Seventeen-year-old Will Gee, known as Whistlin’ Will at the Courtenay and District Fish & Game Club, was among the top shooters at a competition last month in Arizona.
The home-schooled, Comox Valley resident was fifth out of 645 participants at the Winter Range SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) National Champions of Cowboy Action Shooting. He was first in the Man-on-Man Competition between the top 16 shooters.
“I had a couple of little things I know I could have done better,” said Gee, who was the overall junior winner at last year’s event. “It’s turned into a pretty hard competition now where the top guys are going.
“I had a Dutch shotgun shell,” he added. “It wouldn’t go off, so I had to reload it all. If it wasn’t for that two-and-a-half seconds, I would have been third place…Nothing you can do about it.”
Whistlin’ Will has been practising at the local range since age four, and started competitive shooting at age nine.
“Lots of fun, great people,” said Will, who has had coaches in the Lower Mainland and in Victoria. “It took eight years to get to where I am now.”
He said muscle memory is a key aspect of shooting, which requires a great deal of concentration.
“Lots of times I’ll dry fire at home — get the feel of it, practising swapping between different handguns, transitions — and you keep on doing that with your eyes closed to build the muscle memory.”
He says shooting is 99 per cent mental, and one per cent skill.
“All the top guys, most of us all have the skill, but you have to keep the match together. You’re shooting over a period of three days. If one of those screw up, you can’t let that get to your head.”
Along with competitors from around North America, Will has met shooters from New Zealand, Norway, France, Germany and other parts of Europe.
“I have connections all around the world now, pretty much.”
Gee next competes at an event in Mission in May, and provincials in Kamloops on the Canada Day weekend. He might trek to New Mexico in June to compete at worlds.
The Fish and Game club hosts the Vancouver Island Shooting Championships on the August long weekend, and the SASS Canadians on the September long weekend.
Before that, the public can ‘give it a shot’ Saturday, March 30 at the club’s frontier village called Boomtown, which hosts a luck-of-the-draw shoot.