Note to callow youth: The best all-around sportsmen in Illinois are a pair of macho old goats.
That’s right-age again has prevailed in the Illinois Department of Conservation’s fourth annual “sportsman of the year” competition. Let’s see now . . . in three of the four years, winners have been in their middle years. Is that enough to trumpet the value of sage experience?
This year’s coveted title-which earns $1,600, an engraved knife and a lifetime fishing and hunting license-went by a graying nose hair to J.C. Hargis, 55, a retired physical education teacher from downstate Cobden High. He won a tiebreaker with Gene Evans, a 56-year-old retired cable technician from South Jacksonville. Tim Vik, 29, a mechanical engineer from Sparland, placed a distant third among 57 competitors.
In other words, graybeards ruled the day-as probably can be expected in a unique test involving 10 outdoor categories, including some that bordered on the bizarre.
“It was the most exciting finish we’ve ever had,” Evans said. “It came down to the final shot with a homemade arrow and a homemade bow. And (Hargis) made it.”
Evans led the decathlon scoring by 15 points after eight events, but Hargis surged ahead by 20 in Sporting Clays when he broke 15 of 25 targets and Evans broke one fewer. Then came the top-secret Final Event, an annual mystery sprung on competitors.
This time they were given five 3-foot dowel pins, some fletching cement, 15 vanes, 20 feet of decoy cord, a sassafras branch and a knife. They were told to build a bow and at least three fletched arrows within 45 minutes. They then took three shots at a target 10 yards away.
Evans won the event and 1,000 points while Hargis’ final arrow was good enough for third and 980 points-forcing an overall tie.
When that happens, the tiebreaker goes to whoever has won the most individual contests. Because Hargis had dominated Shotgun Slugs and tied for first in Conservation Law, he edged Evans by a single title.
“It was fun,” Hargis said of the weird Final Event. “I’d never tried to do anything like that. When I was a kid we made bows like that, but never under that kind of pressure.”
DOC special events coordinator Bob Ruff said the idea came from a custodian at Logan Community College in Carterville, where the contests were held during last weekend’s National Hunting and Fishing Days. Previous finals involved building a fire from scratch to boil water, constructing a fly and using it to catch fish, and open-water canoe mastery of a zig-zag, windy course.
Although this was Hargis’ first time in the competition, he approached it with rigid determination. He not only studied each conservation subject, but practiced hard, testing various firearms for maximum efficiency with the announced ammunitions. He even bought a rifled slug barrel for his shotgun and fired it just 10 times before winning that event.
Shooting is second nature to Hargis, who is one of the top muzzleloaders in Illinois. He won back-to-back national muzzleloader championships in 1978 and ’79 plus 20 other titles, including five national all-around championships and national primitive shooting championships in 1974 and ’76. He said the custom gun he now uses has gone through six barrels, two flintlocks, two triggers and a stock.
Depite his victory, Hargis voiced disappointment for the way some events challenged psychology as well as skill. He said a seven-way shootoff indicates the .22-caliber rifle event was too easy even though open sights were required instead of magnified scopes. He suggested more than six rounds to separate good shooters from bad as well as visible scoring rings on 3-D targets.
“I did terribly with the .22, and I felt I should have won it,” Hargis complained. “Now, I’ve killed 3,000 to 4,000 squirrels in my lifetime, including 700-800 with a muzzleloader. But I saw guys who couldn’t shoot as well as me end up higher. Likewise, in the Accuracy Casting competition, I scored a lot better than guys who could cast much better than me.”
On the other hand, Evans and Vik said they enjoyed the entire competition. “If you can’t decide in six targets how good a shooter someone is, I don’t think you can do any better in 25,” Evans said. “And in real life you don’t see scoring rings on animal targets.” Added Vik: “I felt comfortable in all events.” Ruff conceded the contests hardly are perfection. “We try to shape them a little better every year,” he said. “There are reasons the events are set up this way. We’re just trying to do something to help the sportsmen compete.”
Evans and his two sons each won individual titles for the second year in a row. This time, Mike Evans of Winchester won the written Trapping test and Brad Evans of Jacksonville shared the Conservation Law title with Hargis. Karl Gathe of Vandalia won the .22-Caliber Shooting and tied for first in Nature and Environment with Richard Gardner of Jerseyville and Mike Metcalf of Albion. Other winners: Wildlife Identification, Harold Campbell of Benton; Sporting Clays, Jerry Bennett of Godfrey; Archery, Kevin Shaffer of Lawrenceville; Accuracy Casting, Bart Pals of Teutopolis.
Next year’s competition returns north to Silver Springs State Park in Yorkville. Will youth again be humbled?
