CHILDERSBURG – Harley Terry started shooting rifles when he was 4 years old, but had to beg his dad to let him start shooting skeet. “I used to shoot rifles a lot and I kept begging my dad to let me shoot skeet and he kept saying no,” Terry said Saturday. “But one day he got tired of me begging and so he said I could shoot one time. I came back and I had shot a 20 my first time.”
The 12-year-old from Mobile was just one of the nearly 90 people competing in the Heart of Dixie shoot at Red Eagle Gun Club in Childersburg this weekend. Terry shot 89 of 100 targets with a 12-gauge shotgun and 86 of 100 targets with a 20-gauge shotgun on Saturday at Red Eagle.
Red Eagle club member John McGilberry said young people like Terry are the future of the sport of skeet shooting. The club, which has been based in Childersburg since 1981, hopes to attract more young people to the sport. The event held this weekend brought competitors from all over the southeast to Childersburg for the largest shoot in Alabama.
“Friday we had doubles shooting,” McGilberry said. “Doubles is a very hard game. You don’t have a lot of shooters. Normally you have less than maybe 40 shooters in the state shoot doubles. This year we made a record of 71 shooters, which is quite a jump especially when you talk about economic times like we have. Right now this is the largest shoot in Alabama, right here in Childersburg.”
The three-day event, which ends today, features some of the best skeet shooters in the southeast, and high fuel prices didn’t stop them from traveling a long way.
“There are people here from all over,” McGilberry said. “We’ve got people here from Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana…the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee. We’ve got one individual from Texas who is originally from England.”
The event didn’t feature a novice in the bunch. Top scores on Saturday were in the 96-100 range depending on the classification.
“You get top shooters from all over right here,” McGilberry said. “This shoot does not attract the novice. This shoot attracts the people who have been shooting a long time.”
Red Eagle is a private club, but the shooting range is open to the public. And members like McGilberry and trap shooting specialist Jim Jackson look forward to welcoming new members to the club.
“We are open to the public,” McGilberry said. “We have a private membership, but we run a public shooting facility.
“You can tell we’re a growing club because of the number of young people we have.
When I first started shooting I was like 23 and it was an old men’s club. Slowly what’s happening is it’s transitioning to young people, ladies and everybody.
“We’ve got one lady out here with us who was an All-American at one time. Debbie Pickens, she’s a fantastic shot. She always competes very high.”
While the Heart of Dixie event this weekend featured skeet shooting, Jackson said the club plans to host trap shooting events next year.
“We’re trying to develop the program,” he said. “We’re adding some additional equipment to the club to expand so that we can have registered shoots here. We plan to do that next year beginning in February.”
Both McGilberry and Jackson said the sport of skeet and trap shooting is an activity most people can participate in regardless of age, gender or disability.
“Unlike a lot of sports like baseball or football where once you get old you can’t do it, this sport you can do from the age of 8 to 98,” McGilberry said. “This is a sport you can do for a lifetime. All of this is handicap-friendly. If you’ve got desire you can do it.”
Red Eagle will host a few more big events before the year ends. The state skeet shooting championship as well as the state disabled sportsman championship will be held in Childersburg in the coming months.
The Heart of Dixie event wraps up today with competitors shooting targets with 28-gauge and .410-gauge shotguns.
