Schlecht, Welton shoot 700-plus targets—straight!
Remarkable feat Friday in Boise
It took Bellevue’s Ted Schlecht and Star’s Stu Welton
about four-and-a-half hours to shoot and shoot and finally notch their
places in Idaho and national trapshooting history Friday evening in Boise.
Ted
Schlecht, ready to shoot. Express
photo by Jeff Cordes
Together, they did something truly remarkable. Side by
side, shooting in an official state competition, they ran off over 700
consecutive targets. They started in daylight and finished their feat in
darkness.
They missed their dinner.
In fact, Welton’s wife called him on the cellphone,
twice, to see if anything was wrong. "I’m kinda busy," Welton
told her.
As the amazing competition went on, Schlecht informed Mark
Kurruk, who was running the shoot-off, that he had never before run 200
straight targets. "And 200 is a major accomplishment," Kurruk
said.
Confronted with darkness, they switched the lights on and
changed from the regulation orange targets to green targets for what
turned out to be the final 50 targets.
Schlecht finally dropped his 723rd target to finish with
724, and Welton emerged the winner with 725. It may be the longest
shoot-off in history.
Schlecht, 43, is a Bellevue-based carpenter who has shot
competitively for less than 10 years. For four years he served as Wood
River Gun Club president. Welton, 37, a contractor, has been shooting for
25 years, since he was a teen.
"Nobody wanted to leave," said Kurruk about the
spectators watching the duel. Bob Gladics, a shooting partner of Schlecht
said, "It’s like playing Wimbledon and having match point for over
four hours."
Kurruk added, "It takes considerable concentration
and focus to shoot trap. Then there’s the physical factor. Think about
lifting an eight-pound gun 700 times. There are so few people who could
have done it. It’s just remarkable."
Grangeville resident Kurruk, publisher of the monthly On
Target trapshooting magazine, went scurrying to the record books and
checking with the national organization in Indianapolis. He was still
awaiting the results Tuesday.
"I know it’s a Northwest record, because the
previous continuously shot record of 475 was set in Lewiston in
1989," said Kurruk, who speculated the national record may be 525.
The feat may never be matched, Gladics said.
From the 16-yard distance, they started the Men’s Double
A singles event of the Idaho Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA)
Championship about 5 p.m. Friday at Boise Gun Club. It ended at 9:30 p.m.
Both Schlecht and Welton are Double A shooters, meaning
they average 97 or better out of 100 targets. A total six shooters ran off
100 straight targets to get into a shoot-off.
Only Schlecht and Welton kept going. After running off 100
targets to get into the shoot-off, they ran off 624 and 625 more.
"Both of these guys are really easy-going," said Kurruk.
"They shot, then relaxed, and did it over and over."
