Black Lake Fish & Game Club aims high with shooting range

    As a worldly friend once chided me, “Not all sports have a ball or a puck.’’ The Black Lake Fish & Game Club members figured that out about 80 years ago, and may have assembled the biggest sports team around St. Lawrence County.

   Fish & Game members have helped to develop high school trap and skeet teams for Morristown, Heuvelton and Ogdensburg, hosted shooting events, promoted walleye stocking along Black Lake, taught firearms safety, staged fishing derbies and provided a social outlet for members. And the club keeps growing. If you drive past its 14-acre campus at Route 58 and the Gilmour Road, you’ll spot the latest addition.

   A 50-by-120-foot shooting range almost is completed. It will house winter target practice and shooting events during the long North Country winters.

  “The idea of an indoor range came to us as we found we lose participants between the fall and spring trap seasons, and sometimes have trouble getting them started back up,’’ said club president Mike Warren of Brier Hill. “The thought being, if we can keep people interested in the club through the winter months, we’ll retain higher numbers, plus they learn other disciplines like archery and air guns.’’

   Warren said the club intends to use the space as an archery range, air gun range, sportsmen education site, and a gathering spot for patrons on derby days.

  “We want the place to be used and enjoyed every day that’s possible,’’ Warren said, “and especially hope to attract kids and entire families into the shooting sports and the world outdoors as well.’’

   “The added benefit it that it gets kids off the screen and into the outdoor world. We know it works, because in just a few short years we’ve gone from zero kids shooting trap regularly at the club to nearly 100 during the scholastic trapshooting league seasons.’’

  The range was designed with in-floor heating, spray-foam insulation, restrooms and a connection to the original clubhouse. The roof is nearly complete.

  The work was done by club member and local contractor Kevin Thibert. But it’s pricey. Fortunately, the club found a benefactor in a former Morristown athlete who graduated in 1969.

    Al Ames Jr. was a three-sport star in football, basketball and baseball who grew up on his parents’ dairy farm along Black Lake. After continuing his education and basketball career at North Country Community College, he was drafted into the Army. He became a troubleshooter for a feed company and worked his way up to vice president before starting his own import distributorship, NutriLinx, a high-density feed additive for dairy cows.

    Ames has been a lifelong associate of the club since he completed a hunter safety course there at age 14. While attending a funeral a few years ago, club member Jim Robinson shared the plan for new trap fields and the need to raise $700. Ames and his wife, Linda, agreed to pay for two pre-cast trap houses. When he approached Warren with a check, he learned Robinson had missed a zero. The cost was $7,000. Ames never wavered.

   “We were floored,’’ Warren said, “but little did we know, the man wasn’t done.’’

   When Ames read in the annual report that the club was planning an indoor shooting range, but had lost out on $100,000 in grants during the pandemic, he and Linda made another sizable donation.

  “I know we were all in shock,’’ Warren said, “as this was unbelievable to us. He wanted to see our plans, and some rough estimates, and we started the ball rolling.’’

  The building price doubled with the shortage of building and labor supplies, but now the Alfred and Illeane Ames Outdoor Education Center will honor his parents. Ames also wanted to acknowledge longtime member and past president Jim Robinson and Larry Kring, a retired Department of Conservation supervisor for St. Lawrence County. Kring, who lives on his family farm in Macomb that dates to the 1800s, runs hunter safety courses, directs trap teams, and supervises trap events.

  Ames considers himself fortunate to give the money, but he also is thankful for the lifelong friendships with members. Ames’ father, Jim and Steve Robinson, and Black Lake residents Ray Loucks and Bill Russell started a hunting club in Cranberry Lake.ages ago, and he credits Robinson, who ran a farm equipment business, with giving him his first job.

   “My roots are in Black Lake,’’ Ames said. “I’ve gotten to travel a lot for work, but I really respect the Jim Robinsons and Larry Krings who stayed in the area and supported the community and worked with youth. They gave their time; I gave some funding.’’

   That sense of community dates to 1940 when 39 charter members, mostly from Macomb, Morristown and Rossie founded the club and incorporated by August 1949. BLF&G began with a small clubhouse, then added an outdoor events pavilion and pole barn for storage. Soon, the club will complete its biggest project.

        Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/