Sights set on young shooters

In the span of six days, I was able to participate in two activities I love: shooting and fishing. Let’s start with the shooting.

July 12 saw the beginning of the four-day Alaska State Territorial Muzzle Loading Championships at the USSA range located at Mile 94, Parks Highway. I had missed the two previous annual matches in 2010 and 2011 due to medical and working commitments respectively, so I was really looking forward to this year’s competition. However, as usual, I had failed to practice sufficiently, and it showed!

I wasn’t expecting to win anything, but I usually shoot well enough to take home a medal or two. Since I missed the last day of shooting and the awards ceremony, I can’t say for sure, but I strongly suspect I did zip this year. When I left Saturday evening, I was third in the pistol aggregate, but at least two more people were planning to shoot that aggregate Sunday morning and I have no illusion of surviving in the top three. My rifle shooting showed individual good shots, but I blew more shots than I made good ones, so you can guess that outcome. My smoothbore scores were similar — moments of brilliance overshadowed by hours of mediocrity.

A couple of comments are in order here. First, congratulations to Mike Kelly for setting two new state records and tying a third in the pistol match. Some day when I grow up, I’d like to shoot a handgun as well as Mike does. Second, and I had noticed this as well, but one of the guys openly commented about the distinct lack of young shooters at the event. There were a few, but the overwhelming majority of shooters on the line at any given time were all graybeards (no offense to the few lady shooters). We need to do a better job of recruiting younger shooters away from the pretend video shooting games and into the real thing.

Calvin Pope and company outdid themselves again this year with the annual Saturday evening burger and dog feed. The food was great and plentiful, and the stories were marvels to behold. I may have even told a tale or two myself.

Since I missed the awards ceremony, I don’t know about next year’s match, but this shoot has been held at the USSA range for the past several years. The date usually falls around July 10, so find the Thursday to Sunday weekend in 2013 that comes close to July 10 and mark your calendars for next year. These matches are fun to watch even if you don’t shoot.

On Tuesday, my wife and I went on a halibut charter out of Ninilchik on one of the tractor-launch charter boats. The boat launch and retrieval is an adventure itself. We had calm and sunny weather, so the launch was uneventful, but was still a kick to do.

We shared the charter with two guys from Willow, Roland and Jim, and our captain was TJ and mate was Kyle. TJ had been a Delta Force soldier who decided that fishing had greater longevity than soldiering. Kyle is going into his senior year at Skyview High School in Soldotna and is the quarterback on the football team. We had fun with discussions while running out to and back from the fishing grounds.

The tide was running strongly enough that even a five-pound lead couldn’t get the gear on the bottom when we first arrived at our fishing hole. While we waited for slacker tide, the whales were putting on quite a show feeding on bait fish. We must have seen four to six different whales, a momma and baby among them, over a couple of hours of waiting and fishing. As usual, my wife limited out first on halibut and landed a large cod as well. I was a slow starter, but twice I landed doubles: a cod and small halibut on one retrieve and two nice halibut on the second. I landed another cod and a halibut in between. I had released two halibut to grow a little larger. Roland and Jim also limited as well. The halibut all fell in the 15- to 30-pound range — good eating size.

The weather was great, the company enjoyable and the fishing was fast once we could get the gear on the bottom. We’ll have to do this again next year.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.