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6th Annual Harry Michelson Memorial Skeet Tournament

St. Joe Valley Conservation Club had the honor of hosting the 6th annual Harry Michelson Memorial skeet tournament. Memorial weekend was the perfect time to honor one of our WWII heroes.

Mike Schmidt – 2nd, Owen Knight – HOA, Bruce Christian – 3rd, Sandy Michelson

Harry Michelson was a decorated WWII pilot, lifelong NSSA member and Chief Referee for many years. Harry’s daughter Sandy continues her father’s legacy by sponsoring this tournament each year in his honor at St. Joe Valley Conservation Club.

We had 54 registered shooters for the Memorial weekend event. Friday was a beautiful day to begin the tournament, starting with doubles in the afternoon. Alan Ferrell was the only shooter to run the board with a 100 straight. Mike Schmidt, Owen Knight and Kyle Krispin were in the shoot-offs with 98’s. Mike Schmidt was runner-up and Owen Knight was third.

Saturday morning began with the National Anthem, followed by “Back Home in Indiana.” The 12-gauge event produced some very good scores. Bruce Christian, Mark Presnell and Jack Krispin each posted 100 straights. Bruce Christian prevailed in the shoot-off to win the 12-gauge event. Mark Presnell was runner-up and Jack Krispin third.

The 20-gauge event continued with some very good shooting. Nic Shiveley, Mike Schmidt, Owen Knight and Kyle Krispin all shot 100 straights, setting up a four-man shoot-off, with Nic Shiveley the last man standing. Mike Schmidt was runner-up and Owen Knight third.

Sunday morning brought the possibilities of some rain showers and storms later in the day. In the 28-gauge event, Owen Knight and Jack Krispin were the only ones to shoot 100’s. Andrew Winders, Mike Schmidt, Jason Johnson and Al Magyar were in the shoot-offs with 99’s. Owen Knight won his shoot-off against Jack Krispin for first place, and Andrew Winders won his shoot-off to place third.

By afternoon, the weather was changing with a storm front moving in. Bruce Christian posted the highest score in the .410 event, a 99. Owen Knight, Ken Ford and Mike Schmidt each shot 98 to go into the shoot-offs. Bruce Christian was first, Owen Knight second and Ken Ford third.

Owen Knight was HOA with a 397, Mike Schmidt was runner-up with 396 and Bruce Christian third with 395.

The rain and storms held off for the shoot-offs. By the time the volunteers had the fields closed down and equipment under roof, the storms moved in.

Big thanks to all the volunteers who had the fields looking great, the volunteers that worked the weekend to load and adjust machines, and the volunteers that worked in the kitchen to provide food and refreshments. A very big thanks to Sandy Michelson for her generosity and her support. Sandy was in attendance every day to support and help anyway she could.

The Harry Michelson Memorial Shoot is scheduled for May 2025, so mark your calendars.

– Contributed by Ted Nussbaum

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Photo Gallery: Krieghoff Classic 200

South Florida Shooting Club hosted more than 200 shooters at the Krieghoff Classic 200 on February 4-6. NSCA member Johnathan D. Evans not only shot clays at the event but also shot a large number of photos at the scenic club. He has generously shared them with us, and we’re sharing some of them with you.

You’ll see more of them in the magazine over the coming months.

Click on any thumbnail below to open the gallery and scroll through larger images. Enjoy!

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Send Us Your Shoot Wrap-ups and News

Submit stories

With our new magazine format and website, NSSA-NSCA has the opportunity to include reports from many of your shoots, along with photos. While we will have writers covering the largest of sporting clays and skeet events, we’d love to recognize some of those that we won’t be covering ourselves.

If you participated in an event, especially if you shot high-quality photos, you are invited to send us a shoot wrap-up.

We will be including some shoot reports in our printed magazine, some on ClayTargetNation.com, and some in both places. We also expect – especially when there’s a good selection of photos – to use some abbreviated wrap-ups in the magazine with a link to a longer article and photo gallery on the website.

In addition to shoot wrap-ups, we’d like to hear about other important news, especially perfect scores and other reasons that warrant kudos.

While we do not expect our members to be professional writers and photographers, we’ve compiled some pointers that will help you submit your best material, increase its likelihood of being published, and help us process it efficiently. Here are some points to keep in mind:

    • Be timely. Plan to write your article as soon as possible following the event. With magazine content deadlines about two months before the cover date, a long delay in submitting your news will make it out-of-date before it can be published.
    • Include the basics. Cover all the basic W’s: who, what, when, where, why. We do not have staff to do additional research, so we must depend on you for all the facts.
    • Get the facts correct. Make sure the winners are listed right, names spelled correctly, full name of the club given, etc.
    • Writing tips. Write your article first, then give it a title. When starting with a title, many people tend to treat it as a first sentence and leave out important facts from the actual first paragraph. Also, write in third-person (he, she, they) rather than first-person (I, we). Please, no inside jokes that most readers won’t understand. Write it as a reporter rather than a participant, assuming the reader knows only what you are telling them.
    • Shoot high-resolution digital photos. Shoot and send us photos in the highest possible resolution or largest size your camera allows. If they are not high-res, they probably won’t make the cut for the print magazine but may be suitable for ClayTargetNation.com. Sorry, we cannot accept photo prints.
    • Plan photography in advance. Consider having a professional photographer or an accomplished hobbyist to photograph important events. If possible, write captions or identify the people in the photos. On the website, we can create photo galleries, so if you have lots of good ones, it’s fine to send as many as you’d like. If you didn’t shoot the photos, be sure to tell us who did so we can give them credit.
    • Email it to us. Send us the story, photos, and any additional information in one email to CTN@nssa-nsca.com, with the name of the shoot in the subject line. If attaching large photos requires multiple emails, send as many as you need to but please be sure the shoot name is in the subject line of each. Because of the volume of email we receive, it’s easy to get materials mixed up if they aren’t properly labeled. If you have large files and have access to Dropbox, you may share your materials with skerr@nssa-nsca.com.
    • Include contact info. Always include the name and email address of the person submitting the information and who reported the event, if it’s different. We may need to contact you with a follow-up question, and we want to credit the person providing the material.

Submissions will be edited. Please be aware that we will edit your submissions to present them in the best way possible, as well as for space considerations. Also, we cannot promise that every submission will be published, although it is our hope to use as many as possible.

We look forward to receiving and publishing your shoot coverage, photos, and news! Contact us at CTN@nssa-nsca.com with any questions and your contributions.