For a third year in a row, Islander Mikie Hoffmann, a 2010 graduate of Vashon High School, took first place in the junior category of the Washington State Sporting Clays Championships, moving on to the national competition.

This year’s shoot was a four-day event held at Seattle Skeet and Trap Gun Club in Ravensdale in late June. Hoffmann shot 550 targets over four days and beat out more than 150 other junior entrants to become Junior Champion in the main event, with a score of 178 out of 200. He also took first in the three other junior events at the competition: sub-gauge, pre-lim, and 5-stand.  

Hoffmann, a sixth-generation Islander, began shooting at age 9 at a camp at the Vashon Sportsmen’s Club. He immediately took to the sport and has excelled with little formal coaching, mainly learning through pointers he has picked up from fellow shooters.

In 2005, Hoffmann finished in the top 10 of the Washington State Hunter Education Competition and in 2008 the Sportmen’s Club awarded him a certificate of First Bragging Rights for being the first to shoot a perfect 25 at 5-Stand. In 2008 he was also recognized as a Distinguished Expert at shotgun. 

He began shooting competitively in 2009, quickly moved up the shooting ranks and became the Washington State Junior Champion for the first time that same year. In 2010 he made his goal of becoming a Master Class Shooter.

He still practices at least twice a week at the Sportsmen’s Club, which is just minutes from his home.

Hoffmann, who is soft spoken and humble about his accomplishments, will compete at the national sporting clays competition in Texas in October. Though he has been to the competition twice before, he said hopes to place higher this time.

“My goal is to be up there in the top for juniors,” he said.