A couple of encounters with a Mythical Beast- The Dreaded Sandbagger!
It was a fresh Spring day with comfortably cool temperatures, abundant sunshine and minimal winds, ideal conditions for breaking good scores in all events.
We were engaged in a typical 300 target program, singles first followed by handicap and finishing with doubles. For some unknown reason attendance was actually a little low for that club and that time of the year with 50 some entries in the singles and caps and 20ish participating in the twins.
The singles and handicap events were shot over 4 traps at 25 each.
The singles event completed with the expected results. Three shooters had hammered the 100 (Big Dan Dedionisio, Shawn Kirsch and Alan Morgan) with several other big numbers for the class and category wins.
Handicap is where the Creature emerged. “Speedy” (22 or 23 yd shooter) had broken a 24 on the first box. As he and one of his running mates were headed for the next trap he was overheard saying that there wasn’t enough money there to take a punch that day. With that, he dropped three on the next trap. On the way to the 3rd field, he again mentioned to his friend that just a few more and he’d be out of contention to gain yardage.
Now, there were a couple of other shooters on that squad that took exception to him bragging about intentionally missing targets.
They took the line for the 3rd box. “Speedy” appeared to miss one on his first post. When the scorekeeper call lost, one of the guys that overheard “Speedy” say that he wasn’t going to take a punch that day called the target dead. The correction was made on the scoresheet and they continued.
After moving to the next post, “Speedy” again appeared to miss a target. Again the other shooter called it dead and his friend also claimed a visible piece had come off the target. This continued for the remainder of that box. On post 5, “Speedy” even tried swinging left on a hard right angle target. This target too ended up being recorded as dead.
They completed the event showing good ol’ “Speedy” breaking the last 50 for a 96 and a punch for the event…………
Immediately after he put his gun in his vehicle he stormed into the building and approached the shoot manager demanding to know “who was the guy shooting lead off” on his squad. The shoot manager asked him if there was a problem. What was good ol’ “Speedy gonna do, tell them the guy called targets dead that he had tried to miss on purpose? Justice served.
………………………………………………………………………
Another shooter we’ll call Bill B. carried a strong (high 98/99%) singles average in the County summer trap league. His thing was he also shot registered targets and seemed to be glued to the 20 yard line.
Bill B. would participate in Calcutta’s and also play the 25 and 50 options in the handicap events. Several of the local clubs also offered a combined singles and handicap option that our boy Bill would enter.
He would typically sign up on a later squad to see what scores were being shot. He was a master at “target management” and would have strategic misses. Bill usually collected place money in the Calcutta and received payout for the available options. He was able to do this without gaining yardage.
Of course this got the attention of several people and there were complaints made. His notoriety spread.
Karma finally caught up with him when he attended one of the larger sanctioned events. He had bragged that he intended to clean house in the handicap event.
He went to the classification table. Here is where it bit him. Bill B. handed his paper card to the man that happened to be the State Delegate at the time. The Delegate happened to live in the same county as Bill and was fully aware of his exploits. Cha ching, cha ching, cha ching, the Delegate punched every hole in Bill’s card out all the way to the 27. Known ability. Justice served again.
We all know there are a few that have successfully played the Sandbagger game. From what I’ve seen though they are few, very few. Pay to miss targets? You’ll typically spend more than you’ll make doing that. Besides that, they get to the premier events and the Big Boys eat their lunch for them.
See you next time wherever it is. Travel Safe! Dan
I will be at the Dixie next week. We’ll pick this back up after that.