The New Zealand Fish and Game South Island and New Zealand Secondary Schools Clay Target Competitions 2018 were held over the first weekend of the school holidays 29 Sept – 01 Oct.

This year they were at the Canterbury Clay Target Club and taking part were 65 squads some 325 shooters from all over New Zealand, this event has a very high standard of competitors with some of those shooters shooting for New Zealand.

We had 14 boys entered for the Down the Line (DTL) events and 6 boys making up 3 teams for the Skeet events.

Down the line is when a single clay leaves the trap and you are awarded a series of points for hitting the clay either with a single barrel shot or if you use both barrels. We had a number of shoot offs which is a sudden death type scenario where you keep shooting till you miss. Liam O’Leary, Griffin Evans and Callum Hyde all undertook shoot offs in front of a 500/600 strong crowd and handled themselves calmly and professionally.

Skeet is more technical and has the clay leaving the 2 separate traps at different heights and on some occasions two at a time. Whilst we didn’t place in this event our boys within their teams did well in some cold and windy conditions. The boys also refereed and scored both the events.

Results from the weekend are as follows:

South Island Single Rise Trophy

7th - Griffin Evans
10th - Hunter Brotherston

New Zealand Points Score Championship

2nd - Griffin Evans

Open teams 1st North Canterbury (Griffin Evans was part of the open team)

I have to say the boys were extremely professional in the way they handled themselves out on the trap even with the wind affecting the clays and the thick fog on the Monday, the boys did the school proud.

This is a parent driven sport and a big thank you to all the parents but especially to Hilary Sinclair-Hyde and Mike O'Leary for their outstanding commitment to the CBHS shooting team. The boy's behaviour and sportsmanship is excellent and they look the part shooting in school uniform. Fine young men.