2008 Africa Championship 
                                                       Article by Simon Warbrick-Smith

 
    The idea of shooting quality fitasc sporting targets in beautiful surroundings with good weather should be every FITASC shooters dream. A large contingent of British shooters made the journey to Cape Town, South Africa to experience such a shoot. The shoot was located at Valley Gun Club, Paarl, some 1 hour north of Cape Town. This club has been at this location for less than a decade and in that time they have transformed the setting, building a large number of dtl lines, three skeet layouts (OT is being constructed), constructing a reservoir and putting in several good FITASC ranges.

    The FITASC sporting was also combined with the Compak, to give competitors the opportunity of shooting both Pan African events. This was certainly welcomed by the majority of the shooters, particularly those from abroad. The downside to this was that the club did at times struggle with squad timings, this was however quickly resolved.

    The FITASC was held over 8 old style layouts, offering three pegs and six distinct traps. This gave 17 singles and 4 doubles. The quality of the targets was good, and was certainly different to those targets that are typically presented in the UK and Europe. A specialty target was a long curling crow/teal which would typically be launched from about 50-yds with a slight curl. This bird was one which most of the British contingent struggled with.

     First day scores were variable, with experienced Pan African shots such as Tony Manvell and John Pool putting in scores which they were disappointed in. Apart from George Digweed, most of the top shots were struggling to put in consistent twenties. George, however, has the amazing ability to tear a tricky course apart, and he set off doing this in fine style, leaving most shooters bewildered at how he was shooting so well. Given that this was George’s first serious competition of the year, his scores were dumbfounding. In fact, he delivered high scores so consistently that he didn’t need to shoot his last layout to win the shoot!! New shooters to the Pan African, such as World Champions John Bidwell and John Dyson, were also struggling to shoot consistently on the technically difficult targets. Although not as tricky as the 2007 Worlds in Prague, this was still a hard shoot.

    The scores from the second day seemed to show that most layouts had the same degree of difficulty, and it appeared that to gain second place you would need to shoot consistent 21’s. However, come the third day, the winds picked up and were approaching gale force by the time the layouts were shot. As such scores of 18 were good, with many shooters scoring in the low teens (George managed a 24 and a 20). The long crows and teal were badly affected by these weather conditions and those on layouts 8, 1, 2, and 6 were extreme birds.

    The race for second was wide open on the fourth day, and competitors were treated to a warm, bright and windless day. George was able to extend his winning lead, and other shooters were able to battle it out for the minor places.

     The Compak was telling another story, with many shooters not capitalizing on the easier layouts. After the first two days, George was three in front of the trailing pack of John Bidwell, Simon Warbrick-Smith and Aldis Kartoucis. The layouts were of varying difficulties, with the easier looking simultaneous pairs layout proving trickier then expected. George and Aldis shot first on the last day with both achieving good scores. John Bidwell and Simon Warbrick-Smith, however, produced a 24 and a 25 respectively to drag themselves into the running. Bidwell was able to capitalize on this with a second round 24 to force Digweed into a shoot off. Warbrick-Smith produced an uncharacteristic 19 to knock himself down into the minor placings.

     The Compak shoot off was held over a similar layout to one used in the main Compak competition, and George produced another fine display of marksmanship to beat Bidwell by two.

     The shoot off was followed by George’s trick shooting demonstration where a range of rather nasty looking teal, loopers and crossers were attempted from two stations from both the shoulder and hip. This was backed up by George’s impressive teal shooting demo where he walks back from 40-yds.from a teal and keeps shooting from the hip and shoulder. He managed to break one at about 120yds! A good crowd gathered for this and then moved onto the prize giving.

     Trophies were given for the Africa Cup (a combination of the Pan African and grand prix from earlier in the year). Prizes were also given for individuals in the Pan African Compak and FITASC, together with the team events.

    In all this competition is a fantastic start to the competitive year, and it will be interesting to see whether George can keep up his current good form.