers...made the sport no fun in the end..

If you think it's just the average shooter doing this kind of stuff, you'd be mistaken.

One "top" shooter is famous for it and it's pitiful.

However, I have to say that there are plenty of times when a trapper and a shooter have disagreed on dead and lost calls, and the trapper is dead wrong.

Trappers generally aren't shooters and if they are, they aren't too good. Good shooters have good eyes. To shoot well, a shooter has to have total concentration on the bird. When you're in the Zone, you can see the dimples and read where "White Flyer" is stamped LOL!

I've seen plenty of instances where small chips come off of a target and they are called "lost" by the trapper. Usually a quick poll of the squad will convince the trapper he missed something, but sometimes the disagreement gets ugly.


But it remains that "bullying" trappers into "dead" calls happens all of the time. I've seen it done by individuals and also entire squads of friends who shoot together.....and bully together for each other. Sad.

Rick,

I may be wrong, but did that guy win the Nationals once?

At least

Thought so.