Last year, shortly after receiving my hunting license I received the gift of a side-by-side double barrel shotgun for my birthday. Very different from anything that ever would have been predicted as a future for this girl from Queens who was living in Times Square 30 years ago. (What would my mother say? But that’s another story.)

This year I decided to take my fall pastime a bit further by looking for guidance from the Rangeley Region Guides’ and Sportsmen’s Association (RRG&SA). In particular, my plan was to tour the Rangeley Region Skeet and Trap Association range located at the end of Old Skiway Road in Oquossoc.

Fortunately, I was confident I knew the right person to ask about it: Sheridan Oldham. I met Sheri about 10 years ago when she was the president of the RRGSA and although I don’t know her very well, it seems as though she’s the kind of person who excels at anything she puts her mind to. Among other reasons, I get this impression because of her scores both on the golf course and at the bowling alley.

So, I gave her a call and after a brief inquiry over the phone she and her husband, current President of RRGSA, David Kretzing agreed to meet up with me at the range. Well, that was easy!

I had known the range was very conveniently located as I had walked past on one of the Bald Mountain excursions, but I had no idea what the structures were, so Sheri gave me a brief history lesson.

“Although it was always called Rangeley Skeet and Trap, there hadn’t been skeet up here for years, so we just had the trap house.”

In addition, over the years, and with the help of private donations and from the US Fish and Wildlife’s competitive grant process, RRGSA acquired financial resources needed for a pistol range and archery range.

“And then we did another grant to get all those bunch of remote throwers for something called sporting clays. And once you kind of conquer this, that’s a harder game to play.”

At this point I warned her of my complete and utter ignorance of terminology. Skeet? Trap?

She responded, “Well, skeet it’s just different houses and trap and we’ll go over all that. First thing I to have you do, though, is sign a liability waiver.”

So, after reviewing both basic and specific to the range safety protocol, Sheri set me up. For convenience, during my lesson, she allowed me to use her firearm.

She guided me into a proper stance, explaining weight distribution and what to expect. She also reminded me of basic safety protocols such as not resting my finger on the trigger, using the trigger guard, and unlike when you’re hunting, leaving the breach open until ready to shoot.

She reiterated, “Because once the gun is mounted and secured in position by those three points, your cheek, your chest, and your elbow up. You just watch for the bird. Now again, obviously, the biggest difference between shotgun shooting rifle shooting is we’re going to try to hit a target moving between 40 and 45 miles an hour.”

Wait, what target?! What bird?! I thought I was here to pattern my gun?

“Well, we’re going to do both I thought”, she replied.

Oh fun! I laughed. I love surprises.

Fast forward, she showed me how the clay ‘birds’ climbed out of the low tower and instructed me to anticipate. She was very specific.

“This is where you’re going to stand. You’re going to mount your gun and the way it’s flying, the way the wind is blowing is flying higher than usual. You’re going to hold your aim, point- it’s going to be at the top of that pine tree right there, and then it’s going to come up. And as it comes up, you’re going to get ahead of that bird, you’re going to pull the trigger.”

It was a great first lesson. I tried several times and on the fourth try I bumped the target. I was pretty happy with that result and so we moved on to patterning my gun on the other side of the range.

Now it was time for Sheri’s husband Dave to show me how to pattern my gun. Distances were considered, and thankfully he was as patient with my ignorance as she was.

The two of them have been helping people in this capacity for so many years it was a wonder they still had their sense of humor about my silly questions, but it turns out they get a decent number of visits such as mine.

They try to accommodate individuals like me, but also couples and larger gatherings such as family reunions or even bachelor parties.

In my particular case, let’s just say I needed to practice a bit more. Again, Dave was very patient with me and didn’t laugh aloud, well not exactly.

“What you’re going to want to do because if that’s the clay, or that’s the bird, (he paused thoughtfully) is just aim under it a little,” he chuckled.

He continued, “And, you know, most of the time, it’s better that it’s shooting high than low. Because birds tend to be rising, clays tend to be rising, but yeah, just, be aware that your pattern is going to be here (he pointed to my marks) and not here (he indicated the target).

At this point, I started nervously laughing expressing it could be worse. Like, it could be really left or really right, like my golf game. At this point Sheri did laugh. Perhaps she was aware of my golf scores as well?

However, keeping it professional Dave suggested we concentrated on one barrel at a time in order to see if that helped at all.

Diagnosis? My technique was okay, I was leaning into it well enough, but had I been hunting partridge, the partridge would have lived to fly another day.”

We decided to try and switch my chokes to see if that would help and then I tried again. He suggested that it could be I was concentrating too much on the bead.

“You aim a rifle or pistol, you point a shotgun. So you know if you’re concentrating too much in that front bead, number one, you can’t see the target because your eye can’t focus on two planes.”

According to Dave, this time there was improvement.

“Either one would have been a dead bird,” he exclaimed.

I was happy I could have provided dinner this time around.

“Plucking feathers!” he added laughing.

Like any new skill, it was just a matter of practice.

At this point the time allotted was almost up and the regulars were arriving. Dave proceeded to try and explain the difference between what I did and what the various structures enabled.

“With skeet, what you do is you get what they call singles, which one comes out of the high house, one comes out of the low house and then you get a pair at the same time. Station 2 the same way, then station 3, 4 and 5 you just get a single bird out of the high house, single bird out of the low house. Then station 6, you get 2 singles and a double and then you’re back over to where you were, at the low house and you shoot four birds there. And then there’s station 8 in the middle, which the bird comes out and literally goes over your head. So yeah, you just got to aim into the wind, holler pull and swing on the bird as soon as you see it.”

At this point I started to get confused but I didn’t want to let him know so I just nodded repeatedly.

“When you’re over on this side of the range, you shoot the high bird first, then the low bird. When you get over there, you shoot the low bird first, then the high bird. So you want to shoot the closer one, and then you shoot the one coming out of the low house because it’s going to be closer. Then the high house gets closer after you shoot.”

I finally confessed my mind was not absorbing the new information as well as a brighter bulb might and began blaming it on my visual rather than audio inclined memory and again he laughed.

All-in-all it really was a great lesson and I’m really thankful that both Sheri and Dave helped me so much. They really were the epitome of what you would want in a guide.

I hung around and watched the experienced folk’s skeet, trap and five stand and it really was interesting. Interesting and entertaining. The regulars made a lot of jokes at one another’s expense but in perfect balance as they also rooted one another on. Think the porch at Oquossoc grocery- lots of laid-back conversation and lots of laughs, (only with guns).

I was rooting for one person after another and was happy to find out that there was a Skeet and Trap End-of-season tournament which I was glad to attend on August 27th.

The following are the winners of that tournament. Not surprisingly, one of my heroes, Sheri Oldham was one of them, winning first place after a tie score and having to win a tiebreaker.

5-STAND

1st place Bob Morin (21)

2nd place Bill Closs (20)

3rd place Kip Kennett (17)

SKEET

1st place Sheri Oldham (20)

2nd place Bob Morin (20)

3rd place Bill Closs (19)

TRAP

1st place Bill Closs (21)

Tied for 2nd place Larry Malone & Kip Kennett (20)

3rd place Bob Morin (17)

TOTAL points for all 3 events

1st place Bill Closs (60)

2nd place Bob Morin (58)

3rd place Kip Kennett (54)

Other impressive results were made by Lyn Hewey, John Latwen, Scott Apiello, and Mary Ellen Moroney.

Who knows, perhaps I’ll try my hand at it one day. For now I was happy to become an official member of the RRG&SA and encourage anyone at all interested to do the same. Besides hosting Maine Guides’ courses, coordinating events such as the annual Strawberry Festival and running the Junior Guides Program, there’s the Storybook Walk, the Fish and Friends Release educational program at Rangeley Lakes Regional School, monthly potluck meetings, the upcoming Annual Turkey Shoot, and last but not least, also in October the annual Youth Hunting Day Breakfast, a kind of Rangeley rite of passage.

How different would the culture of Rangeley be without the RRGSA?

For more information visit RRG&SA at rangeleyoutdoors.org.

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