CHAPTER 10 DECLINE

There were magazine articles telling the story of success that many gunners, especially those shooting clay targets, were having with the new self-loading devices that were being marketed by a couple of manufacturers. They had been available for years but only began to gain a real following in the late fifties. Ammunition manufacturers were supporting the equipment sales, seeing the possibility of a new market opening for their component products. For the first time in Charlottetown, there was talk of reloading in the air.

In 1957 Ralph Jenkins was serving as a director on the Maritime Trap and Skeet Association, Ollie Harper was Past President, and for the first time Dunc Morrison's Flying Target was listing trap averages along with the skeet. There were 311 registered skeet shooters in the Maritimes, 33 from Charlottetown, and only six of these were ranked in the top 50; Ron Atkinson (8th), Walter Carver (19th), Glydon Willis (23rd), Art Hogan (25th), Dr. Gil Houston (42nd), and Hugh Simpson (47th). In the trapshooting average lists only Walter Carver (16th) and Bill Morrell (50th) made the top 50.

A new innovation in Maritime clay target shooting was tried during the summer but for some reason it was not given the proper chance to develop. At all major trap and skeet events across the nation, one of the important segments was the five-man team. It had been suggested at the Annual meeting in Charlottetown the previous year that a Maritime five-man team champion- ship shoot be tried, that each club be invited to send along their top five shooters, and perhaps in time it could grow into a major event. The shoot was sched- uled for Moncton, New Brunswick, on July 20th; however, only two teams showed up: Saint John and Moncton. The Saint John team, with three AA and two

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