Ninety-five-year-old Joe Collins is proof that clay target shooting is a sport for all ages.
The nonagenarian, based at Mission Beach in the state's Far North, competed at the Queensland clay target championships at Roma on the weekend, taking up the sport at the age of 77.
In the words of one of his sons, Chinchilla's Mal Collins, he "cleans up" on a good day.
"I went to Atherton a few years ago - Dad had just won the C grade high gun at Silkwood for the weekend, then a month later he was at Atherton and won the B grade by about 15 points," he said.
"He shot a 46 (out of 50) the other day and he shoots the odd 50/50 and 25/25 when the light's good.
"He has good days and bad days."
Listening in, Joe laughed that he'd had a bad day at the state titles.
He's had a varied career - living at Tully for 20 years before piloting four-engine barges in Papua New Guinea, growing coffee at Goroka and milling timber at 915 metres, then working on a fishing trawler back in Australia for the rest of his working life.
While he did a bit of duck shooting when he was young, he said he wasn't able to shoot in PNG.
"There's a lot of native pigs but they're all owned," he said.
Asked why he was still shooting at 95, Joe said it was important to be doing something.
"You've got to do something, you can't sit down and do nothing," he said.
He might even have enticed another son into the sport - Peter, who lives at Cairns, said when his father said he'd like to compete at Roma, he gave up his plans to attend the Mt Garnet races to drive him down, a 1300 kilometre journey.
Before that, Peter had only been shooting for three weeks.
He said going to a gun club was like a family, thanks to the friendly atmosphere among attendees.
The Collins family had three generations competing at Roma, with Peter's son Joshua attending from Brisbane.
He moved south from Mount Isa to be closer to the clay target action after regularly driving 1200km for a weekend chasing clays, and driving the same distance back.
One of Mal's daughters, Breanna is just back from the world championships in South Africa where she won a couple of bronze medals, but had to attend coaching in Sydney rather than attend the state titles.
Asked what was their secret to success, Mal said they were just persistent and turned up to have a go.
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Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
