President's Newsletter

May 2025

Well, Spring is in full bloom and I’m behind on this month’s newsletter. Hopefully things will slow down some on my end here soon. Except for fishing….. There’s always time for fishing.

Vale Range:

If you've made a trip out to the range lately, you might’ve noticed some much-needed improvements to the access road. Big shout-out to Alan Montgomery, who stepped up big-time with his dump truck and hauled in 9 loads of road mix. Thank you Alan, it was needed badly. Now that we’ve got material down, I should be able to blade it a couple times a year with the tractor to keep those washboards in check. We also knocked out some weed spraying around the roads, berms, and pistol pits—so we should be in the clear for a while. Thanks again Kerry for maintaining a fantastic range. Between loads of gravel, I spent a couple of days cleaning out the pistol pits with the tractor, I still have 2 more to clean at a later date.

Kerry held his Bang- O- Rama BPCR silhouette match in April. It was a 5-day match with close to 30 shooters from Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Alberta Canada. Over the years this has become a much-anticipated match and very well attended. I heard nothing but compliments on how well run and organized this event was again this year. Kerry arranged for a Boise Youth Trap Club to set targets and their instructor cooked lunches for everyone 4 of the 5 days. How welcoming is that!?

The 22 rimfire match was canceled due to scheduling conflicts with Bang- O Rama. I hope to see everyone next month.

Kerry also ran his short-range benchrest match the first Saturday of April with about a dozen shooters. Another great match—my first go at high-power benchrest. Let’s just say... my new rifle and I are still getting acquainted.

Our new 600-yard Benchrest Director, George Hicks has hit the ground running. I’m soon to attend one of his matches. I’m looking forward to it. Plus, I have a Palma rifle that may work for this with a scope added….

Jim held his practical pistol match in April with 20 shooters. Jim is really growing this discipline, and I hear it is a very good match. Jim also held his first Pistol Caliber Carbine match the Sunday after his pistol match and had 12 shooters come back for that event.

Dave ran his match and gave us the scoop on the new electronic scoring system—once they got the targets braced against the wind, it worked great. This will be shared with the 600 yard benchrest group—no more yanking those heavy targets every shot.

Shotgun:

We have had an eventful month at the shotgun range. We have the new card system up and running and seems to be mostly problem free. We are having an issue with the new Kiosk. We had to pull it off the wall and send it back due to poor workmanship but we will get it sorted out. In the meantime, if you need range cards, reach out to anyone on the board and we’ll get you squared away. Josh was able to get a new gate installed at the top of the hill so that should help some. Please close and lock the gate behind you when you come to use the range during non-match days. We are hopeful that our website will be updated with all the new operating requirements of the new system in June. Our webmaster has been quite busy.

We have a long-time skeet shooter that has joined the club and volunteered to be the much need director of a skeet program. Pat Savage is very well versed in this discipline from all over the country. We are looking forward to a new organized and scheduled event in the near future. Welcome Pat and thank you.

Please note if you have any interest or questions about any of the programs I have discussed you can contact the directors, or any Board Member and we will do our best to answer your inquiries. All our contact information is on our website.

Thanks for sticking with the long update—there’s just been a lot going on!

See you at the range,

Bob Smith

Snake River Sportsmen

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