Eight trapshooting teams made up of local good 'ol boys, southern Idaho hot shots and Hemingway Festival visitors competed in the first annual Sun Valley Indian Summer Shootout last weekend at Sun Valley Gun Club.
Competition was spirited in traditional high-score singles and team contests and in a special handicapped team format.
In the Youth Singles category Niels McMahon of Team Grumpy's hit 87 of 100 targets to take first place. Casey Hawkes and Chase Thomas of the Bird Dogs team were right behind him with 86 hits each. Hawkes took second by winning a sudden-death shootout.
In the Women's High Score competition Dawn Peterson, also of Bird Dogs, cracked 86 to win. She was followed by Jackie Hill of the Wranglers and Kelly McGarry of the Lame Ducks.
The Men's Singles competition was very tight with Juan Goitiandia of "The Bank" team cracking 98 out of 100 clays to take the win. He was followed by Zach Sewell, also of The Bank, and Rex Kiser of team Twin Falls, each with 95 kills.
Sewell won the sudden-death shootout to secure second place.
In the Team High Score event The Wranglers (Ted and Jackie Hill, Peter Malarkey, and James and Brad Webb) took third place.
Team Twin Falls with hot shots Gene Connor, Gene Goold, Rex Kiser, local Mike Malko, and visitor George Bacon comprised the runner-up squad.
It was the boys from Bellevue who took home top honors. The Bank team: Joey Jaramillo, Zach Sewell, David Waddoups, Rick Ruggles, and Juan Goitiandia smashed 463 out of a possible 500 targets.
In the special format "Tribe" team handicapped competition, shooters faced off team against team, and shooter against shooter.
The final four were The Wranglers, The Bank, The CVB Men (James Gillespie, Tim Deckard, Peter Westergard, Jordan Davis, and Kyle Perry), and the Sun Valley Gun Club (Stu Hurst, Dick Haskell, Cody Haskell, Randy Sprow and Gene Drake).
In the first round a draw from the hat paired The Bank with The Wranglers and The Bank won by a score of 4 to 1. Both Sewell and Goitiandia had 25 straight in this heat. In the second pair The SV Gun Club beat the CVB Men, also by a score of 4 to 1.
Shooting for third place The Wranglers and CVB Men tied with 2 ½ wins each and went into a sudden-death shootout. The Wranglers held steady and took the third place trophy.
In the final match up The Bank beat the SV Gun Club with 3 ½ wins to 1 ½ to take first place and its second top team trophy of the day.
The Sun Valley Indian Summer Shootout was staged by the Sun Valley/ Ketchum Chamber and Visitors Bureau as part of the inaugural Ernest Hemingway Festival.
The Sturtevants team from the Hemingway Festival trapshooting meet, from left, Randy Van Dyke, Crisane Cook, Kelly McGarry, Ken Edwards and Jeff Davis, who used his grandfather's side-by-side shotgun. Photo by Willy Cook
