I recently got this email from Steve Watkins who is a good friend and the Director of Ranch Life at the Rhodeheaver Boys Ranch. Steve is an avid shooter and retired Navy aviator. He is like the Executive Officer at the Ranch. Those of you who are former military understand what that entails. For those of you who are not that means he is second in charge and all the details fall to him. It is a really big job. Of all the different hats Steve wears I think the one he enjoys the most is being in charge of the Shooting Sports Safety program we run at the Ranch. With me living so far away I am only able to help with support and in an advisory capacity except for the one week a year I am able to visit. Steve has done a fantastic job with the program. Recently some of the boys were able to go to South Carolina for a management deer hunt. Here is the e-mail:
Dwight,
The boys and staff returned Sunday afternoon from the annual deer hunting trip to the Bitter End Plantation in Ridgeland, S.C. We sent 12 boys this year and each had an adult guide. However, the hunt is for thinning the doe population as part of the management program at the Bitter End and only the boys are allowed to shoot. Six of the boys bagged a deer and they brought five of them home ( the whole ranch had venison for supper last night).
The work on the range paid off for the boys. Everyone that had an opportunity to take a deer took full advantage. Unfortunately, some of the guys did not see a deer the whole weekend.
Here's a short breakdown of the success stories:
Melvin-He used a borrowed 30-30 because we did not have quite enough youth cut rifles to go around and the Marlin was the best fit. You know Melvin, he said "one shot, it dropped".
Eddie-He's a very good shot and took his deer with the Rem. 700 in 30.06.
Brian-This kid has great potential as a shooter. He was the most impressive on the range and was dead on with the Rem. 700 in .270.
Quinton-A miracle! He saw so many deer and took so many shots the he finally hit one. He used the Youth Ruger 77 in .243 Win.
Corey-This was his second year in a row taking a deer. He's a small guy and uses Cathy's Youth Model 7 in .243.
Paul-He used a borrowed youth cut .243 from one of the folks that came down from Tennessee. He's another good shooter.
Joe-He is a good shot and was set up with the Ruger .308 but never saw a deer from his stand.
Overall a great weekend. We have a pretty young group on the ranch this year and only two of the twelve were high school age. All the others were middle school kids and most required youth length-of-pull to shoot well. Luckily we were able to borrow what we needed and the boys had a great time.
Thanks for the support. You know how much we appreciate what you do for the boys and the ranch shooting program.
Steve
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Just a note, right now the Shooting program has 4 centerfire rifles.
2 Rem. 700 adl's - .270 and a 30-06 with 3x9 scopes and 2 Ruger model 77's in youth cut, .243 and 308 with I think 3x Weavers.
Also we have 2 Savage MLII's. One with a scope and one with irons. Steve is still working with the Savage ML II's and maybe next year some of the boys will get to try their hand deer hunting with them. I talked to Steve on the phone the other day and we decided that we are gonna buy 3 more youth cut rifles. As many of you older hands on the board know, Savage Arms recently committed to helping the Rhodeheaver Boys Ranch shooting program by allowing us to purchase guns direct from them for a greatly reduced cost. Randy Wakeman had a big hand in bringing that support in, thanks RW. After discussing the situation with Steve, we decided to buy 3 of the youth package guns. Here is a link to what we are buying :http://www.savagearms.com/11fyxp3.htm
We decided to buy two in .243 and one in .223 . We hope to purchase more in .243 in the future probably two more. We decided to get one in .223 as a training rifle since ammo was cheap and many of the smaller guys could learn on this one at the range throughout the year. We can get these packages for about half of suggested retail. If anybody wants to help out just send me a pm. Thanks Rifleman
Dwight,
The boys and staff returned Sunday afternoon from the annual deer hunting trip to the Bitter End Plantation in Ridgeland, S.C. We sent 12 boys this year and each had an adult guide. However, the hunt is for thinning the doe population as part of the management program at the Bitter End and only the boys are allowed to shoot. Six of the boys bagged a deer and they brought five of them home ( the whole ranch had venison for supper last night).
The work on the range paid off for the boys. Everyone that had an opportunity to take a deer took full advantage. Unfortunately, some of the guys did not see a deer the whole weekend.
Here's a short breakdown of the success stories:
Melvin-He used a borrowed 30-30 because we did not have quite enough youth cut rifles to go around and the Marlin was the best fit. You know Melvin, he said "one shot, it dropped".
Eddie-He's a very good shot and took his deer with the Rem. 700 in 30.06.
Brian-This kid has great potential as a shooter. He was the most impressive on the range and was dead on with the Rem. 700 in .270.
Quinton-A miracle! He saw so many deer and took so many shots the he finally hit one. He used the Youth Ruger 77 in .243 Win.
Corey-This was his second year in a row taking a deer. He's a small guy and uses Cathy's Youth Model 7 in .243.
Paul-He used a borrowed youth cut .243 from one of the folks that came down from Tennessee. He's another good shooter.
Joe-He is a good shot and was set up with the Ruger .308 but never saw a deer from his stand.
Overall a great weekend. We have a pretty young group on the ranch this year and only two of the twelve were high school age. All the others were middle school kids and most required youth length-of-pull to shoot well. Luckily we were able to borrow what we needed and the boys had a great time.
Thanks for the support. You know how much we appreciate what you do for the boys and the ranch shooting program.
Steve
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a note, right now the Shooting program has 4 centerfire rifles.
2 Rem. 700 adl's - .270 and a 30-06 with 3x9 scopes and 2 Ruger model 77's in youth cut, .243 and 308 with I think 3x Weavers.
Also we have 2 Savage MLII's. One with a scope and one with irons. Steve is still working with the Savage ML II's and maybe next year some of the boys will get to try their hand deer hunting with them. I talked to Steve on the phone the other day and we decided that we are gonna buy 3 more youth cut rifles. As many of you older hands on the board know, Savage Arms recently committed to helping the Rhodeheaver Boys Ranch shooting program by allowing us to purchase guns direct from them for a greatly reduced cost. Randy Wakeman had a big hand in bringing that support in, thanks RW. After discussing the situation with Steve, we decided to buy 3 of the youth package guns. Here is a link to what we are buying :http://www.savagearms.com/11fyxp3.htm
We decided to buy two in .243 and one in .223 . We hope to purchase more in .243 in the future probably two more. We decided to get one in .223 as a training rifle since ammo was cheap and many of the smaller guys could learn on this one at the range throughout the year. We can get these packages for about half of suggested retail. If anybody wants to help out just send me a pm. Thanks Rifleman
