Clay Target Nation, April 2019

through high school and started college leaving his tutelage so he gave that up for a short while until beginning work with an SCTP team They all shoot 12 gauge in three disciplines skeet trap and sporting and Shuley works with them on the skeet field Hes strict his own military school background influencing his style He tells his students Im trying to teach you If you dont want to learn Im not going to do it He talks to his charges parents as well making sure they understand its his way or the highway Once the kids discover theyre having more success doing it my way then we have something to build upon After a few months they sort of morph into their own style He may be a disciplinarian but it would seem a young shooter wanting to achieve success could have no better example to follow than the Boy Gun Wonder APRIL 2019 CLAY TARGET NATION 29 six rounds of doubles and Todd missed I hit the target and a hush came over the crowd It was 40 years since Id been at that shoot and a few of the older shooters were still there After their initial shock everyone went crazy My friend levitated off his chair It was like an Olympic moment That turned out to be the last Bluegrass shoot These days Shuleys first love is working with young shooters and he prefers casual competition at clubs near his home in Engleside Illinois like Northbrook Sports Club over the stress of traveling to shoots around the country as he did when he was younger In 2002 he started working with a group of teenagers forming a skeet team a total of 12 in a decade They went to lots of skeet tournaments in the eastern part of the country from Houston to Boston Ten of the 12 youth became state champions in Illinois or Wisconsin and the other two were also highly recognized By 2012 all those teens had progressed almost all the way through that round and that gun breaks down Dad has three broken down guns there so the Remington pro gives me his gun and we continue the shoot off We get to the seventh round and by now Dad has gotten one of our guns back together using parts from the other guns We shoot a few stations and the Remington pros gun goes down Dad has my gun functioning again so I grab it We get to station 6 and the last person missed low 6 I hit it I used four different guns in one shoot off Another favorite win was at the Kentucky Bluegrass Open in 1998 I had won the 12 gauge event in 1958 he related At the time they would bestow upon the 12 gauge champion an honorary Kentucky Colonel designation so in 1958 I was made an honorary Kentucky Colonel So here we are 40 years later and I run 100 with the 12 There was a shoot off with 33 people I hadnt shot doubles at all But we get down to the end and its me and Todd Bender whom everyone expected to win We went five or In 1962 Shuley shot 100 straight with an old Model 42 410 pump and at that time at 16 years old he was the fifth person ever to break 100 with a 410 Discussing the differences in guns of yesteryear and today prompted Shuley to tell the story of one of his most memorable shoot offs In 1959 at age 13 Shuley had shot a 250 straight with the 12 gauge There were only seven of us in the shootoff he said At that time we were shooting a regulation round of skeet for shoot offs People fell by the wayside until only two of us were left I was shooting a Remington Model 58 gas gun and I had a back up gun in the same model Dad also had one The Remington pro was there with one on the sideline observing he continued In the fourth round my gun breaks down so Dad gave me the back up gun He takes my gun and starts taking it apart I start the next round and the back up gun breaks down He wasnt finished fixing my gun so I took his gun I got p LIFE dubbed Bob The Boy Gun Wonder because of the awards hed already won at the age of 16 THADDIUS BEDFORD