4th Annual Day After Thanksgiving Sporting Clay Shoot

This is a little late, but if you've been reading here for a while, you may remember last year's post on our family's 3rd Annual Day After Thanksgiving Sporting Clay Shoot. Well, this year, we added a few more family members and went back to Brush Creek Sporting Club for the 4th Annual Shoot. Here's a picture of our whole crew:

Here is last year's picture of my brother and I

and the one from this year. If Barbour is looking to endorse us, we're open to discussions.

Oh, and I won for the fourth year in a row. Hopefully I'll be able to hang on again next year as the competition is getting stiff.

The List of Manly Maintenance

Buying quality products inevitably requires a bit of periodic maintenance to make sure that they will last for a long time and look or perform their best while doing it. I submit the following list as the manliest of these activities:

1. Cleaning guns
2. Waxing a Barbour jacket
3. Polishing shoes
4. Mowing the grass
5. Washing the car

3rd Annual Day-After-Thanksgiving Sporting Clay Shoot

For the past three years now, I have gone with my dad, brother, cousin, and uncles up to Brush Creek Sporting Club to shoot sporting clays. It is located outside of Athens and has always been a lot of fun. In addition to the 12 station sporting clays course that we have done each year, they also have 5-Stand Clays (which I have never done), as well as offering a couple of different hunting options. The people are really nice and things seem to be well-run. Here are a couple of pictures.


The Yildiz in action


The brother and I after shooting

Smathers & Branson shotgun shell key fob

As much as I like emblematic belts, like those offered by Leather Man Ltd., I've never really gotten into the whole Smathers & Branson needlepoint belt thing. It may have something to do with being unwilling to part with $165 for a belt, but I think it also has to do with the fact that many of them look a little too cartoonish for me (though I will point out that if someone would like to actually make a needlepoint belt for me, I would be more than willing to accept and wear it). However, I was in a men's store the yesterday and spotted this S&B key fob that I really like:



I don't really have any need for anything else on my keys, but at $35, it did seem like a pretty nifty little gift. Note that it can be found and ordered on their website.

New shotgun: Yildiz Over/Under

So, about six weeks ago I finally bought a new shotgun. While I had originally planned on buying a Yildiz over/under, as I mentioned in this old post, I ended up looking around at several other options. I started having an internal debate between an over/under and a side-by-side and nearly bought a Stoeger Uplander before being advised to pass on it by someone on the Shotgun World forum. After that I considered the Remington SPR 210 and 220, which are side-by-sides that are part of their Spartan line. These guns are made in Russia by a company called Baikal. From what I understand, they're pretty solid guns, though they're not much to look at. I was leaning heavily towards this one, until I held one at a gun store and was really turned off by how heavy it was (granted, I was holding a 12 guage and I was actually looking for a 20, but it was still enough to give me major second thoughts). Finally, I ended up coming back to the Yildiz.

I got the SPZ ME20 which is the 20 gauge over/under. It is incredibly light, comes with a full set of chokes, and the quality appears to be pretty good, especially considering the price point. It also comes with ejectors instead of extractors, which are also pretty hard to find at that price. It does not have a selectable trigger, however, so that might be a turn-off to some. I did discover sometime after New Years that the safety itself is the barrel selector, it was just never clearly indicated on the gun itself or in the manual.

It took me several weeks before I could make it out to the range to break it in. While I liked the way that it shot, I was almost completely unable to hit anything with the first shot, though I was usually able to break the clay with the second shot. I switch the chokes and was still having the same problem. I'm hoping that it was due to poor shooting on my part, rather than a problem with the barrel. I'll hopefully be able to take it back out soon and can hopefully figure out what's going on. Needless to say, I am pleased with my purchase so far.

Dove Hunting

So a few weeks ago, my classmate and neighbor invited me to go dove hunting on his family's farm south of Columbia. We actually had a pretty decent number of folks go, and a good time was had by all. Here is a picture of all of the guys after the hunt with our quarry:



In this picture I have placed a circle around all of the dove that I killed, just to reassure you, the reader, of my superior shotgunning skills:



No, your eyes are not deceiving you. In spite of going through nearly three boxes of shells, I managed to come away with one dove. I will chalk it up to being an off day, though I don't think a day of shooting clays would hurt anything. Fortunately dinner that night was not dependent on what we brought back from the field and I had a great time in spite of my bad aim.

Introducing: the belt koozie

Few things are more annoying than having to carry your drink while you are walking around, especially if you are at a tailgate or out shooting. Your hand gets cold, your beer gets warm, and you have to carry your arm at an annoying 90 degree angle. Fortunately, the Texas Hunt Co. can supply you with their "All-Terrain Beverage Holster for Belt", or belt koozie as I prefer.



In all seriousness, I think this thing is awesome. My boss this summer came back from a dove shoot in Argentina with one similar to this, and to say that I was green with envy would be an understatement. I stumbled across this one the other day and was ecstatic that I could now possess one without having to go all the way down to Argentina. I think that people perhaps underestimate the importance of a proper koozie, and I admit that I was ignorant of it until I met some girls from Auburn who usually had at least two koozies in their purses, and a few in the car. But that is another post.

Yildiz Over/Under

When George W. Bush finally gets around to mailing me my economic stimulus check, I hope to purchase one of these:


It is an over/under shotgun (I am interested in the 20 gauge) made by a Turkish company called Yildiz Shotguns. They are sold exclusively at Academy Sports for the bargain price of $400 (for reference, many over/unders start at $1000). While this might sound sketchy to some, a little research on the internet has revealed that these really are solid guns, and are a great value at that price.

Additionally, I have read that most Academy stores stock a couple of Yildiz side-by-sides as well (which would also be a great choice).


Come fall, hopefully I will be hitting the dove fields with one of these.