The End Of A Season For The Ages

The Texas Smallbore Silhouette State Championship

“All right, let’s finish it.” — Wyatt Earp

I would have posted this yesterday but I was still thawing out from a weekend of shooting the Texas Smallbore Silhouette State Championship in the arctic tundra of Houston, Texas. In my opinion, October is by far the BEST month in south Louisiana and south Texas for several reasons, one of the main ones being weather. November is not far behind for enjoyable weather but there is the risk that winter might rear its ugly head like it did this weekend. The Texas smallbore championship has been held in November for the past several since Emmett Dibble took over as the TSRA smallbore silhouette director and this is was the coldest, windiest and best Texas state championship in a long time! It was the perfect exclamation point to a great year shooting silhouette.

Way back in July, my beautiful wife promised me that I’d get to have the entire family in Houston with me for this match. However, our kids’ extensive social calendars took over and accompanying Daddy to a match took a back seat to birthday parties and horseback riding and all the other fun that nine, seven and one year-olds do on a typical weekend and I was sent on my way to Houston alone. The plan was to meet up with Jerry and our good shooting buddy Dewey in Houston after Jerry and Dewey did some shopping at a woodworking store. I rolled into the range around 5 pm on Friday and shot for about 20 minutes in the wind (the cold front came through on Friday evening). After getting some sight settings we rolled to the hotel and out to a Mexican restaurant for supper. There is an unspoken rule that at least one meal must be Mexican food every time we travel to Texas for a match; which is wonderful if you ask me.

Speaking of Mexican, a STRONG crew of silueteros made the trip across the border from Mexico to compete, including Enrique Kuess and Gabriel Villarreal, two of the best shooters in the world. Of course, they would make their mark on this championship. Another group that made a huge mark on this championship were the junior shooters. There were eleven juniors, including Jake Stine, who I don’t even think of as a junior anymore because he’s so good. But Jake is not the only one! This sport has produced some EXTREMELY talented junior shooters over the last few years, and they were all over the place this weekend. Ten of them came from Louisiana, and if you are a regular at any of the big matches you will know them all very soon. One of them announced herself as a star of this sport this weekend!

Saturday morning was cold and very windy. It was the kind of wind that really kills scores - the kind that both blows the shooter around AND moves the bullet as its flying downrange. To hit the target in wind that is moving the bullet, we have to be on the correct side of the target, but getting blown around makes it really hard to make that precise shot on the correct side of the target. Add to that being cold and uncomfortable and we had the makings of a VERY difficult day.

I started Saturday morning on rams. The wind was blowing left to right, head to tail on the target, so Jerry was telling me to keep everything high in the front shoulder/neck area. I made nine good shots to start off with 9 of 10 rams. Good start, but Enrique Kuess also started on rams and he hit all ten. As usual, this was a battle from the very beginning.

Moving to chickens, the wind picked up a little more and I was reminded that, even on chickens, when the wind is blowing you have to be on the correct side of the target! I broke a shot on the tail of a chicken and the wind pushed it right off the tail. I ended up with 9 of 10 chickens. Enrique uncharacteristically struggled with chickens and only hit seven; but he righted the ship and didn’t have any more problems in the first match.

I, however, did have more problems in this first match. The target stands at Bayou Rifle Club are really nice. There is a bottom bank and a top bank and each target sits on a pad in front of a yellow steel backstop. The targets fall off the pads really fast and they fall straight down onto wire mesh that catches the target. It is very difficult for the spotter to see the hits on any of the targets and they aren’t laying on the ground behind the rail to double check. The light this weekend didn’t help with seeing hits so we were mostly shooting blind when it comes to knowing where the hits on the target were. Going into pigs, my sight setting was a little high, but we couldn’t tell that my hits were high to make an adjustment because Jerry couldn’t see the hits. I broke a shot on the first bank high in the back and it went over the back for a miss. I didn’t break the trigger cleanly enough on that shot to make a sight setting adjustment. On the second bank I broke a clean shot high in the back and that shot missed too. I did make an adjustment after that shot. 8 of 10 pigs. Not good. Enrique hit all 10 pigs.

Little did we know, a AAA-class junior was shooting rams while we were shooting pigs and she was hanging right there with us. KG Bourgoyne hit 9 of 10 rams in very difficult conditions and she had no plans to do anything but keep hitting targets. I have the pleasure to shoot almost every weekend with an incredible group of junior shooters and KG (I call her KGB, or “the Russian”) is one of those shooters. I’ve seen her and our other juniors shoot excellent scores but until this weekend none of them have hung in with a field this strong. KG shot up to the potential that we in Louisiana get to see all the time; and she did it under extremely difficult conditions!

Moving to the last target of the morning match, I shot turkeys and Jerry’s calls were all center of the tail or tip of the tail. I shot once too low and the bullet blew low off the breast for a miss. Once I was too close to the center of the target and the bullet again blew off the breast. 8 of 10 turkeys to finish the match with a score of 34/40. Enrique closed the door on the first match with nine turkeys to shoot a winning score of 36/40. KG hit all of her chickens to finish tied with me for second at 34/40.

After a nice lunch and a chance to warm up a little, we started the afternoon match. The wind got a bit worse and the scores went down big-time! Only two shooters, Jason Stine with nine and KG with eight, shot a decent turkey score in the afternoon. I missed four turkeys to start the afternoon match with 6 of 10. The rams were not much better with the wind both pushing the bullet toward the tail and down. I hit 7 of 10 rams. I hit all ten chickens and missed a pig (still high!) to finish the match with a 32/40. I didn’t realize until I was done and looked at the scoreboard that 32 was a good score that afternoon; but it wasn’t good enough to beat another Louisiana junior shooter! Aidan Cole won the afternoon match with a NICE 33/40! I’m telling you, these kids are GOOD! I tied for second with Pepe Valdes. Chris Cawthorne and Mark Pharr shot 31/40. Enrique and KG both struggled to scores of 27/40. It was a VERY difficult match!

So I went into Saturday night with a three-shot lead on Enrique and a five-shot lead over KG. No lead is safe with with Enrique Kuess sitting behind you, so even with only a single 40-shot match on Sunday, I knew I had to shoot well to hang on.

We had a good barbecue supper Saturday night with a big group of shooters. We had a chance to discuss schedules and new ideas that are launching next season (more on that to come in the future). We also discussed building off the great year that 2022 has been for our sport; and moving exciting projects forward such as NASSA (much more on that to come in the future) and other possibilities to promote and grow the greatest shooting sport in the world!

Sunday morning was slightly colder than Saturday had been, but there was much less wind and much fewer clouds. It was nice to have the sun make an appearance and warm things up. I started on pigs and hit all ten. Interestingly enough that was the only 10-in-a-row pigs of the whole day. You RARELY see that at any match, much less one with the quality of shooters this one had. Enrique hit nine pigs. KG had a great start with nine rams. Gabriel Villarreal made up a lot of ground in this match - he started with nine pigs.

This is a good time for a quick lesson on how wind affects a bullet. Theoretically, any time the wind is blowing from left to right, it will move the bullet to the right and DOWN. Any time the wind is blowing from right to left, it will move the bullet to the left and UP. The weird thing is that sometimes it moves more or less in one of those directions than we expect; that’s especially true with the up and down movement. Sometime it seems it doesn’t move up or down at all; sometimes it moves up or down more than left or right. You never know (at least I never know; Jerry seems to be able to sense it! He is an incredible spotter.)

Moving to turkeys, Jerry started by telling me that the bullet was going to climb significantly with the wind pushing the opposite of the day before and moving from right to left. On these turkeys that was breast to tail. As always, Jerry was exactly right. On the first target he told me to aim for the low edge of the breast and to keep it very low, where the breast curves. I broke the shot on the edge of the breast, but not as low as Jerry told me to; the bullet went just high over the tail. I broke the next few shots where Jerry wanted them and they were all hits. On the second bank, I did the same thing; broke it on the edge but too high and it missed in the same spot, just over the tail. I kept the others on the call and ended up with 8 of 10 turkeys. Gabriel shot the turkey high of the day with nine; Enrique hit seven. KG took down eight chickens.

On the rams, I did something I’ve never done in a silhouette match, aimed at the back leg! Not low in the rump, not even where the leg meets the body, the CENTER of the back leg. After seeing how much the bullet was climbing on the turkeys, and knowing how much movement we would get toward the head, Jerry started by telling me to aim low in the rump. The first shot blew up and over all the way to the neck. We couldn’t tell where it hit so we kept the call the same. I touched the next one off in the same place - it went up just as much but not as much over. It missed just over the back right behind the horn. I showed Jerry where I broke the shot and he told me to aim for the center of the back leg. It’s an eerie feeling to aim at a place different than I’ve ever aimed before but my job is to do exactly what Jerry tells me to do and so I did it - and it worked. The next eight shots were all aimed for the center of the back leg. I made one bad shot that missed but the rest all hit. 8 of 10 rams - Jerry knows what he’s doing!

Enrique continued his excellent ram shooting with nine rams. Gabriel hit seven. KG hit eight pigs.

This is the place in the tournament when it’s time to close out a championship. One of the most difficult things to learn to do in any sport like shooting, golf, etc. is to be a CLOSER. The champion must close the door and WIN the championship at the end of the last day of the match. I was moving to the chickens to finish the weekend. Championships are won on the short lines - go look at the results of any championship and 9 times out of 10 the champion hit the most chickens and pigs. It was WINNING time! Jerry and I had to slam the door shut one last time in 2022. This is how it’s done…

On to the chickens. The wind was pushing the bullet significantly enough on the turkeys and rams to make us focus on aiming on the tail side of all of the chickens. Jerry kept reminding me to be tail side of center. He found little spots for me to aim at and I hit them. Everything was going great until I touched off a good shot and it split the bullet on the back of the chicken. WARNING!!! I immediately made a small sight setting adjustment down, but I didn’t want to go down too much because the wind was pushing the bullet to the left and with all that push I didn’t want to be in the low part of the chicken where he gets narrow. So after making that small adjustment, I finished out the first bank with solid hits. Things got sketchy again early in the second bank with another good shot that barely hit the top of the back. Surely that wind wasn’t raising the bullet that much at 40 meters!! Maybe it was a fluke - except it happened again on the very next target! Was I doing that? The shots felt good. I didn’t want to make another sight setting adjustment further down after already going down during the first bank. So, on the last two shots, Jerry kept me aiming LOW in the target on the tail side and both of those shots hit for ten chickens. Done! Those ten chickens finished off a 36/40 in tough conditions, forcing Enrique to shoot a 39 to make up the three-shot deficit from Saturday. Hard to do on a day like Sunday.

Gabriel also hit all ten of his chickens while Enrique hit eight. KG finished up with eight pigs. That put me on top with a 36/40, Gabriel second with a 35/40 and KG tied with Jake Stine for third at 33/40.

The podium for the championship was:

1. Dustin Flint - 102/120

2. Enrique Kuess - 96/120

3. KG Bourgoyne - 94/120

Gabriel ended up fourth at 92/120.

I’m very happy to again get my name on that huge Texas Smallbore traveling trophy. It’s a big deal anytime we go to Texas and come out the winner. I have to be completely honest about this one, though; Jerry really won this championship. I’ve said several times that many of my championships are due more to Jerry being behind the scope than me being behind the rifle, and this is a prime example of one of those times. These wind and light conditions were as tricky as they get and Jerry had them 100% figured out from shot #1 to shot #120. All I had to do was shoot where he told me and the target went down. On a weekend like this, figuring out where to aim is more difficult than making the shot and Jerry is the champion of figuring out where to aim. He is always the best. Day in and day out he’s the best spotter in the world and that is completely invaluable to a championship team. I am very grateful and fortunate to have him and there’s no doubt in my mind that he is the reason we won.

This match also featured a championship for each target with the pig championship going to the A or B shooter with the most pigs for the weekend; the chicken championship to the AA shooter with the most chickens; the ram championship to the AAA shooter with the most rams and the turkey championship to the Master shooter with the most turkeys. I’m a big fan of these individual target championships; we’ve been doing them in Louisiana for several years. This is serious business in Mexico and I’m glad to see it working its way north. Louisiana shooters swept all of these championships with Jaci Daigle hitting 20/30 pigs, Dominic DeBenedetto hitting 21/30 chickens, KG hitting 24/30 rams and Garin Hatch and me tying for the turkey lead with 22/30 turkeys. I didn’t hit nearly enough turkeys in the 5-shot shootoff and Garin easily dispatched me and won the turkey award.

I’m very proud of KGB for her first podium finish in a championship match. I know the work that she and the other Louisiana juniors put in and they are all set to be at the top of many scoreboards in the future. To all these kids’ parents and support folks reading this, thank you!! You are doing a wonderful thing for your kids and wonderful things for our sport and I appreciate you. I am very happy to be a small part of it!

This was the best Texas smallbore state championship that I’ve shot. Lots of people deserve credit but I’ll only single out the match director, Emmett Dibble, for doing an excellent job. One thing that I find a bit frustrating about the way Texas operates is that there is a “director” elected to each discipline and the director decides where and when the state championships will be held. That can make for a lack of consistency year to year in the schedule. Emmett has given up his spot as the smallbore silhouette director so there will be a new director in 2023. I hope this match stays in the same place at the same time. I think it’s a special match and I’d like to be there to defend the championship next year.

So, that’s it for 2022. We are hosting the Drue Wands Louisiana Lever Action Silhouette Championship in December and I will shoot it but I am primarily the match director for that match. This is the end of the season for my competitive matches. It’s been a GREAT season. The best one ever for us. From winning the Monarch Cup North American Championship to the U.S. Smallbore National Championship to winning 12 championships in a year; this is a year that I will never forget. It was not only a great year for me, but it was a great year for our sport. Never has there been more great people implementing more great ideas for silhouette than right now! I am very excited for the future of the sport and I’m ready to make 2023 even better!

The off-season starts now. Time to rejuvenate and make small tweaks and work hard to get better. The best part of a difficult sport like silhouette is the hard work and I’m ready to get to it! I have a lot of improving to do before the 2023 season cranks up at the Coop Shoot on February 25. You’ll be hearing from me right here. Until then, keep shooting!