Bisley 200 Weekend 2022 – Day 1 – Bisley Gun Club 30/7/22

Now logically, you would think that a cloudy sky would make some difference to the temperature at ground level – but not today!

On top of that, the first day of my title defence hasn’t quite gone to plan.

Conditions were about 26 degrees and very humid, with similar levels of discomfort forecast for tomorrow. Despite the cloud, it’s been a very bright day. The question, “what lens colour are you going to use?” was going around the car park, with nobody really sure what would work best for them.

I opted for purples, just to cut down the amount of glare and make seeing more comfortable. They deaden the background a bit, but don’t do anything to enhance the orange of the target for me, so I only use them for very bright days. The lack of sun made them a less than ideal choice, but with my usual reds causing just a little too much strain, purples it was.

The first half was pretty decent, two rounds of 25/74 actually putting me in the lead at the halfway stage.

My significant opposition had mixed fortunes. Martin Jeminson had a bit of a rocky start, dropping 6 points in his first round, but then digging in with a 25/75 in his second.

Steve Janes was also divided on what lens colour to use. The one he settled on wasn’t quite what he needed, and while chipping his way through his first round, a target that he didn’t see properly managed to get away from him altogether.

Steve did what Steve does though, and after a quick lens change before his second round, he set about blowing everything up in clouds of smoke.

I barrelled one early in my third round which put me back level with Steve, but then, annoyingly, one managed to get away entirely. And then another one needed the second shot to get the job done.

It’s a 2 day competition though, and there was a long way to go, but I’d just given myself a very big hill to climb.

Martin was also finding Bisley targets a little tricky, and by now he was 4 points behind me.

Steve was still making his own smoke screen, and really should be reported for extreme cruelty to clay targets! Apart from that miss in the first round, he stormed through the rest without dropping a single point to finish on 99/297, even though he’s suffering with some quite bad back pain.

Very well shot Steve, and enjoy your overnight lead!

Another miss and barrel from me in my last round swiftly turned that hill of mine into Kilimanjaro!

I’m sharing overall 2nd with Harry Lufflum on 98/289, which is far from a bad result, but I’ll need something very special to happen tomorrow to close an 8 point gap and more to retain the shield.

Above and below - the evidence of Steve's outstanding performance today!

Martin dropped a few more points and finished on a day one score of 285, definitely not what he wanted from his first visit to Bisley!

As I said just now though, it’s a 2 day competition, and anything can happen. I’ve been in similar positions before and seen bizarre things occur, so I'm certainly not giving way without a hard fight!