Club Vice President
Hard to believe that another month has flown by. ORANCO hosted the State Unmarked 3D tournament last weekend and on the surface everything went very well. Of course, when you look behind the scenes there are always a lot of things that could have gone better.
As club Vice President, it is my responsibility to set up and run our invitational tournaments. Now and then we host tournaments for outside organizations like State, National and International tournaments, and those also fall under my responsibilities. I have been doing this for well over 30 years now and over that period of time I have developed procedures and overall shoot layouts to best use the property, the backstops and the roads that are available to us. Sometimes this may seem haphazard to the untrained eye because I have a relaxed method of running setup work parties, however; it is about as far from haphazard as it can possibly be due to the fact that the safety of typically over 250 people depends on our ability to set up an interesting shoot while keeping track of the overall shot angles and the paths of travel that people will be walking throughout the day.
That said, it is necessary that everyone understand my basic method, which I will attempt to explain here. I always show up to the setup party with a path already determined. I either pull the animal trailer myself or I have one person (usually the League Chairman) pull the trailer, and I go over the path of the shoot with whoever is pulling that trailer and that is their guide for the day. That path is set in concrete. There are no deviations to the path allowed under any circumstances unless the person up front pulling that trailer brings an issue to my attention, and I make the decision to alter the route.
As we go about dropping animals at the backstops along the designated rout, I always encourage and expect that members who are there helping will have ideas for how to set up individual targets. As long as the shot angles are kept within safe parameters there are a lot of things that the crew can come up with to make each shot a little more interesting.
We always need to use as many of the backstops as possible as we move along so that we do not end up with a bunch of animals left to set out and only room for a couple. For instance, on a clockwise loop in hot weather where I am not intending on using the bowl or the worst parts of the hill, that means we need to get about 32 animals down by the time we cross the bridge at the Tree Stand. 10 animals left at that point is manageable without the need to drop into the bowl.
I am bringing this up for a reason. This last weekend we only got about 27 in before crossing the creek at the Tree Stand, and then there were only 3 shots placed next to the Tree Stand. That forced us into the bowl with 4 animals. Sounds like all fun and games at that point right?
Well, it was great until Monday morning. On Monday morning we have a take down work party after every shoot now so that we do not have to get people to pull targets at the end of a long day shooting. That has been a great idea right up until this Monday.
I got there and hooked up the trailer at 9:00 and the only other person there was Steve Smith. To those of you who do not know Steve, he is out there very early every Monday after a shoot to empty trash cans and generally clean up the range. Well, Steve was nice enough to stay until about 10:30 and pull the first 7 targets down by himself and bring the shooting position stakes over to the trailer while I went to target 42 and started pulling targets down in reverse order by myself. Thank you Steve, that was a HUGE help.
The rest of the day until around 4:30 I worked alone pulling down targets and loading them into the trailer (something that I used to be able to do as easily as anyone else, but something that I really can’t do well at all now). Remember I mentioned that we were forced to use that bowl? Well, it took me near an hour to get the Elk down from it’s position way up at the top of the bowl, and I brought the tractor as close as possible to the bottom of the steep grade that it was on and rolled the elk all the way (one flip at a time) until I was able to roll it into the bucket along with the stakes and get it down to the Connex. I used the tractor to retrieve the other three targets in the bowl along with the stakes, then I also used it to go pick up the targets 1 through 7 that Steve had pulled down earlier and bring them to the Connex. Then I continued from target 8 into the beginning of Bear Valley. That left about three targets in bear Valley and the rest of the valley still with targets to pick up and a trailer full of animals along with a pile of larger animals in front of the Connex.
At 4:30 Jose saved my ass by bringing James Rodriguez and Justin Alexander and finishing the rest as well as putting everything into the Connex’s. Thank you Jose, I owe you big time, I think we should go get some raw fish soon, on me. Thank you James and Justin, I owe you guys too.
At our last shoot, Eric Oats pulled all the animals by himself. Thank you Eric, we all owe you too. At 4:00 the rest of us came in and put the animals away.
So as you can see there is a pattern developing that we have to address. Everyone enjoys shooting, but only a couple of us enjoy getting out here and cleaning up after. Obviously something has to change. Everyone knows that the day after the shoot is take down day. We shouldn’t even have to send out a notice. It’s obvious, we had fun, now we work. If we can’t cure this problem, we will end up pulling targets on the day of the shoot again and nobody wants that either.
Moving forward, I would like to get a handful of dedicated people to agree to come out on Mondays after major shoots (5 shoots for ORANCO, and possibly one or two for outside organizations) to help me with take down. I still work, but I always take the day off to be here for this. I know that is not possible for many of you, but if you are one of the people who can get out on Mondays, I could sure use the help.
This can be done in two shifts if necessary. A couple of us in the morning at 8 or 9 getting things started, and another group at 4:00 to finish up like Jose did this time. What I need is a group who is always here like I used to be when I was young enough to do this all day and not feel the effects for the rest of the week. I want a group that has each others back.
If you are willing to be part of the group, please, call, text (909-223-5822), or email (ob.vicepres@outlook.com) me and lets start a dedicated take down group.
Pete Whitworth
(909) 223-5822
