Trapshooting competitors converge on Albuquerque

The Brandls were two of 159 competitors entered in events that started Thursday and run through today’s state handicap division championship at the southeast Albuquerque shooting range near Broadway Southeast and Interstate 25. RVs and pickup trucks lined the dirt parking lot along the southern side of the Albuquerque Trap Club on Saturday morning, while bright orange pieces of mostly broken clay targets were covering the high desert growth of the north-facing shooting range. Men and women, many with colorfully tinted sunglasses and playing card-like shooting blinders on the sides of their faces, mingled about between rounds talking with one another, reminiscing about past shoots or catching up on lost time. “It’s a community here, that’s for sure,” said Lubbock’s Jeff Renegar, one of the better trapshooters in the region for years who has to his credit dozens of wins, including the 2014 Texas Handicap division state championship. “We all get to know each other and look forward to seeing each other at different events.” That community is more than just the 159 competitors, who, by the way, will easily tear through more than 100,000 clay targets and shotgun shells this week, says Albuquerque Trap Club President Frank Geiger. Many also bring in friends and family to local hotels or RV parks. This year’s event, which has open divisions for competitors from all over the country, includes entrants from 12 states, including some from as far as Pennsylvania. “There are shoots all over year-round, but for New Mexico, this is the biggest event of the year for trapshooting,” said Geiger, who estimated about 20 paid employees and volunteers were working this week’s event. The ages of competitors range from 12 – as it was described to a reporter by no fewer than three people as the age a kid is strong enough to lift a shotgun 100 times per event – up to about 80...more