More Rose River Fun

At this point I run the risk of sounding like a commercial for Rose River Farm. It has quickly become one of my very favorite places to fish for trout, and on this trip I not only caught some of the finest trout I've ever landed, but I added yet another species to my 'caught on a fly' list by catching one of the largemouth bass in the pond there. In addition, Douglas and I broke out the 16 gauges and went through an entire box of clay targets! The fact that it was a nearly 70 degree day in the middle of February added quite a bit to the enjoyment of the day.

So, let me get out of the way here and let some pictures do the talking...

The two rainbows pictured above are two of the nicest trout I've ever caught.

Matt had trouble landing this fish. Luckily some whalers were passing through and saw the commotion and helped out with one of their nets.

Enzo. Ridiculous. My favorite dog that doesn't live in my house.

Curved line meets straight line. Ross with a nice fish on.

My first largemouth bass ever!

Douglas has the perfect area set up to practice with some clays.

Douglas' stunning new Kimber side-by-side. I tried it about twenty times and broke approximately one target with it. Douglas was considerably more accomplished with it.

My Winchester Model 12 saw some action too. I still am not very good with it, but much, much better than I am with the side-by-side!

This lovable guy takes over as Biggest Dork on the Farm when Enzo isn't there.

I don't think a person could get much more out of a February day in Virginia.

Zeroing in...

So the Winchester Model 94 is back from the gunsmith and I took it out to the range at the NRA headquarters near my office. This time I went with the human-shaped target and my performance was greatly improved. I do not know, nor do I care to know, what that means. Maybe it's that this was the second time I've fired it, but it was more comfortable.

The targets are not live-sized, the silhouettes here are about 12" wide. I was standing up. The first target, above, is ten shots at 60 feet. I was very happy with this. I think that stray one low left was intended to knock the gun out of the guy's hand, yeah, that's it.

Below left is five shots from 90 feet. Target is getting very small at this distance, but I'm still fairly pleased. I thought I missed one completely but the shot on the upper left is actually two very close together. Too bad that grouping didn't occur where that one center X shot is!

Below right is five shots from 150 feet. On these last two distances I loaded all five cartridges and cycled them fairly quickly, just for fun. And I'll be honest, it is really fun. But I was not even sure I was hitting this tiny target, and was most pleased to see this one come back. Definitely some up/down issues here, but I'm very happy with the left/right. That one shot at 3:00 is only 2" from the center of the target.. From fifty yards away, I'll take that any day!