Competition shooting: Ida County youths embrace shooting program By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
Clay target shooting is a whole lot of fun a group of Ida County youths have found out. And it’s also challenging and rewarding.
Thanks to the Ida County Pheasants Forever chapter more than 50 youths have enthusiastically taken part in the Scholastic Clay Target Program, an Iowa DNR-supported program with national affiliation through the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation.
It began with a challenge put out by Pheasants Forever entitled “No Child Left Indoors.”
That got Rusty Sadler, Ida Grove, thinking. He had heard about the shooting sports program and did some research.
Soon, he and Jerry Jensen, Ida Grove, signed on to be certified as shooting instructors.
Then the chapter, headed by Rich Smith, president, Ida Grove, put the word out.
“I thought if we got five or 10 kids it would be good,” Sadler said. “Fifty one showed up and enrolled.
“We had our first practice on March 29 and I found out then there were several youngsters who had never shot a gun,” he continues.
“After the first 25 trap targets, there were a lot of single digit scores,” he said. “But, by the time we were half way through, they improved dramatically.”
That might be an understatement.
On June 12 and 13 the State Shoot competition was held at Cedar falls.
“We had a young lady, Shelby Flammag, who won first place in the Intermediate Girls Division,” he said. “Another young lady, Sami Bauer won the Bronze Medal. There were 290 participants in all divisions that day.”
The next day 350 participated in the trap portion of the Iowa games.
“We had a team of five that won the bronze medal,” he said.
That team was made up of Wade Vogt, 15, Holstein, Iowa; Josh Lansink, 17, Ida Grove; Ben Lansink, 17, Ida Grove; Jordan Bremer, 17, Holstein and Jake Galvin, 15, Holstein.
As a reward for the group’s hard work, the chapter put on a fun shoot recently at a private trap, sporting clays and skeet range northeast of Washta.
“I wanted the kids to see there are more shotgun venus than just trap,” Sadler said.
Chapter member John Lansink donated a hog for the meal at the day-long event.
Sadler plans to visit other Pheasants Forever chapters in northwest Iowa and broach the idea of hosting such a program.
For more information about the shooting program visit www.iowadnr.gov.