The Estevan Oilfield Technical Society (OTS) is adding to the fleet of events it offers for those in the oilpatch.
The OTS will host the inaugural Top Gun trap shooting event on April 16 at the Estevan Wildlife Federation’s shooting range.
Jordon Blanchette, who the chairperson of the committee for the event, said the OTS is looking for something for those who work in the patch, since they haven’t been able to host their annual curling event since 2019, and their golf event in 2020 was one day instead of three.
“With COVID, everybody’s pretty antsy and trying to get out and do something, so we thought we would try trap shooting,” said Blanchette.
To meet current COVID-19 restrictions, there will be people staggered throughout the premises. Five people will be in a group, and they will go to four different shooting stations.
Dinner will be served to the competitors.
The process will continue until everyone has gone through the different stations.
“We’re cycling everyone through, cleaning everything, doing everything that we need to so that nobody gets in trouble and nobody gets sick,” said Blanchette.
There will also be people present who know how to run a trap shooting event.
“We have a lot of people who are trained in scoring and teaching this, and a lot of veteran shooters that are going to be there from the trap club and the Estevan Wildlife Federation to make sure that nothing crazy happens. Everything that we can do is going to be covered.”
Rene Meek and Reg King from the trap-shooting club have been helping out and have been really good to deal with, Blanchette said.
Interest in the event has been very high. Some people have already registered and lots of people have been calling to find out the details.
And while there are some people who have used firearms in the past, others will be handling a shotgun for the first time. There won’t be prizes for the top finishers.
“I think a lot of people have done this before, just in the back-40 or off a tailgate or something like that, and once you shoot one and you miss, you don’t want to miss again so it turns pretty competitive, even if it is just you and there are no prizes. It could be a shot to your ego pretty quick if you miss the first five or the first six.”
He expects this will also appeal to those in the patch who aren’t golfers or curlers.
They have had very good support from corporate sponsors, and Blanchette it’s good to see Estevan supporting the OTS.
Blanchette hopes Top Gun will draw good support and this can become an annual event in the community.
