Club President   

By: Al Wiscovitch - Club President

Hello Oranco Members,

What a nice weekend of archery this past weekend a Big thank you to Brad and Donna for all their hard work. Also, to everyone who helps make this happen. Melinda and Chuck did a great job with all the food at our cookshack.

Our range looks great and we were able to finally fix the leak at the FITA target area.

Now let’s talk about our big banquet coming Saturday May 16th at 6pm. I know a lot of you did not get your RSVPS in the mail. We are not sure what happened there, but Pete sent out an email with all the needed information so you can send it in to me and take care of your seats. We are working hard to make sure we have a very fun and nice evening at the banquet awards party. There will be great chuck wagon style food and yes, a big raffle yes raffle not a brothel as my email that had sent out last week, I put that together as I was driving and didn’t spell check it my bad, but it did make for a funny moment thanks Dave!

We should be receiving our new carpet bails sometime next week as part of our commitment to keep our shooting stations in good shooting condition and safe. This is a very big capital expenditure that we make about every 4 years.

Catalina Island now has a new Archery range and is looking for members who would like to join them. Yes, it sounds like a long way to go to shoot a bow but for 50.00 bucks for a half year and a great pleasure to get away for a weekend not a bad price. I was there last week to help with the local kids and help teach them how to shoot. It was a nice turnout of kids and had help from Olaf and his wife Paola. I hope I spelled that right. They are Oranco members and have been helping with our events and with Amanda at CBH legislature team. This new range will fall under OBFA reg-59. It's my hope to help them grow this range for their locals and for visiting archers. Who knows maybe they can put a tournament together some time in the future and some of us can go out there and enjoy a beautiful Island weekend. Just think outside the box.

Inclosing, I want to offer my condolences to the Bill Leal family. He was a long-time member here at Oranco and would complete 45-years this coming year. He was a good friend to so many of us here at Oranco. Bill loved to hunt fish and was our long time Hunt chairman Bill helped to build our range and put in many years of his time helping with our projects. A piece of history For those of you that help all the time and have had the opportunity to drive old blue our tractor yes Bill was the one that was able to get that ford tractor to us for 50.00 bucks boy that sure worked out that tractor had been a good mowing unit for a long time. We will be celebrating Bill at our banquet so please join us!

Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter and hope to see a lot of you on May 16th!

Al Wiscovitch

alwisco@msn.com

(909) 322-3869

Club Vice President

By: Pete Whitworth - Club Vice President

Hi everyone. I am Pete, the Vice President and as such it is my responsibility to run our club invitational shoots. I also help our President Al Wiscovitch deal with the day to day running of the club in general, interfacing with the Parks Department, Corp of Engineers, Fire Department and most importantly we handle any complaints or issues that any of you have. Naturally you are always free to voice any issues at our club meetings held on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM in the clubhouse, however; Al and I are here to keep things running smoothly on a daily basis. So, when problems arise, you should always feel free to contact either of us for immediate help.

Well, it’s April 14th today, the Big Game shoot was on April 5th. Setup went well on the 4th, and Brad handled the take down on Monday the 6th. The Big Game shoot is (as the name implies), the shoot where we bring out all of our Big Game animals. In general, the animals are larger, the distances are longer. The turn out was a little less than usual, due to the date coinciding with Easter. That happens every so often, and with all the state and local shoots happening in April, it can’t be avoided. That said, people really enjoyed the shoot this year and we got a lot of compliments.

Note: At the Rendezvous shoot, I did lose sight of the animal size compared to the distance for Youth and Longbow / ROTS shooters. Keeping that in mind we concentrated on making sure that animal size was appropriate for distance. Of course, we had a lot of the large animals out, so there were still a lot of longer shots, but people were happy that the distances were more in line with the size of the animal.

As always, if you have any Oranco issues, feel free to call or text me. If you call, leave a message, because I do not answer numbers that are not already in my phone.

That’s all for now folks.

Pete Whitworth

ob.vicepres@outlook.com

(909) 223-5822

Treasurer

By: Michael Nunez - ob.treasurer@outlook.com

Nothing to report.

Michael Nunez

ob.treasurer@outlook.com

(714) 333-5710

Range Captian

By: Jim Teel - Range Captain  

The state of the range is strong. Thanks to everyone with range and lane assignments, our club continues to be a source of pride for everyone involved in maintaining it to such high standards. With a little help from Danny Naranjo, we replaced three bales on the practice range and two more on the mountain range recently. Several impromptu work parties handled some key tasks on my to-do list, to include mulching trees, bucking and splitting downed branches and trees - not to mention the always necessary chipping work. This is not glamorous work, but I can’t stress enough the importance of these efforts. Several prospective members have made the effort to coordinate with me to assist in that work and I’m grateful for their efforts. 

Barn Owls

As many of you know, we sponsor an entire colony of barn owls on our club property to manage the gopher and ground squirrel population. I recently checked in on all seven of the nesting boxes and found that every single box was occupied. This is extremely good news given last year’s lackluster showing. Every trend in wildlife activity has an ebb and flow and I’m glad to see that the pendulum has swung back in our favor this year.

Video footage of those checks can be found on my Carp Killer YouTube channel. 

Video link: https://youtu.be/tSQwHpQ6qCo?si=-JYyDcGe-NzjZsN9

Bow Fishing

Now is the time to start getting out there if you want to try your hand at bow fishing. I’ve begun my bow fishing outings already and so far - Lake Elsinore has been pretty good. The spawn hasn’t happened yet, but there are still shots to be made near the shoreline. Visibility is not the greatest, but fish-shaped shadows are carp and they’re all waiting for you to stick an arrow in them. I’ve uploaded a few videos so far and thanks to some help from a couple of friends (Brad Grap and James Rodriquez) we used some of them to help fertilize new trees at our club. 

Videos from that day with James and Brad are here: https://youtu.be/ScrBHqi4Cgs?si=CVs7FPeeBZf_qmK9

I’m trying to close the gap to monetize my channel (just 14 subscribers left to go!) so hitting that subscribe button would really help me out. With the price of gas going up, it would be helpful if YouTube was pitching in towards that gas bill. I’m available to answer any questions you may have about bow fishing and if there is enough demand for it, I may host another bow fishing clinic at the club. 

Just a reminder that range and lane assignments are not lifetime appointments. If you’re interested in taking over an assignment in exchange for your membership dues, please send me an email with your full name, membership status and phone number to be put on the waiting list. Assignments are reserved for club members only, so get your membership requirements handled first.

Until next time, see you on the range.

Jim Teel

ob.rangecaptain@outlook.com

(818) 317-9110

Range Secretary

By: Brad Belvedere - Club Range Secretary

Well Oranco Members and PM's

The Champ shoot and the 3-D Championship shoot are now completed.

We had 47 shooters for the Champ shoot and other 71 shooters for the 3-D Championship shoot. 

I would like to the everyone who came out to shoot. 

I hope you liked the idea of starting right after you signed up. On hot days it seems to help. 

I believe Mark Van Patten is looking at doing the same thing for the summer league shoots. 



We just need to figure out how to do the orientation before each shoot, since we don't meet before the start of each tournament. If you have any ideas, please let us know. 

I want to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to Melinda and Chuck for doing all the cooking and preparing for the Breakfast Burrito and Lunch. They always do so much to make our shoot more enjoyable and get no credit. THANK YOU BOTH. 

I would also like to thank Justine and my lovely wife for helping with sign-ups. It made my day so much easier. 

I will be handing out the medals for each of the shoots at our Annual Banquet on May 16th. 

So please come out to support our club and see if you walk away with so Bling. 

Brad Belvedere

ob.rangesec@outlook.com

(951) 545-9462

Tournament Chairman

By: David Bacon. - Tournament Chairman

Nothing to report.

David Bacon

ob.tournament@outlook.com

(909) 217-4441

Membership Chairmen 

By: Steven Baker - Club Membership

Oranco Members,

We are two weeks away from renewal invoices being emailed out on May 1st. New membership cards and gate codes will begin mailing as payments are received. Please remember that the gate code will change on June 1st.

As a reminder, if you have not yet sent me a revised copy of your NFAA or CBH membership card, please make sure to do so. Paid invoices for NFAA or CBH cannot be accepted — I must have a copy of the actual membership card showing your member number and expiration date.

Thank you for helping keep our records accurate and the renewal process running smoothly.

Steven Baker

ob.membership@outlook.com

(951) 285-1550

League Chairman

By: Mark Van Patten - League Chairman

Hi Oranco members and PMs.

Just a short reminder as our first league shoot approaches.

Summer League is less than 2 months away and will be starting in June on the following dates:

June 6th, 13th, 27th, July 11th, and finishing on July 18th.

Sign in will start at 7:30 and the cost is $ 10.00 per shooter. Cubs (ages 11 and under) are free.

I’ll be looking for some help to set up on the Fridays before each shoot. We will meet at the conex at 8:30 and any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

We will also need some folks to help tear down after the shoot, which is usually a pretty quick process. Set up or tear down will also earn you some work party credits if you need those.

As usual all league events are subject to change or postponement due to inclement weather or range conditions but I’ll keep you updated to any changes as the dates draw closer. Hit me up or send me an email or text if you have any questions about the league shoots.

I look forward to seeing you all out there on the range and remember:

The pointy end faces away from you!

Shoot straight and have fun!

Mark Van Patten

ob.leagues@outlook.com
(909) 833-6450

If you are looking for photos of previous shoots, check out Tony Nguyen's fantastic photography in the link below! He has an amazing gallery organized by shoots and dates he's participated in:

tcnguyen-Oranco

Oranco Champ Shoot March 21, 2026

Oranco Big Game 3D April 6, 2026

Check out the Oranco Bowmen Youtube Channel