by Bryan Biggs

Kaapjag sent a team to the CHASA nationals, hosted by theFree State Hunters Association just outside Bloemfontein.

Most of us left home on Wednesday 12^th to make it a 2-day trip on the way up and stayed over at various venues of our own choice. That allowed us to arrive on Thursday afternoon for signing in, from 14h00 – 17h00.

Kaapjag had arranged and paid for the accommodation in chalets at Reyneke Park on the edge of Bloemfontein, a short distance from the shooting range. We had a braai followed by an early night. Bloemfontein gets cold very quickly when the sun goes down!

Friday morning saw us bright and early at the shooting range for the 07h00 briefing. Day 1 of the competition consisted of the Big Bore and the Rimfire Gong shoot. Kaapjag members were luckily all part of the “morning” session of the Big Bore which progressed a bit slowly and only finished after lunch. This left some other teams at the range very late. Wesley White was our top shooter here with a score of 550/600 giving him 4^th place in the Mens Senior division and overall. The three shooters ahead of Wesley also all shot 550/600 but were slightly faster. Ludy Starke finished 2^nd in the Veterans category with a score of 475/600.
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On Friday afternoon Kaapjag shot the Rimfire Gong Shoot in some tricky conditions with the wind continuously switching both direction and strength. It almost always blows in Bloemfontein and that didn’t change much for the rest of the competition. In spite of the wind, several shooters shot a full score of 600/600 and a shootout was held on Saturday morning which resulted in Isak Hanekom and Evan Lategan taking 3^rd and 4^th place respectively in the Senior Mens Open Category.

After the shootout we went on to the Rimfire Vlakteskiet, which is a rather new format and a lot more challenging than the Rimfire Baanskiet that we are familiar with. Prior to Nationals, we only had one official Rimfire Vlakteskiet  to practice, and the Guineafowl target in particular is small, a long way off hand with very small scoring zones. Nonetheless, Andre Hanekom finished 3^rd in the Juniors Open category with a score of 505.4/600 and Evan Lategan finished 2^nd in the Mens Senior Open with a score of 550.3/600.

The final event of the competition on Saturday afternoon was the Centrefire Baanskiet that we were all familiar with. Wesley White was once again our top scorer here with 555.5/600 earning him 3^rd place in the Mens Senior Open category while Ludy Starke was the star of the event with his score of 495.4/600 earning him 1^st place in the Mens Veterans Open category.

Saturday evening was the prize giving, so everyone scrubbed themselves down, some even had a shave and all donned their finest threads for the gala event which was changed at short notice to a venue called “Leopards & Lace”. The strictly formal function had a great atmosphere, excellent food, speeches and an awards ceremony.

 In addition to the individual prize winners for individual events already listed, Kaapjag secured a few more awards & medals in the Teams categories.

·       3^rd Junior Team

·       3^rd Mens Senior Team

·       2^nd Mens Veteran Team

·       In the overall competition across all 4 events Wesley White finished 2nd in the Senior Men's category

·       Kaapjag finished 2^nd in the overall Best Association/Club category.

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 Well done to everyone!