TSRA Service Rifle Trophy.

  Here's the top of the Trophy, donated by two generous, handsome, intellectual, Renaissance men.  It's a John Chalk statue from Sgt Grit.  Based on a famous photograph of a Marine Pfc Ison running across an area known as "Death valley" on Okinawa during WWII.

Videos from last weekend matches

  Three new ones up:  Texans shooting, which is a video of, (oddly enough) Texans shooting, the TSRA Service Rifle Championship Video and Outtakes from the Texas Juniors.

  All on the Blackfork6 Channel on Youtube.

  Still got the LEG match to do and a couple little short ones.

A year older

  Same buck on the same scrape a year apart.  I knew he would get bigger.  You can really tell from looking at the left browtine onone of the photos below, plus the overall shape of his antlers.

Daily Deercam

  Little buck sniffing the overhanging leaves at the scrape across the creek.

  Buck fawn sniffing the overhang.

  Nice big buck eating corn in front of the cam across the creek.

  Side view.  Same night as the photo on the post below at the other cam.

  Doe with two buck fawns.

  A little nursing action at the near cam.

  Got across the creek to nail the plastic chair up in the fork of an oak and pull the cam card.  Big Buck was there on the 20th as well.  The doe with two fawns over there has two BUCK fawns.  Lots of scrape action over across the creek.  Couple of little bucks I hadn't seen.  maybe the visitors who hunt up on the hill will get excited and shoot one of them as they are wandering around.  The big one will only be available to dumb luck or some skillful rattling. 

  Near camera has some nursing action.

TSRA Service Rifle Championship Trophy.

  The TSRA has a trophy for the Highpower Rifle Championship, the Ike Lee trophy.  It's got the TSRA Bull on it.  Nice.  But there isn't a trophy for the Service Rifle Championship.  The SR director, Dave Wilson decided that needs to change.  Some inspired folks just bought a statue for the top of the trophy today.  The statue is a Marine running with his Garand under Japanese fire on Okinawa.  Wilburn Spiller has been approached about building the base.  The statue will be at Panola this Saturday during the match.

  The donors plan to donate the entire trophy to the TSRA.  Since they are donating it, they get to name the trophy.  They think the Rick Crawford Trophy sounds damn nice.

  If anyone else wants to get in on the trophy deal, they need to get on the train, because it's leaving the station.

Daily Deercam

  Well, not so daily lately.  I haven't been out in a week.  Meant to make it last Thursday before leaving for Camp Swift and the TSRA Service Rifle Championship, but didn't.  Went this afternoon.  The redhead and I jumped a deer going over the bluff to camera 1 and when we came out she spotted a doe 100 yards across the pasture over the tall grass.  We were downwind so we stayed in the shadowed treeline and watched the doe and a yearling fawn fool around for a bit.  They were standing where we had passed five minutes before.  The doe was looking into the treeline and bobbing her head around.  I got the feeling there might be a buck near, but nothing showed.  Finally they came down the pasture edge toward us and then ducked into the trees.

  We didn't cross the creek to check cam 2.

  Two bucks on the card.  The little bent-horned buck was on looking very skittish, then one frame of the monster above.  I think it's Big Ten who finally is growing his left antler out nearly back to normal after having it ripped off his head at the socket in his 2 1/2 season.  He's 5 1/2 now and has a big buck body.

  Not bad.  One frame and he was gone, early in the morning of the 20th.  If he isn't the dominant local buck, I'd like to see who is.  Actually, there ought to BE one big rival from last year.  And a couple of challengers.  Maybe I can rattle one up.

  Scrapes freshly worked.  I'm going to start spraying a little buck and doe scent and see if I can get them worked up.

Distinguished Riflemen at Camp Swift

  This isn't all of them, just the ones we had on hand at the end of the LEG match Sunday.  Dave Watters, an Aussie is in the Yellow shirt on the bottom row.  He legged out at this match.  He might be the first Austrailian ever to win a Distinguished Rifleman's Badge.

  Starting with the oldest badge, upper left:

Ltc Don Tryce  (double distinguished, rifle and pistol).

Rick Crawford, TSRA Service Rifle Director.

Some guy I don't recognize.

Michelle Boyd.

Dave Wilson, TSRA Service Rifle Director and match director for this match.

Jose Niera from Laredo.

Someone I don't recognize.

Glenn Edgard from Houston.

Sgt Rick Tanner

Robert Langham from Tyler.

Keith Stephens

Blake Smith, who legged out at this match.

Lower Row:

Clint Greenwood.

Alan Wilson from Plano.

Rol Coggins

Ken Stracener, who legged out at Camp Perry this year.

Walt Haley, from Houston who also legged out at Camp Perry.

Dave Watters, Aussie, just legged out here.

Sam Miller.

  We are missing Paul Leberge, Charlie Wallis, Justin Utley, Cris Green, Bill Aten and Stan Jaroz.

  There are many Distinguished Riflemen in Texas.

Governor's 20

  The top 20 shooters at the TSRA Service Rifle Championship, October, 2008.  Each shooter gets a commemorative pin and a letter from the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.  

  Michelle Boyd and a couple of her boys.

  I had a little scratch in my throat Thursday morning.  By the time I left I was gargling with salt water.  Friday night was worse but by Saturday morning I had driven the cold out of my throat and up into my sinuses with McDonalds salt packets and hydrogen peroxide.  A miserable couple of days of shooting.  I tried to stay away from folks, hydrate by swiping water bottles out of Dave Wison's truck (he's an old marathoner so he always has a pallet or two) and wash my hands a lot.  Energy drain.  Really took the edge off.  You can feel your energy back up and glow like old coals as you contain yourself and wait it out.

  Alan Wilson and I shot together on Sunday.  He's the most excellent company, a man of good sense and good cheer.  He won the Bronze medal in the LEG match.  I watched.

  Driving back last night the Kid passed out early with his ipod sizzling under his river-bottom haircut and I drove the four hours home alone in a sensory-enhanced trip with the stripes and reflectors shining up the asphalt.  I tweaked the cruise control and let it do most of the work while the 4-Runner did the rest.  Good technology.  I thought I was getting a little twitchy after 9:00 but quickly realized that a gusty cross-wind was kicking up.  Glad to be home and in the healing confines of my own bed.

 

TSRA Service Rifle Championship

  I didn't win it, but I got to see it won up close as Rick Crawford shot his way to the title on my firing point.  Quite a privilege.  100 shooters plus or minus a few.  Perfect weather with very little wind.  I made the Governors 20 (top 20 shooters in the Championship), and shot well in spots.  Team Blackfork won the State 4-Man Championship.  The EIC/LEG match gave seven LEGs with nearly 70 non-distinguished shooters.  Greg Foster won it overall, and got ten points.  Katie Foster his daughter got six points.  Dave Watters from Australia legged out and won his Distinguished Rifleman's Badge, along with Blake Smith and Sam Miller.

  Big junior team.  Jose Niera brought his daughter who he is always talking about but we hadn't seen before.  She had a great time.

  Nothing like being among these armed and competent people.

TSRA Service Rifle Championship

 Three days at Camp Swift near Austin.  We stay in the barracks so it's one of the cheaper and more convenient matches...once you load the ammo, round up the junior, pack, gas up, do all the errands, take a day off, get the rifles cleaned and set, refresh the deercams, et, et, et.

  Roping 10,000 demons.

  But I'm just about set.  Just finished off the Kid's ammo this second.  Waiting on lunch.

  Might be the last few years of these matches.  They would be easy to kill off by an Obama administration which is going to bring a huge number of anti-gun bureaucrats and politicians into office.  Obama personally hates firearm ownership, based on his previous actions, so I would expect to see the Second Amendment attacked directly and indirectly.

  On a job yesterday and the phone in my pocket rang.  It was the Republicans wanting money.  Usually I rake them over the coals for Bush and Rove destroying the party as the home to small-government conservatives.  I know they are just phone bank folks but they do chat up the food chain a bit.  This time I gave them 100.00.

  Interesting times, watching the end of the Republic.  Glad to be able to take Betsy and shoot these few days.  I bet it's coming to an end as we descend into darkness.  Looks like the American People are going to choose Big Brother or let Acorn and the media choose Big Brother for them, and these are the kind of folks who, once chosen, don't permit future choices.

  Hate to see Betsy, my Garand and Springfield 03-A3 crushed, plus the pistol Bill carried in WWII over France and Germany.  Especially for the children.

Update:  Three days with 100 other shooters, the wind and my rifle.  Nirvana.  Out the door.

The Daily Distractions.

  Running around pursued by 10,000 demons.  Lots to do, all nit-picky stuff interlaced like pixie stix.  Easy to make a mistake, like deleting a photo instead of selecting a photo, being late or dropping a detail on a sequence of errands.

  Last night in class one of the young guys was watching a youtube selection, i-poding and agitating a canister of film...in the classroom.  Multi-gulti tasking.  Like today.

  Trying to wrap it up so I can make ammo for The TSRA Service Rifle Championship this weekend.  Skipping a trip to the lake to check deercams.

  Above is a little assignment I shot.  A 60-year old marathon runner who is also a ranching retired guy.  Fun to shoot and talk running for a bit.  The nice thing about assignments like this is you get to concentrate on the task at hand...and no other.

Update:  Like this.  I did get to see a lot of wonderful folks at a luncheon, buy some things on ebay, move money at the bank and now get all my cases ready to load, plus drove a rifle to Kilgore for Rick to fix.  Busy, but the flow wasn't a torrent.

  I hear a car door.  The fabulous Redhead is home!