Moulton Gun Club foregoes annual shoot

MOULTON — For the first time in 86 years, Moulton Gun Club members will ring in the new year without clay pigeons and gunfire. This would have been the 86th year for the club’s New Years Day Clay Pigeon Shoot, canceled by the coronavirus.

The Moulton Gun Club has a long history of being part of the community.

“It started back in the 30s with the Moulton Gun Club formed with groups of farmers, sportsmen and neighbors,” member and former Game Warden David Sheets said. “There wasn’t much to do 80 some years ago in Auglaize County.”

He said the annual shoot started as a social event as it was one of the few forms of entertainment aside from church and the movie theater.

“They would come together and shoot,” he said. “Farmers would butcher a pig and cut it into portions.”

Up until this point, they incorporated food into the shoot. Later they would make sausage and shoot for sausage portions.

Eventually that process was turned over to Kah Meats as members aged.

“To me it’s always been a family affair. There would be shooters, wives, kids, along with other members and their families,” Sheets said. “They would provide free sausage sandwiches at the event as a way to give back to the members.

“An American tradition in the countryside is you got to eat sausage and sauerkraut on New Years Day. Everybody would enjoy that,” Sheets said

He estimates that 150 to 160 shooters participated last year, but about 200 to 300 people stopped by to shoot during the event. Because of the pandemic this year, they opted to take the necessary precaution.

“We couldn’t take a chance; it’s getting worse here in Auglaize County. It was voted on that we skip it this year, and be back in 2022,” Sheets said. “You can’t put that many people inside and outside and do it safely.”

He said ages ago the club would have met at the Moulton School on a baseball field or in a woods area near Washington Pike and Bay Road to shoot. The club built its own building in the 1950s.

Hunting is a long-held tradition in the area. Sheets said people have hunted for deer, rabbits, foxes, pheasants and turkey in the county.

“The outdoors was important to the people of Auglaize County,” Sheets said, recalling he helped stock turkeys in Auglaize County in the early 2000s.

He said Auglaize remains a farm community, although there is significant industry present.

Family dues with the club are only $30 a year, although on Wednesday nights, from April to September, the facility is open to the public.

Memberships can be obtained through Berlet Farm Service.

Membership a few years back hit a high of about 400 people, although right now they have about 260 to 275 members.