by JoelG and JeffH
The following questions were asked of Joel G to help us all have insight into what it is like to shoot at the top levels of World Federation Field Target (WFTF).
Joel placed 3rd in the Springer division at the World Field Target Championship held in mid-August in Armaugh Northern Ireland where he became the highest ever placing Canadian shooter.
JeffH: would you share some thoughts about what it was like to start the final day of shooting at the top of the leader board and end in a shoot off?
JoelG: I started day 3 tied for first place overall for springer class with Jan Homan. Immediately following the shoot on day 3, one of my other shooting partners turned and said to me “Looks like we are tied…Not sure what we are tied for though”. After asking around, as we waited for scores to be tallied, we realized that we were at least inside of the top 5 overall.
Once the score totals started coming in we were told that we were in a shoot-off for 3rd & 4th place, once this was confirmed I began to mentally prepare for the shoot-off as the last one I was in lasted over 10 minutes, with 6 rounds of off-hand shooting and I was hoping to finish this one without getting into standing shots.
JeffH: Would you walk us through what it was like to be in shoot-off at the Worlds?
JoelG: I waited by myself beside the firing line, mentally preparing and practicing breathing exercises until we were called up to shoot, and after chronographing our guns, we sat at the firing line.
The whistle blew and we each begin our shooting from the seated position with one near (30yd) target and one far (50yd) target.
As I got thru my shot cycle and prepare to take my first shot, I hear the other shooter take his shot, it sounded like a miss, but when I looked over we had both knocked down the first target.
On my second shot, I checked the wind direction/speed by raising the target string under tension and dropping it, I can see a slight right-to-left breeze and begin holding over accordingly.
Just as I am preparing my line-up on target I hear the other shooter release his shot and it was definitely a miss!
I took an extra breath and maintained focus and released my shot…and target goes down!
JeffH: Would you walk us through what you achieved in the shoot off?
JoelG: The immediate result, I secured 3rd place overall in Springer Division.
I was immediately relieved and excited; not only did I avoid a long/positional shoot-out, I achieved my highest world-level overall score and tied my personal best for a single day score at a World Field Target Championship with a 45/50!
This also tied me (again) for the third highest single-day springer score recorded by the WFTF at a WFTC event.
I was so excited by the shootout and following ceremony, I didn’t even consider my score had qualified me for the “WFTF Master” award and it wasn’t until another shooter point this out to me that I realized what I had accomplished with my score.
JeffH: would share with us your general thoughts about preparing for the Worlds and what it meant to you?
JoelG: Sure thing! I’ll break it down into three parts:
- My preparation leading up to WFTC events generally starts 6-8 months prior to the event, with the first 3-4months I target and average of 0.75hr per day of practice, then moving to push for an average of 1.5hr per day in the last 3-4 months. This year presented a couple unique challenges to work through, mainly, the fact that Air Canada went on strike 1 day before my flight to Ireland was supposed to leave. It took me 3 days and nearly 30hrs on the phone to finally find another flight, which resulted in my wife and I racing to get to Toronto air port in time and having to buy an extra set of tickets to secure our flight as there was no service to change over our existing flight. This caused us to land in Ireland Wednesday around 11am, with the Championship starting Thursday at 8am. Thankfully I was able to practice at our AirBNB until dark, but this left me with nerves and jetlag for the first day of the competition I can normally avoid.
- Achieving this score was confirmation I had made progress and the practice had been effective in raising my skills as I had not been to a WFTC since 2019. It was amazing to see this come together and prove I could still compete near the top at a world level, this was both exciting and humbling. I hope this helps to show other Canadians that it is possible to represent our country at a world level and plan to spend the next two years trying to build up our Canadian shooter to give us a great showing at WFTC 2027. I see so many skilled and talented people in our Canadian FT scene, I am excited for what we will be able to show the world!!
- For these other shooters considering shooting at a world level, I would say get out there and practice!! Trigger time is king when it comes to consistency…full stop
JeffH: What parting words would you offer the readers?
JoelG: Absolutely! Here are my learnings from competing at this and multiple other Worlds:
- Spending time to truly know your gun, your scope and how they react to different situations and environments is key.
- Learning how deal with and read the effects of wind is also a very large factor that separates shooters at the top.
- The one thing I wish I would have known starting out is the importance of positional shots,
- I am now quite competent in both standing and kneeling, but it took a number of years to dial these in and for a while, they were noticeably lagging behind my shooting ability when seated.
- Once you reach a certain level, positional lanes and wind basically decide who comes out on top…
- I may have understood this on a basic level, but not to the point that I do today.
