Volume 5, Issue 1                                     (Web Edition)                                   January 2002

MARAUDERS BEGIN 6th YEAR

     January 26th was a beautiful day for a club shoot.  It was sunny, and after the morning chill vanished, it was shirt sleeve weather.  With this shoot, the Marauders began the 6th year as a SASS affiliated Cowboy Action Shooting club. 

     The day started on the Buffalo Shoot range. 19 shooters gathered to shoot at long- range targets in 3 categories:  Single Shot Rifle (200 yards), Lever Action Rifle, Rifle Caliber (200 yards), and Lever Action Rifle , Pistol Caliber (100 yards).  Winners were:  Single Shot Rifle – Outrider & Ace Blackwater (tie);  Lever Action Rifle Cartridge – Tri; Lever Action Pistol Cartridge – Tinker Chapley.  

     After the Buffalo Shoot, 61 shooters, minus a couple of cowboys who only participated in the Buffalo Shoot, gathered for the main match.  The match consisted of 5 stages, written by Tennessee Hoss, based on 5 Marty Robbins’ gunfighter ballads. 

The Beginning of The Marauder's Trail

     Once upon a time in the west of our imagination, a group of Chattanooga, Tennessee cowboys and cowgirls formed a round-up and created the Tennessee Mountain Marauders. That was back in 1996. Cooter Clinker, Scarman, Merlin, Constance Clinker, Calamity Clinker, Miss Marty, and a couple of other cowpersons were that round-up crew.  Of that crew, only Calamity is still active in the club.  In late 1997, the Marauders held their 1st shoot.  Then in 1998, monthly shoots really began.  The rest, as they say, is history.

     Several notable happenings occurred during the shoot.  Sadie Lou shot her 1st stage with no misses.  On Stage #3, the cowpoke was to shoot 2 timin' Flo and her city slicker feller.  Ol' Trail Bones stepped up and missed the city slicker 3 times before hitting the target.  His compadres thought the critter was goin' to get away before Trail Bones finally nailed him.  But the whoppee! of the day occurred when the Ohio Kid went to the firin' line on Stage #5, which was based on Marty Robbins' El Paso ballad.  There were the targets: "Off to the right were 5 mounted cowboys, off to the left were a dozen or more." (targets of course)  In the shooter's position was the Ohio Kid.

     The day before the match, the Ohio Kid was making a belt to hold cartridges.  To be sure that the loops were the right size, he inserted 23 dummy cartridges (that he made to carry in his belt at the Hamilton Co. fair last year - a responsible act to insure that no live ammo was on the fair site).  Up to the line he went on stage 5.  Up came his rifle to shoot the dozen or more cowboys to his left.  Now this scenario required reloading the rifle 2 times and shooting a total of 34 rounds.  Guess how many were dummy cartridges.  Did I say that the Kid inserted 23 dummy cartridges in his belt the day before? 

     At this match, our group expanded.  We had 5 new Marauder members join the gang: Frank James (Frank James, Ringgold, GA), Sodbuster (Mark Haskins, Hixson, TN), Rip Overland (Craig Brenizer, Charleston, TN), Fiddleback (Sean Brabec, Greenback, TN), and Silver Dust (Joseph Ambrose, Sevierville, TN).  Rip Overland and Silver Dust have shot with us a number of times, and this year they became family.               

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