Ding dong, hit the gongs
The day began just after 6am as people began arriving at chairman Piet Buys’ shooting range to check their rifles
Upper Tugela held another successful gong shoot recently.
This is their premier shoot of the year and their largest event. The shoot attracts members of KZN Hunters from all over the province, Gauteng and the Free State. It is well supported by almost all the branches, even from as far as Alfred County.
The team was greeted with a beautiful day; partly cloudy and cool with almost no wind and a slight chance of rain was the weather report for the day.
It warmed up slightly more than anticipated, but the (much-needed) rain stayed away. The gentle east wind later in the day hardly affected the shooting.
The team had requested that people attending the shoot reply to the advert for catering purposes. Having had 70-odd positive replies, they were a little disappointed to have only 61 participants on the day, especially as the weather was so good. Never mind though, those 61 competitors had an awesome day.
The day began just after 6am as people began arriving at chairman Piet Buys’ shooting range to check their rifles. Their chefs, JC and Pat Schoeman, began preparing bacon and egg rolls from about 7am.
By 8.30am, most people had arrived and Piet gave a briefing on the safety, rules and layout of the shoot. The competitors were then divided among the six range officers and all moved to the adjacent farm, a kilometre up the road, where the six gong ranges awaited. Each range officer was designated a range to start at.
Range 1 was a ‘Snelbaan’. There were six gongs (200mm) set out between 160m to 320m. 90 seconds was the time allocated to each competitor. The shooting position was standing, resting over a 1.2m round bale.
Range 2 was the old faithful thorn tree range. Here, competitors stood and leaned through a rather awkward thorn tree to engage the five gongs that were placed between 172 and 202m from the shooter. Range 3 was a sitting range. ‘Quad sticks’ were the support given to the competitors as they tried to hold steady on each of the five, 150mm gongs that were set out close together in a row, 260m from the shooting position.
Range 4 had a fallen gum tree as an almost dead rest for the shottists to shoot from. Here, 200mm gongs were placed between 180 and 270m from the shooting position. Range 5 was a prone range where the targets were placed from 205m to 320m from the competitor.
Range 6 was shot from the prone position on a big rock or sitting next to it, as the shooter desired. Gong 1 and 2 were 200mm gongs out at 250m and 230m respectively. Gong 3 was a white Blesbok gong with a red 200mm gong in the shoulder. A hit on the white part scored points and a hit on the red gong would be used in the case of a tie. This target was 500m away. Gong 4 was a white pig, also with a red gong in the shoulder, and scored the same points. It was placed at 400m.
Thank you to Trevor Wroe-Street for giving of his time to spend the day scoring on those two targets, using a Wortex spotting scope from Whylo distributors. Gong 5 was a normal 200mm gong at 170m.
The top score of the day was 29/31, shot by Larry Bester from Newcastle branch and Johannes Schoeman from Upper Tugela. Unfortunately for Johannes, he hit only one of the red gongs on range 6 and Larry managed to hit both. Larry therefore took first place and Johannes came second.
Third place went to Piet Buys, the Upper Tugela chairman, with 28/31. The top lady was CJ Fourie from Ladysmith with 21/31. Second came Renee Buys with 19/31. The top junior was Kaitlyn Hellberg with 20/31. Second was Pieta Joubert Jnr with 19/31, one of which was a red gong. Again the red gongs came into play with Karl Dedekind also shooting 19/31, but not managing to hit a red gong. Karl’s disappointment was, however, short-lived, as he won the lucky draw of a pair of Minox binoculars sponsored by Blaser. Without competitors, there wouldn’t be a shoot, so the Upper Tugela committee would like to thank all who participated in this year’s shoot.
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