TMR Halloween Shoot-Out Weekend

When and Where

When: October 16-18, 2026 , 6:30 pm — 1:30 pm
Nights: 2

Location: Ten Mile River Scout Camps / Lakeside Lean-Tos Site B

Troop 23 returns to Ten Mile River for the Greater New York Councils Halloween Shoot-Out Weekend — the one weekend of the year when every range is open at once and adults get to shoot alongside the scouts. We camp in the Lakeside B lean-tos on Crystal Lake, and the ranges run at Camp Keowa and Camp Aquehonga, both inside the same reservation.

Registration through the troop is closed. This is a pre-registered event with a hard cap, and the cap is the point: places are limited so that everyone who comes actually gets range time rather than queuing for it. The troop sent its registration to the council as one package at the September Court of Honor, with the $85 and every signed shooting sports waiver inside it, and a scout who is not in that package is not registered. The fee covers everything — event cost, patches, the Saturday banquet, all meals, the campsite and transportation. What is still ahead for registered scouts is the troop's own paperwork: the ScoutBook permission slip and the duty roster, each on its own Monday meeting.

The two forms are not interchangeable and they are not due together. The shooting sports waiver is the early one: it goes ahead as a scan or a photo so it can be uploaded with the troop's registration, and a signed copy still travels with the troop as a backup. It is signed by the scout and a parent, and the parent's signature is also what attests the scout's age for the ranges. The ScoutBook permission slip is the troop's own paper, handed in the usual way on a later Monday. A scout who brings only one of them is not covered — they do different jobs.

The weekend is run by the council's Shooting Sports Committee, whose members are all BSA- and NRA-certified Range Safety Officers or firearms instructors. Around the ranges there is a pumpkin-carving contest, fishing at Camp Keowa, and a Saturday banquet dinner that has, two years running, outclassed anything the troop eats at summer camp.

The Ranges

Age minimums are not the troop's rules and are not negotiable at the range — they come from New York State law and from BSA policy, and the Range Safety Officers enforce them exactly. Check your scout's age against this table before you register, because a scout who arrives expecting to shoot a shotgun at twelve will not be shooting a shotgun.

For 2026, archery, BB gun, rifle and shotgun run at both Camp Keowa and Camp Aquehonga, cowboy action at Aquehonga only, and tomahawk throwing if staff are available and the weather allows. The day opens with a half-hour safety briefing at 8:00 am at the first range each scout shoots, and every participant must be there on time. Range rotations are assigned on Saturday morning; scouts move between the ranges in groups rather than wandering between them. There are awards on every range, and one for the most fish caught — which in 2025 went nowhere near our troop, despite one of our adults landing seven.

Who Runs It

The Shooting Sports Committee of the Greater New York Councils was founded in 2008 by a group of Scouters who wanted to build a properly-run shooting programme rather than an occasional range day. Every member is a certified Range Safety Officer, a certified firearms instructor, or both.

What that means in practice on the weekend: ranges are hot only when an RSO says so, every scout gets a briefing before a firearm is handled, and the safety rules are the same ones an adult would meet at any club. Parents who are uneasy about shooting sports are welcome to come and watch a rotation — most of the ones who do come away reassured by how slow and deliberate the whole thing is.

Adults Staying Overnight

Adults who camp with us must be registered members of Scouting America, hold current Safeguarding Youth Training and have a completed Annual Health and Medical Record, parts A and B. Registration takes an application, a background check and an approval, so it cannot be arranged in the week before a trip: an adult hoping to camp at Ten Mile River should start it well before the weekend — what adult registration involves.

Lakeside Lean-Tos on Crystal Lake

The troop camps in the Lakeside Lean-Tos, the newest sites on the reservation, right at the water's edge on Crystal Lake. They are unusually generous — enough headroom for an adult to stand up inside — and the position means sunrise over the water and fishing straight off the site.

This will be the fourth weekend the troop has spent in these lean-tos. We moved here from Camp Keowa's own campsites for the spring 2024 shooting weekend and have come back every time since. The site is booked as Lakeside B for both nights.

The one catch is water: the lean-to sites have no water supply, so the troop brings its own. That is a patrol-box and quartermaster problem rather than a scout problem, but it is the reason the patrol box deadline is on this page.

Scouts sleep in the lean-tos, and a tent is optional. For a scout still working toward Tenderfoot it is the better choice: a night on a troop campout in a tent he helped pitch is exactly what Tenderfoot requirement 1b asks for. Everyone else sleeps in the lean-tos with the rest of the troop.

Our Campsite — Lakeside B Lean-Tos

What to Bring

Mid-October at Ten Mile River is genuinely cold at night — this is upstate, not Brooklyn, and the lake makes the mornings colder still. Pack for the thirties overnight.

• ⧠ GNYC Shooting Sports permission and waiver — signed, and separate from the ScoutBook slip
• ⧠ Executed permission form from ScoutBook
• ⧠ Ten Essentials
• ⧠ Backpack
• ⧠ Class A for travel, Class B for camp
• ⧠ Sleeping bag rated for the thirties, and a sleeping mat
• ⧠ Tent — optional: where we sleep explains when it is worth bringing
• ⧠ Mess kit and eating utensils
• ⧠ Warm layers, hat and gloves — standing still on a range is colder than hiking
• ⧠ Rain gear
• ⧠ Closed-toe shoes — required on every range, no exceptions
• ⧠ Refillable water bottle
• ⧠ Eye and ear protection if you own it — the committee provides it, but your own fits better
• ⧠ Fishing tackle, if you want to try for that award
• ⧠ Writing instrument

Leave firearms, ammunition and personal archery equipment at home. Everything used on the ranges is provided and inspected by the committee.

The Weekend

Friday evening
Gather at OLA, load the cars, drive up to Ten Mile River — about two and a half hours. Set up the site, then sleep; Saturday starts early.

Saturday
An early breakfast in patrols: the safety briefing at 8:00 am is required for everyone. Range sessions run 8:30 am to noon and 1:30 to 5:00 pm, with lunch back at the campsites in between. Scouts move between shotgun, cowboy action, archery, rifle and BB in assigned groups. Fishing is at Camp Keowa, with an adult; a few loaner poles wait at the Barta House, first come, first served. Pumpkins for the contest are carved in any down time during the day. Then the banquet dinner in the Keowa Dining Hall (doors at 6:00 pm, dinner at 6:15), followed by the pumpkin judging, the awards ceremony, raffles, and a campfire where every patrol owes a skit.

Sunday
Breakfast, break camp, police the site, and drive home. Back at OLA in the early afternoon.

Last Year at the Shoot-Out

The 2025 weekend set a bar this one has to clear. Saturday opened with shotgun, cowboy action and archery, then rifle and BB after lunch. One of our adults caught seven fish. Two scouts carved pumpkins and took second place in the contest. The banquet turned out to be clams, steak, chicken and salad — the troop's own historian recorded it as "infinitely better than anything we've had at Yawgoog." The troop won three raffles, and the night closed with a campfire full of skits.

Before that, the 2024 edition was the troop's first time taking the fall dates rather than the spring ones — good weather, a well-run programme, and the reason we have come back twice since.

The troop's shooting sports history at Ten Mile River goes back further than that, to the spring weekends the council used to run.