It was very encouraging for the club to see new and returning shooters visit during the first memorial shoot of the year, where hard-working and well respected past member Leigh Pateman was remembered.

Event One was a 25 Target Handicap event in memory of Leigh and with four of the forty shooters managing 25 out of 25 a shoot-off was required to sort out the prizes.

Peter Southwell (19m), Ray Kearns (19m), Phil Wales (24m) and Matt Gerstenberg (24m) revisited the layout and after a brief shoot-off, Phil claimed victory with a score of 32/32.

Ray Kearns claimed second place with 31/32 and Matt Gerstenberg filled third place with a solid score of 30/31. Sadly for birthday boy Peter Southwell, an early stumble saw him miss out on a podium finish.

The win for Phil now sees him obtain the maximum 25m handicap mark. Leigh’s son John Pateman was on hand to present the Perpetual Shield to Phil for his efforts.

It was also great to see John find the time to shoot the last two events of the day and we now hope to see him return for some of our future shoots.

Canberra based shooter Willo Cameron out-shot everyone with a score of 149/150 in the Point Score event.

An indication of visiting shooters was truly evident with eight of the nine placings in the Point Score event being taken out by visiting shooters with Kim Turner the only Yass member flying the flag with a C Grade win.

The final 25 Target Single Barrel event saw Dave Crane skin AA Grade with the only possible of 25/25.

Another six shooters had to revisit the trap to shoot-off for the remaining grades with Yass shooters Giulio Serafin and John Fleming victorious along with first-time visiting shooter Bryan Brooke from Tumut.

Dave Crane was rewarded with High Gun after shooting some great scores throughout the day.

The club now looks forward to welcoming everyone back for its next competition in March for some Continental, Double Rise and Dopey Doubles action.

Sunday's event was preceded by further success for members of Yass Clay Target Club, who had been busy in the last week or so chalking up solid wins and placings both locally and offshore.

Paul, Trina and Giulio all shot extremely well at Tumut’s February competition bringing home High Gun, Overall and Grade prizes while Phil paid a visit to Norfolk Island and snuck some prizes back through customs and past the sniffer dogs.