Hastings shooter keen to display accuracy
Hastings shooter to use Aussie championships to target eye of national selectors
When father Mike Davis first handed son Mitch a shotgun more than a decade ago the youngster didn’t flinch after his maiden shot — he simply stayed calm and reloaded.
That’s because the advice from the senior Davis had hit home with such simplicity that he hasn’t had the urge to put down the shotgun for the want of a better game plan.
“See the target, shoot it,” the Hastings orchardist had told the then 8-year-old as he prepared him to eventually embrace the discipline of hunting.
“It works for me,” says Mitch Davis who jets off as a member of the New Zealand team to compete in the under-21 category of the Australia Clay Target Championship in Brisbane from January 14-20.
The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) trap event at the Aussie nationals classifies under-21 competitors as juniors there whereas it’s under 18 in New Zealand, making Davis a senior.
The 19-year-old says doing well in Brisbane will put him more in the eyes of national selectors here in his bid to represent the country at the Summer Olympics in the ISSF
"I looked at the photos and thought, ‘That would be a pretty cool thing to do’."
single-target event.
“It’s quite challenging because the targets are going about 105 to 106km/h and they can come out at any angle and height,” says Davis of a discipline officially referred to as trap but also known as bunker trap, trench or clay pigeon shooting.
Just as prospective hunters make mental notes on distinguishing the footprints of a fawn from an adult doe or buck, he has progressed in the shooting arena in trying to decipher how long it should take to gauge the pigeon from hold point to break point before squeezing the trigger of his shotgun.
So what was the flutter from the word go?
“It was the thrill of the bang, I guess,” he says, mindful he wasn’t capable of hitting any targets at that age.
“You can’t beat the gunpowder smell.”
His first national honours is the residue of countless hours of practising and competing.
“I’m pretty stoked with the outcome I’ve been trying for a while,” he says after travelling around North Island to qualify for the event, nailing one each in Hamilton and Wellington that mattered.
Davis says shooters derive adrenaline rush from chasing the orange clay pigeon in the blink of an eye in a code where keeping one’s head down is just as important as reminding oneself that it’s not hard to hit the clay pigeon — it’s just too easy to miss them.
With his trusty 12-gauge shotgun, the apprentice builder from Hastings hopes to tame 125 targets in the open class although the final offers another bonus 50 targets if the individual is sharp.
Natalie Rooney won silver medal for New Zealand in the 2016 Rio Olympics in trap shooting to make it a sexy prospect for the likes of Davis to pursue.
Davis appreciates the decadelong path the Timaru Olympian took to find a perch on the podium in Brazil but he’s prepared to put in the hard yards nationally and internationally to see how far he goes.
The Hawke’s Bay Clay Target Shooting Club member for six years says competitors can only have two shots at a target before moving stations to reload.
The code caught the club captain’s eye during an open evening session as a first-year pupil at Karamu High School.
“I looked at the photos and thought, ‘That would be a pretty cool thing to do’,” he says.
Davis has competed in Australia before, shooting at Wagga Wagga as an individual in the points-score class at the DTL (down-the-line or Nordic trap) World Championship in March last year.
The former Frimley School pupil says a wow score will be 120 from a possible 125 although his best to date is 111.
The two-time junior national champion won his titles in two disciplines in 2017.
Davis says the club is on a membership drive and the numbers have been growing gradually to sit around the 100 mark now.
“We’re trying to extend the club,” he says of the venue along Maraekakaho Rd, opposite the Tumu building supplies depot heading towards Bridge Pa.
He says as a youngster growing up he harboured a desire to emulate the feat of seasoned campaigners.
“You see a couple of top shooters and that gives you a name and that kind of happened with me.”
He recalls as a high schooler he had started lining up against some of the sharpshooters at the North Island Championships and the nationals. Joining the club is cheap but the cost of the shotgun will deter some from the sport. Ammunition is affordable.