The outing in November was in Bull Run, VA. We went shotgun shooting during the day on Saturday at the Bull Run Shooting Center and camped at Camp Snyder at night. It was a sunny and cold weekend, just what you would think for November weather.
We met at Camp Snyder and set up camp, then we headed out to the shooting center. The shooting center was an outdoor shooting center. We divided into two groups, those that were new to using a shotgun, and those that had experience using a shotgun. The group that had never used a shotgun before went to the BSA Learn to Shoot program to learn how to safely use a shotgun . After an hour of the program they were then allowed to join the others at the Wobbles and sporting clay stations.
A Wobble is a five stand shotgun shooting station where you compete with four other people to hit the most clay pigeons with 25 shots. You rotate every 5 shots to the next stand. We had a interpatrol competition to earn points for your patrol. The sporting clay stations are a group of 13 stations where you had different scenario’s of two clay pigeons per station. Each station was a different pattern of flying pigeons. Many people were competing with friends and keeping scores. Others were just getting some good practice. Liam G. was a high scorer on the Wobbles with a score of 20 out of 25, as was Andrew D. with a score of 21 out of 25.
After a day of shooting, we went back to camp and had dinner. After dinner we had a campfire where all the patrols performed a skit. Taps was at 11pm.
Sunday we woke up at 6am and had breakfast. We then cleaned up all our gear and did a police line. After the police line, we had our service and headed home.
Trey M.
Historian
Bears Patrol
We started off by meeting very early in the St.Francis parking lot. Then we all got our car assignments and we were off. Because it was only a 45 minute drive we arrived at our first destination, our campsite, Camp Snyder, pretty quickly.
When we got there we started setting up camp. The first thing we did was set up our tents. And then we got our patrol gear from the trailer. We as a troop set up at a decent speed so we arrived at the Bull Run Public Shooting center right on schedule.
When we arrived we started off going over to some picnic tables near the parking lot and we ate our lunches. Also some scouts ran around while others finished their lunches. After that the scouts who knew how to shoot went straight to the wobble, while everyone else (including me) went to the learn to shoot.
Our instructor at the learn to shoot name was Geoff Leighton. He was funny and he had a British accent just like William F. He taught us about all the different types of shotgun shells and showed us how to load and shoot a shotgun. Then we all got to have a turn firing a shotgun at clay pigeons. Well we were waiting in line to shoot, some scouts developed a knack for collecting shells and they raced to see who would grab the shell first once it popped out of the gun. Once we had all finished shooting some people went up to the wobble and some stayed down by the learn to shoot and fired in the booths around there. 2 hours later were all done shooting and we had to get back to our campsite.
The second we got back we had to start cooking because it would be dark soon. My patrol was going to make quesadillas but we forgot the tortillas so we improvised. We had so many leftover buns from our lunch sandwiches we just traded some stuff for some of the Scorpions steak and had cheeseburgers. Just saying the Scorpions steak was the spiciest thing I have tried ever. They put so many spices on it.
Later that night once all the cooking and cleaning was done we had a campfire, which was nice because it was a really cold night. To start it off we had a few cheesy skits like usual and then Mr.Reinke and told some funny stories. After all that we finally went to bed.
The next morning was pretty uneventful. We woke up, cooked, than cleaned. Once all our duties were done we had a short service and then we got in our cars and we left.
I really liked this outing and I will definitely do it next year. I liked I so much I got my Dad to take me to shoot again during thanksgiving break. It was just a great outing.
Alex B.
Historian
Bucks Patrol
On the campout of November, we went to Camp Snyder and Bull Run. After waking up at 5:30, we got ready and headed to the church. We got our car assignments and we were off to a great start. I slept the whole car ride because of waking up so early! When we got there we all got to work setting up our tents. When we were done we started to get our stuff for the awesome, main event: shotgun shooting at Bull Run. Before the shooting we had a great lunch consisting of bread, ham, turkey and cheese with fruit punch on the side.
After lunch, we gathered our waters, safety glasses and earplugs and some of us had guns too! We went and I did the learn to shoot program. That was super fun, but I was last in line, so I didn’t shoot for a while. The sharks collectively did well in learning to shoot, but in the competition, we tied for 7th place against my brother’s patrol, the scorpions. When we got back, we were all tired, but there was so much to do because it was only 3:00! So in the blink of an eye, we were starting to cook dinner. We had really good pasta with sauce and corn with bread. Everyone helped to cleanup and that went quickly.
After that we had a fun campfire. Our skit was the WW2 skit of which I had never heard of so it was funny to me. After a few jokes from Mr. Reinke, we went to sleep. The following morning we immediately went to cook breakfast. We cooked VERY slowly, but we finally got there and Brandon, Alex, and I did the three pot method. We finished and went to pack up our tents and we took a while on that too, me being the last one. We finally were done and we rushed to the pack line and did a police line. After that we went to do our duty to God and we were off. I think it was an amazing trip and I really want to go next year.
Nick H.
Acting Historian
Sharks Patrol
