Come on down to our shooting range for a fun and engaging shooting experience. Our standard package includes a laid-back 5-target practice session where our experienced instructors will guide you through safe shotgun operation and proper firearm technique, followed by a relaxed 20-target competition. We’ve got a variety of targets that cater to all skill levels, so whether you’re a seasoned shooter or a first-timer, we’ll make sure you have a blast.
We’ve got all the gear you need, including hearing and eye protection, and we offer outdoor shelter and temporary shade on those sunny days. No need to worry about the weather, rain or shine, we’re here for a good time.
If you’re keen for more targets, we’ve got packages with 35 or 50 targets, and the pricing depends on how many of your mates are joining the fun. We ask for a minimum of 3 people to make a booking, and just make sure you wear some comfy, closed-toe shoes and whatever clothing you feel like. And don’t forget to bring your ID along for a quick paperwork session at the start.
Join us for a day of laughs, friendly competition, and good vibes at our shooting range.
| AGE 27 | PLACE OF BIRTH VIC |
| HOME CLUB Deniliquin Clay Target Club | COACH Russell Mark |
| CAREER EVENTS Men Shooting Trap Mens Double Trap Mixed Trap Team | OLYMPIC HISTORY Rio 2016 Tokyo 2020 |
Sport: Shooting
Event: Trap
Olympic History: Rio 2016
Highlights: Representing Australia at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games
Coach: Russell Mark
Year Born: 1995
State Born: Victoria
Growing up on a farm in Mulwala, New South Wales, James Willett started competitive clay shooting at the age of 14. Introduced to the sport through school, he practiced at the Corowa Clay Target Club and quickly advanced in the rankings.
Willett began competing in the double trap discipline at the beginning of 2015 and upstaged many of his more fancied rivals around the world during his opening year in the sport. Competing at his first-ever World Cup, he shot a junior world record in qualifying with 142/150 targets and just missed out on bronze in a shoot-off.
Willett secured an Olympic quota position for Australia at the 2015 Oceania Championships before claiming his first World Cup victory when he won the Rio 2016 test event.
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Making his Olympic debut in Rio, Willett moved through to the semi-final after finishing tied with Germany’s Andres Low as the pair shot 140/150 to both set a new Olympic record. Willett then shot 26/30 to enter a shoot-off to get into the bronze medal match but missed on his second shot to finish the event in 5th.
Willett bounced back at the end of 2016 season and won his maiden World Cup Final when he overcame USA’s Jeffrey Holguin 28 hits to 27 in the gold medal match.
He finished sixth at the 2018 Commonwealth Games but was back on top in 2019 when he equalled the world record on his way to winning Trap gold at the Acapulco World Cup. The same year he achieved a No.1 ranking and with Laetisha Scanlan won Trap Team Mixed gold at the 2019 World Championships.
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Willett won the 2020 Commonwealth Championships which doubled as Australia’s first Olympic selection event. His overall performance in the four-round series put him seven points clear of nearest rival Thomas Grice and secured his Tokyo selection.
Willett is coached by Olympic gold medallist Russell Mark.
| YEAR AWARDED 2016 | MENTOR Stan Longinidis | DATE OF BIRTH 23/12/1995 |
James Willett is a shooter and Olympian who was awarded a Scholarship within the 2016 Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program, he was paired with Stan Longinidis as his Mentor.
James was born in Mulwala, country New South Wales, in 1995, and started shooting at Corowa High School at the age of 14. He developed quickly under the tutelage of his father Arthur and entered his first international competition at the DTL World Championships in New Zealand in 2014. He finished the event as the world junior champion.
Following two strong years in the Men’s Double Trap, James won the ISSF World Cup in 2016 and qualified for his first Olympic Games in Rio, finishing 5th. During 2017, he won another national title and finished on the podium at multiple World Cup events. He then competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Double Trap but was forced to make a career change. Double Trap was removed from the Olympic program, so James switched to the Trap.
In his new discipline, James won dual World Cup gold medals in Mexico in 2019 and did so with a world record score of 125/125 and 47/50. This won him the world number 1 ranking in Men’s Trap. James won two more national titles in 2020 and returned to the Olympic arena in Tokyo in 2021 after working closely with famous Australian shooter Russell Mark.
James and his family built a personal shooting range on their farm in order to help fellow Australian shooters train and compete and develop their skills in Olympic disciplines.
James Willett and Laetisha Scanlan teamed up for the Trap Mixed Teams event at the ISSF World Championships in Osijek, Croatia on Thursday where they won the bronze medal for Australia.
The pair scored 142/150 in qualification tied with Slovenia and entering a shoot off, where the shot a further 4 targets to qualify in 5th position for the Bronze Medal Match.
The Bronze Medal Match was a close affair with the Aussies leading 3-1 at one point over Bulgaria, before finding themselves 5-3 down. They held their nerve and trusted their process bringing the score back to 5-5 meaning it was time for a sudden death shoot off.
Bulgaria started the shoot off hitting their first target but missed on the second. Willett stepped up first for Australia hitting his target, before Scanlan took aim, not letting the pressure of the moment affect her as she dispatched of the second target claiming the bronze medal for Australia.
Speaking on qualification, Scanlan said “Willett definitely carried the team today he shot amazing, 74/75 which was really really fantastic, I’m really happy to make the bronze medal match and come away with the bronze.”
Speaking on the final Willett added “We ran it all the way out, it came down to a shoot off and we managed to get away with the first one so it was good.”
Tomorrow, Willett and Scanlan will be in action in the Trap Team Women event with Willett teaming up with Nathan Argiro and Thomas Grice, whilst Scanlan will team up with Catherine Skinner and Penny Smith.
Speaking on preparing for the Trap Team Women tomorrow, Scanlan said “I think a big sleep, it’s been a long campaign. Normally we don’t shoot qualification for the individuals over 3 days so it feels like an extra day but I think a good feed and a good night’s rest and we can come back out tomorrow refreshed and ready to rocket.”
Social restrictions and lockdowns have become the new norm. For our Olympic shooting athletes, it is a period of immense frustration. They have earned their ticket to the Tokyo Olympic Games, but they must now wait another 16 months before they can walk into the Athletes Village. For most, they can’t even fire a shot instead relying on practice dry firing or using SCATT laser machines while holed up at home.
But for Olympic trap shooter James Willett, life is normal. Social distancing? Not necessary when you have your own $250,000 Olympic-standard fully licenced trap range on the family farm in Mulwala 100km west of Albury, just inside the NSW border. Willett can simply walk out the back door, load his shotgun, call ‘pull’ and blaze away as the clay targets spin across the skyline.
Willett and his dad, Arthur, commenced building the 20m long trap range last November to assist him prepare for the Tokyo Olympics. Inside the 2m high concrete bunker are 15 clay target machines which fire off targets in random directions. The project was completed in March. Then COVID-19 took over the world. The trap range was shiny, new and ready for use. Talk about good timing.
While his Olympic rivals are unable to fire off a shot, Willett can practice as if the world was functioning normally. It will give him a decisive advantage when social restrictions are eventually lifted, and competitions recommence.
“I’m very lucky to have the range on the farm and being able to shoot at the moment. I never thought it would have paid off for this reason,” said Willett.
The trap range became necessary for Willett as he pursues his dream of an Olympic gold medal. Melbourne is a three hour drive away. Sydney is six and a half. Build your own on the farm? A 20 second walk.
Most of the building work was done by Willett and his dad. That’s how things get done in the country.
“Growing up on a farm, you become familiar with using machinery, using your hands and earning responsibility. At 12 years of age, I was driving a header on my own after coming home from school to help dad out,” he explained.
Arthur also introduced him to shooting at a young age and he gained his firearm licence when he was 12. “We had a problem with foxes. Baits are dangerous to the dogs, so we’d go out to shoot the foxes,” he said.
Willett, under that watchful eye of Arthur, proved to be a good shot. Shooting was a school sport at Corowa High and zone, state and national schoolboy honours quickly followed. Weekends were occupied travelling and competing at various Down The Line competitions across NSW and Victoria where he would face off against the stars of the shooting circuit and the grizzly, gnarly old timers. Lessons were quickly learned, and valuable experience was gained.
In 2013, when aged 18, he was shooting against 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games gold medallist, Russell Mark. Two years later, Willett was named in the Australian team for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Russell Mark the competitor later became Russell Mark the coach.
Willett arrived in Rio as the world’s top ranked double trap athlete after winning the World Cup final in Rome months earlier, but the Olympics didn’t go quite to plan.
A medal, possibly gold, was in his sights after he and Andreas Low of Germany both set an Olympic qualifying record hitting 140 from a possible 150 targets. With the top six athletes progressing to the semi-finals, Low was the first athlete eliminated and then Willett lost a three-man shoot-off for the bronze medal against Steven Scott and Tim Kneale, both from Great Britain.
While disappointed, Willett put it down as part of the steep learning curve and vowed to be back. He also knew time was on his side. The gold medal winner, Kuwaiti Fehaid Aldeehani, who was competing as an independent Olympic athlete after Kuwait was banned from the Games, was 49 years of age. Willett was only 20.
After Rio, double trap was removed from the Tokyo shooting competition schedule and Willett was forced to change to trap. While he was amid the change-over, Willett competed at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games finishing sixth.
2019 proved to be another great year for Willett. At the World Cup meet in Acapulco, Willett equalled the world record when shooting a perfect qualifying score of 125 from 125 targets. Two-time Australian Olympic gold medallist, Michael Diamond, is the only other Australian shooter to have completed the perfect score in 2012.
“It was very satisfying. It’s not something I thought I could achieve straight away. It came quicker than I thought. Getting through that last shot was a great moment and I will never forget that,” said Willett.
In Italy last year, Willett and Victoria’s Laetisha Scanlan won the Mixed Pairs gold medal in the World Championship with Australian team-mates, Tokyo Olympians Tom Grice and Penny Smith, earning the bronze medal.
In Tokyo next year, Willett will again enter the trap competition as one of the medal favourites, but this time there will be another shot at a medal with the introduction of the Mixed Trap Pairs.
“Going into the Olympics with two medal opportunities is different to what I had in Rio,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to win the Olympic Games.”
While Tokyo will be his second Olympic Games, Willett has no intention of it being his last.
“I want to be involved in the sport for a long period of time. It’s something that I enjoy. I can see myself staying in the sport for many (Olympic) cycles and to make as many teams as I can,” he said
“There is no real barrier to how long you can shoot for as long as you can remain competitive. The guy that won in Rio was almost 50.”
That means his Mulwala “Field of Dreams’ trap range is there for the long term.
– Greg Campbell
James Willett is a world champion trap shooter competing in the Olympics this month.
He has won gold, silver and bronze medals at Commonwealth Games events as well as World and Oceanic Championships.
Next week he will be shooting for gold at the summer games in Tokyo.
Amy, my girlfriend, and I first rented a small unit in Mulwala in 2017 where we first moved in together.
It was a small two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit in Bayly St.
It suited our budget the best at the time and we stayed for about 10 months before we moved to another rental in Yarrawonga due to our first one being sold.
Amy and I have just moved into our fantastic three-bedroom, two-bathroom Kennedy Builders home in Silverwoods Estate Yarrawonga.
This is a perfect location for the both of us as Amy works in Wangaratta, which is only a 35-minute drive, and it’s nice and close to my family farm near Mulwala where our private Olympic standard shooting range is.
The other really nice part about living in Silverwoods is having the new Sebel resort and Black Bull Golf Course so close, which provides somewhere to dine and entertain when we have friends visit.
We are very impressed with the quality of the home, with its spacious alfresco facing north to enjoy the sun and our gas log fire to enjoy in the colder months.
There’s also plenty of space in the house to allow friends to stay when we have training sessions at the shooting range on the farm, which is really nice.
I am very fortunate to be able to live in such a nice spot so close to Lake Mulwala and enjoy all of the facilities on offer locally.
I would love to have a place somewhere in the heart of the trap shooting world in Italy’s North overlooking Lake Garda.
There are many Olympic trap ranges close by including the largest range in the world in Lonato.
It’s also close to where my Perazzi Shotgun is made in Brescia.
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Among the thousands of Olympians taking the longer-than-normal road between competing at Rio and Tokyo, few have been forced to find a new event.
Australian sharpshooter James Willett, having emerged from such a transition to become a contender for two medals at the 2021 Games, is in an even more select group.
Willett qualified for the Rio double trap final with an Olympic record score, finished fifth then was told later in 2016 that his discipline was being wiped from the Games as part of the push for gender equality.
The 25-year-old, who is mentored by Russell Mark, recalibrated.
Willett successfully embraced the change and will seek to secure gold in both men’s trap and team trap in Toyko, where he will partner Laetisha Scanlan after their World Cup win in 2019.
The Olympic-standard trap shooting range, worth approximately $250,000 and completed in 2020 with help from sponsors, at his family farm in the Riverina underlines the dedication of a man on a mission.
“Double we shot at two targets. Olympic trap we get one target at a time and the targets are quicker,” Willett told AAP.
“They’ve both very difficult, just different technically.
“It did come as a shock after Rio. It was hard for all of us around the world, there’s maybe two of three of us who have made their respective Olympic teams in trap. I had age on my side.
“Russell (Mark) was great support, he coached me in both disciplines. I was pretty lucky to have him.”
Willett will arrive in Tokyo shouldering great expectations, determined to become Australia’s first male shooter to claim Olympic gold since Michael Diamond in 2000.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it hard to plot form but Willett’s qualifying score of 125 out of 125 at a World Cup win in 2019, when he became the only Australian to achieve the faultless feat outside Diamond, is a sign of his calibre.
“Going into Rio I was world No.1, so there was obviously a lot of medal expectations and stuff back then,” Willett said.
“Similar to what there will be in Tokyo. Laetisha and I are world champions, so we’ll be medal favourites in that as well I guess.
“Rio was disappointing but it was my first Olympics. It was a good experience, I learned a lot.
“The environment is just a lot different to other competitions. There’s a lot of distractions outside your sport that you can get caught up in.”
Willett and teammates have been starved of international competition over the past 15 months, while interstate border closures and lockdowns have made it harder to arrange and attend domestic events.
The backyard range constructed by Willett and his dad Arthur has been a life-changing addition, allowing him to train whenever he wants.
“We finished it in March, right before COVID hit,” Willett said.
“I pretty much kept training right through.
“I held a couple of competitions on the range, when I was able to. We’ve had some of the Olympic team up training, it’s been nice.”
Willett predicted that being in lockdown while isolating at the Olympic village “will be the hardest part” of Tokyo 2021 restrictions.
It is a price he is happy to pay in pursuit of the dream he has harboured since childhood, when he idolised Mark.
It is apt that Mark, who competed at six Olympics and won gold at Atlanta, will remain a sounding bound and source of support via Zoom and calls as Willett adjusts to the biosecurity bubble.
“It’s been great having Russell on my team. The knowledge and experience he has is invaluable,” he said.
“We speak a lot, he helps me through all the ups and downs.
“He always talks about following the process, not focusing on what you can’t control.”
It is a mantra that ensured Willett successfully reset his target – and will remain vital if he is to hit them in Japan.
At Shelford Shooting you are not required to have a firearms license. However, if you’re unlicensed you must be approved on the day of the session by filling in the NSW Police Force – Firearms Registry Declaration (P650). The declaration is for approval to use a firearm on an approved shooting range declaring that over the past 10 years the participant has been of good behavior and having sound mental stability. Drivers license identification or similar is required to be shown on the day also. For full terms and conditions, please contact us via the form or give us a call.
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