Most fathers with grown sons watch sports or go fishing on Sundays.
Mick and Shawn Nesseim still dress up and play cowboy.
At Hartford this past Sunday, the duo competed – individually – in the “He Paid Your Fees” mounted shooting competition, hosted by the Lennox-based Dakota Territory Mounted Shooters.
“It’s definitely a family activity,” Shawn Nesseim said. “You’ll see a lot of whole families where you’ve got grandpa, dad and daughter all shooting.”
At such events, competitors clad in cowboy gear mount a horse, put a single-action, 5-shot .45 pistol in their hand and shoot at 10 balloons as they zigzag through any one of 60 possible courses.
The revolvers shoot at targets from 15-20 feet away. Halfway through the course, competitors must holster their first pistol and pull out their second, hopefully without missing a beat.
“The competition is the speed of it,” said Mike Whitehead, president of the Dakota Territory Mounted Shooters. “The fastest time without missing a balloon usually wins.”
The revolvers the competitors use are real, but the shells are filled with black powder, not bullets.
“There’s no bullet that comes out,” Whitehead said.
There are two prominent mounted shooting groups in the U.S.: The Mounted Shooters Association (MSA) and the Cowboy Mounted Shooters Association (CMSA).
The sport is similar for both groups, but the CMSA requires its riders to wear authentic period gear – including a cowboy hat, leather boots and a kerchief – while they ride the course.
About five years ago, Mick and Whitehead, from Lennox, saw a mounted shooting group from Minnesota put on a demonstration. For the two men, already Civil War re-enactment buffs with horsemanship experience and a long-standing fascination with the cowboy culture, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
They started the Dakota Territory Mounted Shooters club and became the third mounted shooting group in the state. They joined a group in Puckwanna and one called Seven Downs in Spearfish.
Through three years of tournaments, demonstrations and word-of-mouth advertising, the group has grown to nearly triple in membership from a half dozen to around 25.
Thirty-seven participants competed in Hartford on Sunday.
The growth is partially due to the Midwest’s built-in farm culture, Shawn Nessiem said. Plenty of South Dakotans grow up learning how to ride horses in a competitive setting through rodeo clubs.
“A lot of people are already into roping or barrel-racing, then they see us do this stuff and they see something else they can do with your horse,” he said.
Shawn also was a Civil War re-enactor and had been from a young age. He joined up with the mounted shooters soon after it began.
“It’s just something fun to do,” Shawn said. “We started out in the cavalry, so we were already playing with guns and sabers.”
Mick, who claims to read little outside of Civil War in his free time, said the state is one of the best places in the country for people with an interest in the ways of the cowboy.
Fans of Roy Rodgers still have a place here, he said.
“There’s a lot of this cowboy culture stuff that still goes on around here,” Mick Nesseim said. “There are western artists, cowboy re-enactment, there’s a wild west show – that’s what exposes people.”
That culture has gained some degree of prominence outside the region, too. Whitehead earned a spot at last year’s national competition in Amarillo, Texas.
Eastern South Dakota and Minnesota are both hotbeds of cowboy activity. In South Dakota alone, there were four events last month. There are four more scheduled for July.
Canistota will host an event on Sunday.
“There’s a lot more of it going on than people realize,” Shawn Nesseim said.
The culture also is more open than one would imagine. Whitehead and the Nesseims all said that anyone interested in learning more about mounted shooting is welcome to visit an event or come to Lennox for one of the Dakota Territory Mounted Shooters’ monthly meetings – held on the second Sunday of each month. The shooters let visitors try out different guns and get a feel for the sport at their own pace.
The costs associated with mounted shooting can be prohibitive, but there are ways to ease into the sport. The MSA shoots, which do not require competitors to wear expensive period gear, are a good way to start out in a more economical fashion.
The revolvers aren’t cheap, either. Two guns can be a costly investment.
“We don’t expect people to spend $1,000 on guns right away,” Shawn Nesseim said. “Our advice is they come out, use the guns that we have and see what they like because everybody shoots differently.”
The group gets plenty of visitors and new members, and some have made their mark quickly. Lori Dump, a Brandon woman, has become a player at the regional competitions over the past two seasons and other young competitors are turning up the heat on experienced shooters such as Mick Nesseim and Mike Whitehead.
“We’ve got some young guys coming in that are really good,” Mick said.