So much for shooting off my mouth

The 2009 Alaska Territorial Muzzleloading Match is in the books. I mentioned last week that I planned to participate but was going to do so with virtually no practice since the matches last year.

That was a mistake!

In years past, I had noted that I could actually over practice for various muzzleloading matches. How can you “over practice?” Almost all muzzleloading rifle matches are shot from the standing or offhand position. Shooters generally practice and sight their rifles in to hit point of aim using that shooting position.

The point of the practice is to develop muscle memory for holding the rifle, viewing the sights, controlling breathing, and squeezing the trigger. My competition rifle weighs just under 12 pounds — that’s a lot of weight to hold in the offhand position. I’ve found that I could actually over fatigue my muscles from too much practice. When the actual match occurred, I sometimes shot worse that my earlier sessions because I was tired from all the practice.

This year, I thought I’d try this “no practice” approach. I overlooked the fact that some exercise is necessary to maintain upper-body strength to hold and shoot that heavy rifle. With little exercise and no practice, my scores were some of the worst I remember turning in for the Territorial matches.

That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. However, I could also mention the heat. It was probably in the mid-80’s the two afternoons I did shoot and I’m not a warm weather person any more. How about wearing trifocals and not being able to see the rifle sights as clearly as in my younger days? That age thing takes its toll here too.

The list of excuses could go on. Talking with Keith Bayha, the president of the Alaska State Muzzleloading Rifle Association and the territorial match director, I learned that, over the years, Keith had compiled a list of at least 40 different excuses why a poor score was shot. There were plenty more, but he quite counting at 40. If you don’t like the ones mentioned, I’ll get back with Keith and come up with some others!

Seriously, this match is always a lot of fun whether a shooter sets a new record or a new personal worst score. Several of the other shooters complained that they were also having a less-than-hoped-for showing.

I spent my first afternoon shooting next to Pat Reed, a national class shooter and medal winner. Pat wasn’t happy with his shooting. However, he rebounded the next day to set new state match and aggregate records in the “one-gun” aggregate. My shooting never recovered. I also did something that first afternoon I had never done before in about 45 years of shooting in muzzleloading matches.

It’s not unusual for a shooter to forget to pour a measured charge of powder down the barrel before seating a ball, especially if his/her concentration is broken by talking or some other distraction while loading. I’m bad about “socializing” during matches and I managed to distract myself.

After swabbing the barrel from the previous shot while chatting with other shooters, I moved to the firing line.

I aimed and fired, however, the only thing that went off was the percussion cap. After several more tries and no discharge, I got a tool to blow out the ball — I figured I had “dry-balled” the load. To my surprise, the only thing to come out of the barrel was the compressed gas — I had not loaded anything at all in the barrel! Talk about a rookie mistake!

In a future column, I’ll get more specific with match results and mention more about two young shooters named Kelly who recently returned from a national match in Arizona. The older brother won his second consecutive national junior pistol championship and the younger brother won his first sub-junior national championship. Congratulations are in order to those two young men for those accomplishments!

Perhaps the highlight of the entire match was the second “Great Alaska Burgerfest” sponsored by Calvin Pope and Jerel Wood. Cal barbequed the hot dogs and hamburgers and the ladies and other shooters made sure there was plenty of potato salad, macaroni salad, watermelon, baked beans, brownies, and a peach cobbler to die for.

The supper was accompanied with good background music (Marty Robbins among other artists), great conversation and some good-natured teasing and story telling. Afterwards, Mike set up his homemade mortar and put on an impressive display firing three bowling balls waaaaaay out into the bog. The first made a notable splash, the second caused the dirt to fly and nobody is sure exactly where the third one landed!

On a different topic, the drawing and Tier I/II permit results are out. I noticed in Sunday’s paper that I had drawn an archery permit to hunt brown bear in the Eklutna Management Area.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t consider chasing a brown bear with a razor blade on the end of a short stick, but after two years on the Board of Fisheries, I figured this might actually be a safer endeavor!

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