St. Dials, Monmouth 100 ESP - 23rd Oct 2016

Decided to have a trek across the border this morning to meet up with me old mucker Gareth Jones aka Shortlegs. The usual friendly welcome from NIgel and his team at St. Dials awaited us, and a bacon butty was consumed. (By the way the grub is great at St. Dials and value for money)

The usual shooting chatter prior to heading out was alive and well, with Julian Morris on good form. I commented to Nigel on the warm welcome and he said the targets may not be as warm with his usual chuckle.

The course itself was testing (for me anyway) with a great number of big names trying their luck. Some great crossers, loopers and battues to suit all standards, but had to be worked for. No gimmee stands in my opinion apart from maybe stand 10 across the track. The event was squaded, which run like clockwork for us and yes, with no breakdowns. Well done Nige, your getting the hang of it.

A well attended shoot with over 70 entries I believe. Great company and £36 to shoot comp, brilliant value compared to some places. Worth the drive from the Cotswolds to shoot this venue.         If you are ever in the area and the shoot is on, give it a go. Be interesting to see how the scores end up today with the likes of Dorian, Clynt, Carl Bloxham, John Kendall and Martin Myers, plus others out on the course.

Stew

Thanks for making the trip over Stew and enjoyed your company as always along with the rest of our squad. Good to see Flood defence from here and have a bit of fluffy rabbits with him when he was waiting to start.

 I have to agree great value shoot £36 for comp and Nigel's comments were founded with a great course of targets to challenge all classes and abilities and think it was a shoot where class average could be shot across the board and it will be interesting to see the full results, stand one left to right crosser going over the big tree with on report teal starting about 30yds away and screaming but all hit-able and  stand two with the low fast orange and the big battue crossing down the hedge were just the start, the tricky sim pair out over the valley on up through the wood to some really testing stuff on the bank and in the lane. Great course where all the targets needed respect or they cost you dearly and very easy to drop two or three targets a stand or more, the stand over the lane still haunting me  :hunter: :banghead:   Great to see a good turn out to support Nigel as he works hard to try to strike the right balance of targets to suit all and thanks again for coming over to support as I think we all need to support as many grounds as we can or run the risk of loosing them.

Shorty 

Scores attached. Thanks Gareth Jones.

View attachment St Dials23rd Oct2016sheet1.pdf

Ouch... looks like a toughie. Did well there Stew.