Making full use of the freedom to travel at the moment, I’ve been clocking up miles in the car, trying to get myself back into the competitive mindset. That said, when writing collaborative articles with Team USA shooters, I have found it really interesting to see the difference in the willingness to travel in the UK compared to our friends across the pond. At the time of writing, the Georgia state championships have just taken place, and attracted a wealth of extremely successful American shooters. Amongst them, I spoke to David Radulovich, who finished third place in the main event. David drove fourteen hours to compete, which would seem ludicrous to most dedicated clay shooters in the UK. He also told me he had once driven East Coast to West Coast on his way back from coaching in New York to shoot a tournament, taking over forty hours - now that’s dedication!
Rhys Plum is a 16-year-old English Sporting junior shooter from Hertfordshire, who writes a monthly column about his experiences in competition shooting.
Luckily, I was only travelling to Barbury Shooting School in Wiltshire, about two hours away. I had wanted to visit Barbury for some time, as it was a shoot that many of my friends had enjoyed. I will be shooting the Pro One Challenge at Barbury, so I wanted to get a feel of the ground before that competition, as with everything else being either postponed or cancelled, it was one of the only ‘big shoots’ in the calendar for me. Even before arriving, I already knew that this would be a good ground. The topography and picturesque views that surround the ground make it really special.
Unfortunately for me, due to the C19 restrictions, I wasn’t able to get a feel of the club house, but I’m told it is always really friendly and relaxed, which is what the whole shoot was like for me. The ground itself was well kept and had a Churchillesque feel about it. We started off in the ‘Deer Park’ for the first half of the course, which allowed you to warm up slowly, but then built up into some really technical and distanced birds. Then we moved on to the second half of the course, which included a grouse butt, Sportrap layout and Skeet field. As my score card will show, the second half of the course was where I suffered. On reflection, I was still really happy with my performance; I hadn’t made any stupid mistakes, after all, and had kept my routine and focus throughout - just as I should. Put simply, the birds that I missed were really difficult and only experience and confidence on such targets will help me there. I had the pleasure of shooting in a really great squad, including Hull hot-shots Matt Hance and Jamie Gutteridge.