As a young man, Randy Davis was a regular at the trap range. Many a weekend, he could be found blasting clay pigeons out of the sky.

But priorities changed as his family came along, so he decided to put his pursuit of the sport on hold.

After a 30-year break, he took up shooting again last year. He found a Beretta S04 12-gauge and spent the year getting comfortable with the feel of the gun and fitting it to his shooting motion. After many days of gunning at the Martinez Gun Club, Davis was ready to try his hand at competitions again.

This past June, he entered the state Class “D” Singles Championship in Kingsburg, Calif. Nearly 1,000 guns competed.

In the end, it came down to a 25-round shoot-off between the 60-year-old Davis and a 17-year-old youngster. The young man had a good round, hitting 24 out of 25.

But Davis didn’t miss a single bird in his round, and took home the state championship.

With renewed confidence in his shooting, he decided to sign up for the Grand American World Trapshooting Championship in Sparta, Ill., this August.

Over 2,500 shooters from all over the world entered this five-day contest.

On the third day of shooting, Davis qualified for a shoot-off with a score of 98 out of 100 in the Remington Handicap for his yardage group.

Midwest thunderstorms delayed the tiebreaker round until 9 p.m. that night.

Davis had never shot trap under the lights before.

With these new conditions, and after enduring a long day on the range already, he was only able to hit 23 out of 25. That’s a very respectable score, but he didn’t expect it to hold up in a national championship like this.

However, these same conditions also applied to his adversary, who was only able to down 22 birds.

Davis had won the championship.

For anyone who regularly shoots trap, either one of these championships would be a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. But to bring home two trophies in the same summer, that’s something really special.

Congratulations to Napa’s Randy Davis for showing the rest of the country how it’s done!

Cold water rings dinner bell for West Coast salmon

A federal oceanographer says a flip-flop in atmospheric conditions is creating a feast for salmon and other sea life off the West Coast, reversing a trend that contributed to a virtual shutdown of West Coast salmon fishing this summer.

Bill Peterson of NOAA Fisheries in Newport, Ore., says the change in cycle of an atmospheric condition known as the “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” (PDO) last fall has brought cold water flows from the Gulf of Alaska, carrying an abundance of food.

In the new “cold” PDO era, flows of cool ocean water come down the coast from Alaska.

These flows bring with them tiny animals known as “copepods” that are the foundation of the food chain.

The boost in copepods means more food for baitfish, such as sand lance and smelt, which are food for larger fish such as salmon.

During cold PDO eras, salmon populations in California and Oregon have historically thrived due to the abundance of feed available.

But in 2005 the PDO switched to a warm era, causing starvation conditions for young salmon migrating from their native streams to the ocean.

This year there were so few adults that federal authorities practically shut down commercial and sport fishing off Oregon, Washington and California.

However, conditions had already changed again last November when a new cold era developed into the most favorable conditions for juvenile salmon the West Coast fisheries had seen since 1999.

It’s unknown how long the good times will last, but Peterson said ocean surveys of chinook salmon in June found lots of yearling juveniles, which should grow up to be plentiful stocks of adults by 2010.

Coho surveys start in a couple of weeks.

While the cycle used to last as long as 20 years, this time it has lately taken about four years for conditions to change.

No one knows for sure what the future will bring, Peterson added.

Ed Bowles, fisheries chief for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said salmon that spend most of their time in the ocean close to the coast — such as fall chinook, coho and Willamette River spring chinook — should reap the greatest benefits. Crab, ling cod, rockfish, sea birds and other ocean life are rebounding as well.

However, Bowles was cautious in his assessment.

“Overall, we are seeing more years of poor ocean conditions than we are good,” he said.

“This is a welcome respite in what more typically has been discouraging news.”

Federal authorities are investigating a variety of factors that could have contributed to the collapse of salmon returns from British Columbia to California.

One of the leading suspects is irrigation withdrawals from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Salmon from the Sacramento River saw some of the sharpest declines, and a federal judge is working to reduce the harm on young salmon from irrigation withdrawals from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

It will take at least a couple of years to recover, but the future looks encouraging for our West Coast salmon runs.

Guy Carl is a CPA and partner with BDCo Accountants and

Advisors in St. Helena (www.bdcocpa.com). Contact Guy at GC.outdoors@sbcglobal.net.