Weitze earns a pair of titles at state championship shoot

Colfax teenager Hunter Weitze downed 97 of 100 clay pigeons to win the Travis Iksic Handicap shoot in the 72nd Washington State Trapshooting Championships in Walla Walla Friday. He also shot a 96-96 to claim the sub-junior championship and earn a spot in this August’s Grand American shoot in Sparta, Ill.

The 15-year-old Weitze was attending basketball camp when he decided he wanted to go shooting. At 8 p.m. he called his dad, Eric, to come pick him up at Eastern Washington University. At 8 a.m. Friday, he was at the Walla Walla Gun Club shooting toward his titles.

“I just wanted to see if I could shoot anymore,” said Weitze.

He had chosen Spokane’s Hoopfest over the state shoot for the last several years when they were on the same weekend.

He hadn’t been shooting well for awhile.

“Dad didn’t know what was wrong. He thought it was girls or something,” said Hunter.

His trusty old Browning BT-99 shotgun with which he won the sub-junior title in 2008 was turning on him. It pinched his cheek when it recoiled at the state FFA shoot in May.

Gunsmith David Hanon of Rosalia added an inch of rubber to the gun stock earlier in the week. Hunter tested out his modified gun by winning the Handicap.

Because of his youth, Weitze shot from the 19-feet line, up from the standard 25-foot line. Handicaps get farther away the better shooters perform. Next year, he’ll be pushed back a foot.

The state Handicap is named after the previous year’s winner.

“He was looking at the program before the shoot and just looking at all the names of old winners,” said Eric. “I told him, you’ll get in there one day.”

Next year it will be the Hunter Weitze Handicap. This year, it was named after Travis Iksic of Odessa.

“The best. That’s all that matters,” said Weitze.

Iksic this year had missed two birds going into his final five shots and let two more hit the ground to give Weitze the Handicap win.

“It’s quite an accomplishment for a kid his age,” said Larry Bunch of Clarkston, President of the state trapshooting association.

Bunch said Weitze is part of a crop of talented young shooters. Dustin Caldwell of Omak won the handicap in 2010 as a 13-year-old.

“It’s young eyes,” said Bunch.

Weitze will take to the Hoopfest street courts in Spokane this weekend with his team Vicious and Delicious.