Early on a cold Saturday morning on March 31, about 25 scouts and some dads headed out to the private shooting club in upstate New York called the Tamarack Shooting Reserve.  It took about an hour to get to the reserve, so we arrived around 9 a.m. and split up into 6 groups of 4 to 5 scouts.

There were 6 or 7 instructors that taught us how to shoot 22 caliber rifles and shotguns and how to handle them safely.  The instructors also launched the clays for the shotgun shooting and reloaded the rifles for us.  There were many different shotgun stations, one rifle station and one archery station.  In the afternoon the club provided lunch for us in the fancy dining room.

After lunch the groups split up again and completed those stations that they hadn’t visited in the morning.  When we were finished with shooting for the day we hiked to our campsite to set up for the night.  The hike was just about a mile and a little muddy.  After we set up our tents, some of the troop went for a nature walk, while the other half of the troop finished up their shotgun and rifle shooting merit badge with Mr. Crinieri.   As the sun was setting after dinner some boys played man-hunt and some tried to start a fire for roasting marshmallows.  We all sat around the campfire and told bad jokes and had s’mores until bedtime.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, packed up all of the tents and our gear and hiked back to the club again.  We picked up where we left off the day before and shot until lunch.  Tamarack was lots of fun and many of us think it is one of the best trips.

 

Anthony Crinieri