FITASC Sporting

Final results from the FITASC Competiton at Glevering Hall, Suffolk

Shoot Report (written by Simon Warbrick-Smith)
 
A bright and sunny day greeted the first of the 150 shooters to Peter Simpson's 162 bird FITASC X shoot, held at Glevering Hall, Suffolk, by kind invitation of the Hurlock family.
 
The 650 acre site offered the course setters of John Dyson and, Peter and Michael Simpson ample scope to test the abilities of some of the best FITASC shots in the country. Using the novel X Factor approach to setting the old style system shoot, guns were treated to 6 twenty five bird layouts. The first two pegs of each layout utilized four traps throwing relatively softer birds, with the X bird used on the third peg in both singles and the doubles.
 
Additionally to the six twenty five bird layouts, there was a 12 bird extreme X layout, designed by Gideon Dyson. This utilized a long looping left to right rabbit, a long climbing incomer, a right to left bateau and a right to left rabbit running up diagonally away from the shooter. The first peg was some 45 yards to the closest target, with the second peg being about 15 yards behind and to the right hand side of the first peg.
 
The six layouts were all set to a high degree of difficulty, and the organizers did not expect to hear any cries of 'Its skeet in the woods'. There was some club house talk of it being another K80 shoot (ie: hard technical birds, like those presented on the K80 layout at Highlodge for the Classic FITASC).
 
As the scores for the first day started to come in, it looked as though Ben Husthwaite had set a high goal for subsequent shooters, his 135 being 4 ahead of the next placed shooter Phil Thorrold, whose 131 was some 9 birds in front of John Bidwell and Simon Davies whose 122's demonstrated both the difficulty of the shoot, and the outstanding abilities of the higher scoring shooters. Scores above 120 were a rarity, with many shooters hitting around the 100 mark. Ben, however, had shot a 17 on Michael's A layout, which was below par, and he expected to be beaten by a score of about 139.
 
Having several big names booked in for the second day, anticipation was high for someone to knock Ben off of the top spot. However, as the day progressed it looked as though even the extreme bird specialists, such as John Hargrave, would struggle to shoot the required 21 average on the layouts, with an additional large score on Gideon's extreme layout. Thiery De Latre, making a raid across to these shores from Belgium was hoping to do the targets justice, but suffered to hit the more extreme targets and had to make do with a score of 108. John Hargrave's name was added to the leader board with a 128. Georgie Jones and June Speakman were dominating the ladies class on scores of 108 and 109 respectively.
 
The last day had a full compliment of 12 squads of 7 shooters, although disappointingly several guns decided to cancel at the last minute or not turn up. This seems to be a growing trend in the sport, with several big name shooters making a regular habit of it.
 
Shooters for this day included luminaries such as Mark Marshall, Paul Simpson, Tony Manvell, Barry Simpson, Scott Greenfield, Steve Brightwell and Martin Papworth. Cheryl Hall and Mark Winsor and Sam Green were representing the best that their respective categories could field and as the first scores came in, it looked as though many of these big names were struggling to cope with the targets. Whilst certainly at a good range there were no eye sight tests, and the longer birds showed a good amount of belly, which really gave people something to get there teeth into.
 
High scores for Sunday were Paul Simpson on 128, Steve Brightwell on 127, with John Dunne following up on a 125. Mark Winsor lead the juniors home on 122, 3 clear of his nearest rival, the ever improving Sam Green. Cheryl Hall continued her domination of the ladies being 5 clear of her nearest rivals.
 
Reviewing the score boards it appeared that all of the layouts had shot to a similar degree of difficulty with shooters having to have worked hard to card a score of 20+. When the worlds best are shooting scores in the mid teens (including an ex world champion, and recent members of the GB FITASC team) you know that the targets are strong. However, as it was marketed as an extreme shoot, it seemed that the course setters had done the job well.
 
The Gsite proved to be a popular choice, with scope for further shoots making use of other areas on the Estate. The imposing Hall made a good backdrop to the Marquee, and catering being provided by the local farm shop was a nice touch.

If you are hosting a FITASC Event this year, and would like it to appear in the calendar, please click here