KAAPJAG INTERTAK SKIET OP CALVINIA

from Die Bontebok Desember 2021

KOUP -TAK

KAAPJAG INTERTAK SKIET CALVINIA 30 OKTOBER 2021

By Greg Sykes

What a week! A quiet start to the last week of October suddenly went haywire, work picked up dramatically and it looked like I would be heading up to Jo-burg for last minute meetings. Wesleys’ boss was giving him a hard time over the amount of time he was off, shooting the various competitions and our boys in blue launched a totally unreasonable search warrant at Ludy’s place. Right up until Friday at 3 o’clock, we were all waiting for confirmation that we would still be heading up tot Calvinia for the annual Kaapjag Intertak shoot. Eventually we could wait for Ludy no longer and the rest of the team headed up in JC’S Kombi. Ludy was still dealing with the police, but as we passed through Riebeek Kasteel to pick up Paul Harding, we heard that they were done for the week and Ludy had arranged for his brother to fly him up to Calvinia. By the time we were just shy of Clanwilliam dam, Ludy messaged to say he had just landed at the unattended dirt runway about 2 km away from the beautiful Ramskop shooting range just outside of town. A quick call to Anthony Swift, the chairman of the Boesmanland branch of Kaapjag, and a lift was arranged for Ludy back to the hotel. Thanks to Anthony who once again showed the hospitality of folks up in the country side. The rest of us arrived quite late and settled down to a good meal and a bit of the Cape’s finest red at the local Blou Naartjie restaurant. The next morning bright and early we were on the range for a quick sight in and to help where we could with setting up targets and getting our two teams signed in. The admin flowed smoothly and after an opening prayer and quick match briefing, we were off to shoot. Kaapjag Central branch entered two teams into the event. We had our open team consisting of myself, Wesley White, Nols Meyer and his son Rohan. We also entered a senior team of Ludy Starke, Paul Harding, Jacques Buckle and Nelson Christiaanse. The actual shooting event was by far the best organised event that I have ever attended. Anthony and his team spared no effort in making the

Matt Melihan taking a break to smoke his pipe

event run fast and smooth. Shooters did not go forward to score targets. Instead, a work team went forward after each detail to collect the shot targets and replace them with new targets. The targets were brought back to a central scoring area where shooters could check and verify their scores. The gong range, where traditionally hold ups happen, was angled away from the paper ranges and it continued while the paper targets were changed. Before one o’clock, the shooting was done and dusted. While the event went exceptionally smoothly from a running point of view, things on the firing line did not always run as well. I had noticed that I was about a minute of angle low on the sight in target in the morning, I did not adjust as I assumed it was just some condition that I was not seeing. Well, that hurt me on my springbok target. With the heat of the day already making looking through the scope seems like trying to see through

Emile Maritz shooting under the watchfull eye of her father Carel

a swimming pool, one could not see bullet holes and I did not pick up that my shots were low. Luckily for me after my third shot a gust of wind blew the mirage away and I caught a glimpse of my first three shots grouped just under the heart. A quick on the fly adjustment put my next two in the heart, but those first three cost me 45 points. Rohan also fell foul to the dry air up country causing our zero’s to be different to those in the Cape. He too bled a lot of points on the springbok. Paul Harding had a malfunction in that he was single feeding his rounds and a jammed round caused his extractor to come out. Seeing the lighter side of things, we did get a few funny looks as the teams scrambled around in the dusty Karoo sand looking for the extractor. Once found, a quick repair by Ludy and we were back in business. After the event we retired to the club house for some well needed refreshments. That dry and windy

Johan Ellis of Weskus Branch sharing some shooting tips

Karoo air certainly takes the moisture out of one’s body. While waiting on the results, Gertjie Oodendal, a well known comic and story teller, kept us entertained with some of his very funny stories. After a delicious meal prepared by the Calvina team, Anthony called us to the hall and we gathered to hear the results. It was wonderful to see that there were a total of 13 teams entered into the shoot. There were teams from every Kaapjag branch, except for Koup. At the end, I am very proud to be a Central branch member. Our senior team came in in third place overall. Second place went to the Boesmanlandjag open team. The overall winners for the day was our team of the Kaapjag Central open team. Not only did Central get a third and first place in the team event, but our shooters also placed very well in the individual scoring.

The rest of the afternoon and well into the evening was spent catching

up with old friends from Calvinia and of course doing post mortems of where the shots had not fallen to our liking. As always after such a super event, it was with a heavy heart that we headed back to Cape Town. Our most sincere thanks to Anthony, Oom Johan Strauss and the complete team from Boesmanlandjag. You guys really went out of your way to make us feel welcome. Your event was top class and the hospitality shown was just unbelievable. You guys are tops.