Oley Valley Fish & Game Informal Shoot (December 2011)

Earlier this month I came across a thread on the PAFOA Forums announcing another informal shoot being held at Oley Valley Fish & Game. I enjoyed myself at the last one and thought I’d sign up and shoot once again.

This time around conditions were less than ideal and I wound up chilled to the bone. When I left my house, wearing a sweatshirt, I thought it was a bit chilly but assumed it would warm up as the day went on. To my surprise, when I got on the other side of the mountain, there was a half inch of snow on the ground.

I spent most of the shoot with my hands tucked inside my pockets in an attempt to keep the feeling in my fingers. Needless to say, I was grossly unprepared for the cold and had to tough it out the best I could.

The first stage consisted of shooting a few rounds from the hip, then taking a shot using the sights. I did rather poorly shooting from the hip but had well placed shots when aiming. The video shows a fair amount of this type of shooting and I edited out even more (I didn’t find it very exciting, and I was there, so I assumed you saw enough).

The later stages involved some twenty-five yard shots and shots while moving. I wasn’t shooting full speed since the courses of fire were small and choppy (we took a few shots, stopped, and walked to another area to start the cycle over again).

Despite being cold, I had fun. One of the interesting things about these informal shoots is that we always wind up shooting in a manner that I’m not accustomed to (Shooting from prone, shooting from the hip, etc).