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New Knoxville’s Berlet will join trapshooting’s elite Tuesday

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By Jim Morris, Contributing writer 8:19 PM Saturday, August 6, 2011

Dave Berlet is about to take his place among the greatest trapshooters in history. Berlet, 69, of New Knoxville will be inducted into the national Amateur Trapshooting Association Hall of Fame on Tuesday in Red Bud. Ill.

Berlet is in Sparta, Ill., attending his 67th Grand American. His first taste of the tournament came in 1944 when his parents took him to the former ATA homegrounds in Vandalia as a 2-year-old. He has attended each year since.

“As the event time comes closer I am getting more excited about it, and as I think about it, it is really quite amazing,” Berlet said. “When I first started shooting ATA targets in 1957, I never dreamed that it would come to this.”

Part of the thrill for Berlet is that his longtime friend and Hall of Fame shooter Brad Dysinger will introduce him at the ceremonies.

“That means a lot to me,” Berlet said. “He is coming out here just to introduce me.”

Berlet has been shooting at the Grand, which has been held in Sparta, Ill., since 2006, for 54 years. He has won at least one trophy at most of the individual Grands. In fact, he has won Grand or Ohio State trophies for seven decades.

“I am very thankful for the good health that I have had to be able to compete over all these years,” he said. “I have been very fortunate to have been in the right places at the right times, and most of all I am very lucky to have made and enjoyed so many great friendships while competing in this great sport.”

As with most of the greats in the sport of Trapshooting, Berlet’s induction isn’t based on any single achievement but has taken in a lifetime of trapshooting excellence. Through the 2010 shooting year, Berlet had shot at more than half a million targets in ATA competition (517,250). His lifetime average in singles is .9820.

He has been on nine ATA All-America teams and has been on 28 All-Ohio teams. He was inducted into the Ohio State Trapshooting Association Hall of Fame in 1995.

Perhaps his greatest single championship came in 2000, when he won the Grand American Clay Target (singles) championship. Way back in 1961 – 50 years ago — Berlet finished as runner-up in the Grand American Handicap.

Until his Hall of Fame induction, Berlet was perhaps best known in trapshooting circles for two events that did not take place at the Grand or the Ohio State shoots.

In 1988 he hooked up with Hall of Famer Larry Bumsted of Iowa in a Central Zone shootoff at Jaqua’s in Findlay after both had broken 200 singles targets. When the last target was broken, the two had set a shootoff record of 725 targets. Bumsted finally won by a single target.

Long before that — on Sept. 5, 1971 — he made the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking 1,572 clay targets (out of 1,659) in an hour of shooting at the old Camp Troy Gun Club. He used five guns, and there were five people loading guns for him. The event drew 500 spectators with ticket proceeds going to charity. The record has since been broken, but nobody has come close to Berlet’s percentage of .9475.

Berlet’s portrait and a story about his accomplishments will be on display at the national ATA Hall of Fame at 601 W. National Road, Vandalia. It is open to the public, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“To be included in the National Trapshooting Hall of Fame with the great shooters of the past is the greatest honor that I could ever have hoped for,” he said. “I really can’t put into words how great I feel about this honor.”

Outdoors columnist Jim Morris can be reached through his website at www.examiner.com/outdoor-recreation-in-dayton/jim-morris or by email at sports@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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