Spring Shoot Out fires enthusiasm

For some time, I’d been wanting to get out of the office and do something different, meet new people and try new things. That’s when I saw the postcard advertising the Springfield Contractors Association’s Spring Shoot Out April 8 at Ozark Shooters Sports Complex, 759 U.S. Highway 65.

It was definitely different – at least for me.

To say I am an amateur shooter would be base flattery. I don’t own a gun, I’ve never been hunting, and my grasp of gun safety was, “Don’t point it at anybody.”

Fortunately for me, Ozark Shooters, owned by Dale and Peggy Siler, provides guns and ammo, and it has Bill Howell on site. Howell, a National Sporting Clays Association-certified instructor, gave me basic safety instruction, recommended the proper protective eyewear and gave me tips on my shooting.

I’ve never been a fan of weapons, mainly because I dislike loud noises. But one of the first things they did at Ozark Shooters was hand out hearing protection. Earplugs – what a concept!

It turned out to be the most fun I’d had in years.

All my worries, all my stress melted away as I focused. There was only the target. I’m not saying I hit it, but it had my full attention.

For a nonshooter, I think I did well. I hit about one in every five sporting clays. Needless to say, I was not among the high scorers.

By the time we got to a round of skeet, I realized that sitting behind a desk typing on a keyboard had not prepared me to heft a shotgun for hours at a time. Arms trembling, I hit the first target, then sat out the rest of the round.

Although I wimped out on the skeet shooting, Howell encouraged me. He said trying to learn to shoot at a shoot out is like trying to learn to drive at the Indy 500.

I’m planning to go back, take some instruction and try it again – on a smaller scale.

Meanwhile, my hat’s off to the high scorers at the SCA Spring Shoot Out: Danny Vaughn, Derek Williams, Rick Wilson, Tracy Watkins, Stan Triplett, Kale Adam and Kit Wingert.

Clarissa French is editor of Springfield Business Journal.