Young Shooting Talent Makes Name For Himself

Few trapshooters had heard of Scott Engles until last May, when the wispy 14-year old triggered some excitement among a few hundred shotgunning veterans at the Spokane Gun Club.

With Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun that’s been passed through four shooters, the kid from a ranch near Sprague, Wash. stood among men with expensive custom guns. Then he shot his way to the top of the heap.

This was the Inland Empire Trapshoot, traditionally the largest trapshooting event in Washington.

When the smoke had cleared from more than 40 squads scattered along the gun club’s firing line, Engles had tied another shooter for the handicap championship. Both shooters had broken 98 out of 100 targets.

“The shoot-off was at two different traps,” Engles said. “The other guy was at 25 yards and I was at 21 yards at my own trap.”

The eyes of the crowd weighed heavy on the teenager. “I dropped three birds out of 25,” he said, still shaking his head when he thinks about it eight months later. “I didn’t even miss that many targets in the previous 100. There were lots of people just looking at me.”

But the crowd’s attention bore down even heavier on the other guy. He missed five.

Just two years after he’d fired his first shots at a clay target with a beatup 20 gauge side-by-side, Engles had whipped veterans with more than 30 years of experience. The teenager became the youngest shooter to win the Inland Empire Trapshoot.

“Kids surprise you,” said Merlyn Jesperson of the Spokane Gun Club. “They go out and shoot and shoot, just average stuff, then all of a sudden something clicks. They put it together.”

Engles emerged from nowhere to win the Inland Empire shoot partly because he hadn’t shot enough to be on any state list of top shooters.

“He shot only 500 registered targets last year,” said Bob Miller of the Spokane Gun Club. “You need 1,500 to qualify for the state champions list.”

“During the summer there’s baseball and work, and you don’t even think about shooting during harvest,” Engles said.

Football and hunting gobble most of Engles’ extra time in fall. Basketball takes a major bite in winter.

“Kids have tougher schedules and less money than adults,” Miller said. “Sometimes they only shoot one day in a three-day shoot. But Scott’s average of 93.33 at the 21.5-yard handicap is good in anyone’s books.”

Engles doesn’t seem too caught up with the numbers. Keeping score isn’t always possible for a farm kid.

“We have to feed every morning,” Engles said. “But we take a spring trap along, and if we get done in time, we shoot a few targets after we feed the cows and pigs.”

Now that the Inland Empire shoot is relatively ancient history in a teenager’s life, Engles seems unaffected by his success. He shoots at the Sprague Gun Club every Sunday morning during the winter to compete in The Spokesman-Review Trapshoot, which allows shooters throughout the region to compete with scores shot at other clubs.

Most of the Engles family was there last week.

“There’s my dad and brother,” Scott said pointing to one trap. “There’s my mom. She used to be pretty good, um, I mean, before she got so busy with kids and stuff. Trapshooting is kind of an inbred thing in our family.”

The sport of shooting is personal. But the attraction to many shooters is social.

“When we go to shoots in Lewiston and places like that we all stay near the clubs in motor homes,” Engles said. “I’ve met a lot of good guys my age. We stay up and play poker.”

Scott’s grandmother, his top fan, often shuttles the kids to out-of-town shoots.

No one knows how trapshooting will fit into Engles busy life in the next few years. But so far, the discipline to be a good trapshooter fits nicely into the thinking of a good athlete, or a young farmer facing a spell of bad weather.

Scott Engles seems to have it down pat.

“If you drop one target, you can’t worry about it,” Engles said. “Pretty soon there will be another one coming out that looks just like it. You have to remember what you did wrong. Take one bird at a time. Don’t get frustrated.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo