Winterseed Carroll, Ohio Jan 18&19, 2020

[Corvette]

Shooters,

Well we had another great Appleseed at the Central Ohio Coon Hunters Club in Carroll, Ohio this weekend. Twenty four motivated shooters showed up Saturday morning ready to work on their Marksmanship skills.

The event was sold out in large part to a Boy Scout Troop from northern Ohio that came as a winter troop event. They arrived Friday evening before the weather turned bad so we had a great start to the event.

Once the Scouts and their Dads settled in we conducted a rifle orientation on the loaner rifles that they would be using for the event.  The Scouts were instructed on the operation of the Marlin 795, the Remington 597 and the Ruger 10/22 and they had the opportunity to practice the Ruger bolt lock/bolt release procedures.

The weather Saturday morning made this a true Winterseed.  We had it all.  Rain, sleet and sheet ice welcomed the shooters to the start of the weekend with temps around freezing.   

Once the rest of the shooters had arrived, we completed the normal welcome and moved to the safety briefing. Rifles were brought to the line and the Saturday morning Red Coats were shot.  Results showed there was work to do. We had only 8 of 23 at 100,  5 of 23 at 200,  4 at 300,  1 at 400 and 1 joined Daniel Morgan's Rangers. However, we did have one shooter who cleared his Red Coat. Congrats Cory on a job well done. 

The weather continued to make our event a challenge.  There was a steady cold rain all morning and into early afternoon.  We had to put our targets into trash bags and then post them to our backers to keep them dry enough to make them of value.

We moved to instructions on the steady hold factors in prone, followed by the six steps and NPOA instructions.  Related drills were shot and the morning moved on to shooting sighting groups. We broke for lunch where the First Strike was presented by Cadence and the shooters were presented the IMC instructions.  The shooters returned to the line after lunch to adjust sights and to shoot confirmation groups.

Next was steady hold instructions in seated and standing were presented and were followed by related drills. Given the rain, mud, number of youth shooters and warm up breaks, we didn't get to the practice AQT. We skipped the mid-afternoon Second Strike as it had finally stopped raining and we wanted to keep shooting.

The day ended with the Saturday afternoon Red Coat which showed improvement.  We had 14 of 23 at 100,  7 at 200, 6 at 300, 3 at 400, and 6 joined Daniel Morgan. 

We broke down the line and moved to the clubhouse.  Hammbone gave a great Second Strike followed by a Third Strike from Corvette along with a call to action to all to get active in their local communities.

But, the day was not over.  Since the troop and their advisors were all bunking in the club house, we led an organized rifle cleaning clinic.  This gave  a number of the Dads a chance to show their son's how to clean a rifle and saved the instructors the need to clean their loaners. (There were seven loaners on the line Saturday).  Once all the rifles were cleaned and locked up in the gun closet, it was time for dinner and for the typical fun that is a scout camp out.  Dads sitting around chatting and the boys on their phones, playing cards and crashing after a long cold day on the line.

Sunday dawned very cold, 16 degrees.  The only advantage was the mud had frozen so at least we didn't have to deal with that on Sunday.  The morning Red Coat was shot and the results were comparable to Saturday afternoon.  We had 13 of 19 at 100, 2 at 200, 2 at 300 and 4 joined Daniel Morgan. We then completed NPOA/Rifleman's cadence drills and moved on to the AQT's.

That is when the snow started. The shooters were up to the challenge.  We got through the practice AQT and one live one before we needed to break for lunch and warm up.  On our first AQT, we made our first new Riflemen (Keith requalified with a 210 to get a Winterseed patch to go with his Rifleman patch).

After lunch and a KD lecture, we were back on the line for more AQT's.  We had a steady stream of shooters step up despite the conditions.  The next shooter to qualify was Pat.  Pat has joined us at Appleseeds before and just couldn't get his brain out of the way and trust the system.  Well, today it all came together and he posted a solid 225 to become Ohio's first new Rifleman of 2020 and to earn both his Rifleman patch and a Winterseed patch. 

More importantly, Pat has stepped up to take an Orange Hat and be our first new IIT of 2020.  Huzzah, welcome to the Ohio Team!
This was followed by Terry finally getting over the hump.  Terry has attended our prior events at Carroll and made progress at them.  Well he finally put it all together with the high score of the weekend, a 232. He is our second Rifleman of 2020. Huzzah.  This was followed by two instructors requalifying and earning their Winterseed patches.  Congrats to J Madison and Camo Cowboy for their 210 and 213 respectively. 

The two days of cold and wet finally got to the scouts early in the afternoon and given they had 2+ hours travel into weather worse than what we were experiencing, the line was reduced as they packed up early to head out.   It is unfortunate, but totally understandable, that they missed the Sunday DOM's and had to leave before we could get to a flintlock/Penn rifle demonstration that we had planned for them in the afternoon.  Maybe next time.

The remaining 7 shooters finished the day with a couple more AQTs and the Sunday Red Coat.  We had 7 of 7 at 100, 5 at 200, 3 at 300, 3 at 400, 4 joined Daniel Morgan and 1 shooter, J Madison, cleared the Red Coat. 

Our thanks to the Central Ohio Coon Hunters for hosting our event and my thanks to Cadence, Black_Bird, Hammbone, J Madison, Camo Cowboy,wetsight, Meadow and Cactus Jack for helping with this shoot.  It was a pleasure to work with  each and every one of you.

We look forward to our next event at COCH, hopefully in July, 2020.

Corvette

Pics to follow:   

[Corvette]

Couple of pics from our Carroll event.

Corvette

[Cadence]

A couple of pictures from this past weekend's Winterseed at Carroll, OH.

Congrats to all who earned the coveted blue patch. Several won the trifecta of patches: Winterseed, Rifleman and Ohio state patch. Special shout-out to Pat who not only won the trifecta, but also stepped up to take an orange hat!  HUZZAH!

It was good to see and work with all the other instructors at this event. All of you made this a safe and enjoyable shoot.

[HammBone]

Here are the ones I took

[Rustygun]

Wow! You all had a sho nuff winterseed up there

[Corvette]

All, my apologies to another of our instructors, Wetsight, who also requalified with a 210 Sunday afternoon.

I missed this in the original write up, my bad.
Corvette

[sleepy]

Brrrrr! No sunshine patriots in this crew!