Evening journal., 1905-12-20
BASEBALL
BOXING
SHOOTING
CHAMPION GILBERT

/ stars OF the trdpSnOOting world halls
from Spirit Lake, Iowa. and learned how
to shoot by cunning on the prairies and
along the banks OF the lakes and sloughs
Of his native State. after chicken and
ducks respectively, whenever he could
spare the time 10 get after them. Ills
skin with the shotgun soon earned FOR
him a warm local reputation. 1t was not,
however until the fall Of 1895 that Fred
really became known 20 the brethren OF
the trapshooting fraternity for the truly
great shot that he IS.
TO Charles M. Grimm, Of Clear Lake.
Iowa, belongs the honor of finding" Fred
Gilbert, for IL was at his earnest solicita-
ton that the then young unknown entered
the employ OF the DUPONT Company, was
put aboard the cars in Iowa. and landed
few days later on the grounds of the
Baltimore Shooting Association at Balti-
more, Md, where the first contest for the
DUPONT Worlds Pigeon Championship
was to be held.
During the entire program Gilbert shot
| like aw orld-beater, holding his own with
the great John H. Brewer, and an the
other good shots entered in the events
scheduled for the tournament In the ham
dicaps he had an advantage by reason OF
his skill being an enigma to the hands
Gaping committee, but in 1.-THE all-SO-
yards" event he showed that a few yards
made little difference IN his totals. In the
main event he tied on 20 straight with j.
L. Brewer and G.. Manchester, the latter
one OF the very best amateur pigeon shots
this country ever produced. On the shoot
Off Gilbert Won his first laurels. After that
honors came thick and fast, for the fol-
lowing year. in May, 1896, he won the first
open contest for the E. G. Inanimate Tar
get Championship at the "E. c." tourna-
ment held at Guttenburg. N. j. The con-
ditions Of that contest are the most Sc
we're: Three hundred targets, 100 being
shot at unknown angles. 100 at expert
rules, one man up, the five traps down,
and so pairs.
The three hundred targets were sand
wiohed in through the entire four-days'
program, the schedule for the first two
days containing one event at 25 unknown
angles, one at % expert rules. and one at
10 pairs; on the last two days there were
the same two 25-target events at unknown
angles and expert rules, but the events at
pairs were 10 instead Of Is pairs. Gilbert
won by scoring 266 out OF the 800 J. A. r.
Elliott and the late Il. ID. Fulgord tied for
second and third with 26l. while Rolla
Heikes was fourth with 25S Since that
time the l.. c. Cup has been competed
for on several occasions. ana has been
won by II. o. Heikes. j. A. r. Elliott and
W. r. Crosby, of oFallon. H.. who has
held the cup for period covering the last
four years, and who still holds it.
In 1903 and In 1904 Gilbert carried OF
the highest honors by making a higher
average ON all targets shot at during the
season than any other one shooter His
work has all along been little short of
phenomenal, while some OF his records
have been truly remarkable. Last year,
during the month of August, while at his
home in Spirit Lake, Iowa. recuperating
after a long and strenuous campaign, he
did a little shooting over the local traps
and put up the following record: on Au-
gust / he broke the last SO targets he
shot at; the following day he broke 100
straight-an he shot at. On the 4th he
again went out and tried his hand at the
targets and succeeded in breaking 1888
straight before he lost one. Thus he real
~ completed a run of 1872 straight. made
on three consecutive shooting days. as
he did not shoot at all on the srd. One of
the most interesting features Of this
record Is the fact that 1t was made with
odds and ends Of shells he had had on
hand. many of them for four or fve
years.
This year Mr.. Gilbert has done some
really remarkable work at the traps Some
OF his best records (he has absolutely no
poor ones) are as follows: AT DesMoines.
Ia, March l4-iS he broke 500 ont OF 600
targets he shot, making runs OF 15i and
200 straight, the latter run being made on
the last day when he went through the
program without miss The following
week at Omaka, Neb.. March 1922. he
broke $50 out of GOO. and the following
week again he broke SIS out OF 600 at st.
Joseph, Mo. At Charlottesville, Ind, May
l7-lS he broke 41O out of 42e, making runs
Of 1iO and l9S straight. At Vermillion. S.
d.. May 81, June ?, he broke 5S5 out of 600:
the next week at Sioux city Ia, June 6-S
he scored 579 out of 600. and the week af-
ter that he had a run Of 2il straight and
smashed s92 out of 400 shot at on June 1874
during the tournament held at Dubuque.
la. In July he had three good records adj
ded 10 his credit. At ST. Louis Mo-. July
Pa he broke $50 out Of 600 shot at, making
a straight run Of Ia; and July 27-2S he
scored S9l out Of 800 at Fort Dodge Ia.
On July 1886 the two days prior to the
Fort Dodge tournament he had broken
1856 out of 400 at Clarksville, Ia. making a
run OF 1E straight At Audubon, Ia. on
August 2-S he gave a grand exhibition of
shooting, breaking 1893 out Of 400 shot at.
After an arduous trip to and along the
Pacific Coast he broke all coast records
by scoring 392 out of 400 shot at during
the Medford, oregon tournament. and by
making a run OF l54 straight captured the
coast record for long run, and incidentally
set mark that will be hard one FOR
the dwellers along the shores OF the Pa.
citio Ocean TO equal The above records
show that az twelve tournaments hel.
during the season OF 1866 Mr.. Gilbert shot
at 602O targets and broke 5S74 OF them. los.
ing only JAG. This gives him an averag,
for those twelve tournaments of over 9Iil
per cent A fun synopsis Of his work from
January 4 20 october 81 shows that durinr
the ten months covered by that period n,
attended no less than thirty-fve tourna.
ments, shot az l6.4f0 targets and broke f5.
7S6 OF them. losing only 7Ot thus malxina
] a grand average Of nearly SO per cent. fol
All targets shot during the c1rrent season
When the American team visited Eng.