SHOOTING: Best shot off target but this is a blast

ANENDRA SINGH
It is chilly inside the Pakowhai Small Bore Club hall but beads of sweat are trickling down my face.
The pungent smell of gunpowder fills my nostrils and I have this incredible urge to tame the itch in my finger but taking it off the rifle trigger doesn't seem like a very good idea just now.
I focus on the smallbore target 25m away, comprising 11 black circles - a little bigger than 50c pieces on a creamy A4 size cardboard - playing tricks with my eyes.
"Zoom in on the centre target and fire three shots into it, then move to the one directly on the left and work your way around clockwise, firing a shot into each target," Jamie Bonis, a New Zealand junior representative shooter, instructs me.
I squeeze the trigger and hit just below the 12 o'clock mark with a snappy sound akin to a staple gun, but the next two find the 25-minutes-past mark.
I feel more relaxed and confident with Bonis calmly taking me through the journey.
How could I not be? The 20-year-old from Blackhead Beach, Waipukurau, won gold in January last year in the Australian Youth Olympics in Sydney in the men's 50m prone event.
The Pahiatua-born apprentice/fitter at Panpac travels 1 1/2 hours from Monday to Friday to train at the club, with the season starting this week.
He notes some hesitation as I venture to the fourth target. The black circle is becoming blurry and I'm totally confused. I've lost count. Was it No3 or No4 that I was aiming at?
As the gunsmoke settles, Bonis is too kind, complimenting me for my first effort in smallbore target shooting. I have flirted with the bull's-eye in three targets and shot in the same target twice, which explains why two of them have no holes on them at all.
I love the thrill of shooting, although the targets could have been much bigger for such a novice.
If you are in Bonis' class, then a $3500 .22 Feinwerkbau rifle, loaned by the NZ Shooting Federation, can be handy. He has been shooting for six years, after his father, Pat Bonis, gave him a taste of the sport.
Pat is a private contractor and culls deer as part of wild-animal control for New Zealand Forest Service and the the Department of Conservation.
Bonis had a go at smallbore shooting at Ashley Clinton Club, in Takapau. He made it into the New Zealand Junior Development squad's new programme in October 2004.
Ranked 13th among senior men in New Zealand, he dreams of making the Beijing Games in 2008 after missing out on the World Cup Open at Milan, and next week's Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
An A grader, he visits high-performance coaches in Auckland every four months and has his sights set on making the master grade, something of which he is capable after shooting a "possible" 100.10 (possible equates to perfect) in June last year.
Like many young competitors, Bonis enjoys the outdoor challenge of hunting fallow deer, goats and pigs. "If I wasn't hunting I'd be sitting inside playing PlayStation. It's an adrenalin buzz."
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