To say we had a good day would be an understatement. This was a great group of people who all worked together and learned a lot.
Mother Nature, however, was a bitch. The wind was 20+ mph and the wind chill put us all to the test, and we rose to meet it. (Though I'll bet some people will be looking for shooting gloves soon.)
Particularly bad was that the wind was running straight into the targets. Just by dumb luck, I’d bought five foot stakes (which made the targets shorter than usual) and a sledge hammer. Eric had brought solid wood slabs, and with everybody’s help we put up a target stand, propped from the get go, that Mother Nature couldn’t lick. By geesum, those targets stayed up the whole time!
This thing started when Eric and I decided to get together for a shoot. With only 3 days advance notice, seven shooters and two instructors showed up! In the cold, in the wind, after a storm. Think about that. Imagine what will happen when we fully advertise a real Appleseed in NH on a sunny, summer day. We’re gonna need a longer line.
Because most of the shooters were new to Appleseed, I decided to run this mini more like a full shoot, with full safety briefing, including shouting, memorizing, and quizzing the rules, the steps to firing a shot, Red Coats, sighters, sight adjusting, and equipment fixes.
Thank God Crak showed up when he did. He took the group through the entire firing the shot and position basics up to the first AQT in 2 hours! It was a wonder to see a Red Hat churn through everything important so fast and so brilliantly. Thank, you Crak!
Let me tell you about these New England shooters. Every single one knew what they were about. Right off the bat, all had distinct groups, and almost all of them were tight. Had we had just a little more time, we could have seen more than a couple make Riflemen today. (I’ll start it earlier next time, you bet.) We’re going to see a lot of new Riflemen this summer in NH, and new instructors, too.
So I’d like to thank everyone in this fine group for the excellent work they did today. You have shown that Appleseed will do well in NH, and you will, too.
The next mini will be in Plainfield, NH, at the Grafton County Fish & Game, just south of West Lebanon, sometime soon after Thanksgiving. You all know what you need to buy, so get those slings and shooting gloves, and let’s do this again!
I’ll post advance notice in the Appleseed Forum in the “New Hampshire” thread and over at NewEnglandshooters.com forum in the “Appleseed Training” thread.