COLERAINE Field and Game will host its first national title this weekend in a big boost for the club.
The titles will be held at Tahara Recreation Reserve with the SXS Nationals set to attract up to 300 shooters across the two-day event.
Club president, Scott Kinnealy said it was a big task, but was excited to see how it goes.
“I don’t think it has ever been done before to run two 100-target days, usually it is two 75 days,” he said.
“We hope to get up to 200 shooters a day, if we get 300 plus shooters over the weekend, it will be really good.”
The Under-Over is scheduled for Saturday and the side-by-side event is Sunday with around 40,000 clay targets expected to be used during the event.
There are plenty of prizes up for grabs, including a $1200 under-over shotgun for the junior door prize.
“We have got over $20,000 worth of prizes including four guns and probably up to $8000 worth of ammo alone,” Kinnealy said.
The date was nominated last September and planning has been happening since with the event set to run with plenty of variation.
Shooters will have 25-target rounds over seven different stands with two or three different traps at each stand.
“They will vary from normal, incomers to batters to rolling rabbits and overheads,” Kinnealy said.
“So they will be all different targets from all different angles.”
The boost for the local community was also a positive with the events running from AA grade down to C grade and also including veterans, ladies and juniors.
“They are going to bring in a lot of money into Hamilton and then there is the speedway on Sunday, so a couple of them will go there after they have finished shooting,” Kinnealy said.
“It drags in a lot of money.
“Spectators can come and have a look, we will have barbecues set up and we will have a good time.”
The shoots get underway at 9am today and 8am tomorrow with near perfect conditions expected.
“The weather looks promising, the wind will change the targets a bit, but looks like they will be nice calm days and it should be pretty pleasant,” Kinnealy said.
