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About Our Members
The Walkfar Coonhunter’s Club is based in Haywood County in Western North Carolina. The nucleus of the membership is from Haywood County; some members and leaders from other clubs have joined us from surrounding counties and Tennessee. The Walkfar Club welcomes all hunters and sportsman TO come and join our hunts or just come for friendship and fellowship.
The members have held benefits for different children in the community with life threatening diseases along with other benefit events in the community when the need arises. The club did a benefit also for a Walkfar member with terminal cancer and no insurance. The club continues each year to donate or work with fellow clubs to put on benefit hunts for nationally known organizations such as Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the Shriners and St Jude Hospitals. In the club’s trophy case there are several honor awards we have received in appreciation for our charity work and charitable contributions.
Some of the older members and leaders have a long history of hunting and standing up for our heritage and our rights to hunt. Some years back a stiff stance was made and some of our older members sat on a committee and helped the county write the animal control ordinance for this county when it looked like proposed ordinance would jeopardize their hunting with dogs in the county.
The members over the years have tried to educate and change attitude among them to hunt like a sportsman and pass this on to others; also to be ready to fight for their heritage and hunting rights. The members over the years have worked with Wildlife to make across the board changes including restrictions and game laws and regulations that have made a positive difference in this area in both the Raccoon and Bear population.
For fifty years several shooting clubs and gun enthusiasts tried to get a public shooting range in this area with no luck. The Walkfar Coonhunter’s through one of their leaders wrote a proposal and introduced it to Wildlife at a public hearing. The club leadership has not only worked hard for the public range but also has tried to get Wildlife to establish a trap and a place for our youth to shoot clays. We thought we had an agreement but an environment and safety issue shot that out the window. We still have feelings that a lot of energy needs to be put in this area especially for our youth and clay shooters.
 The Cold Mountain Shooting Range become a reality January 1, 2007. It is for all people including the disabled and wheel chair folks wanting to take part in a 100 yard rifle range. The range has walkways and paths and five shooting benches to accommodate the handicapped including wheel chairs. This range was engineered to take care of both the able and disabled and both left and right handed shooters.
The range is 100 yards and open to the public at no cost Monday through Saturday, no Sunday shooting. There are 25,50, and 100 yard stationary targets set up for five firing lines where clothes pins can be used to pin up your targets.
You are asked to take out your trash and all brass and empty cartridges when you leave.
This has been a long drawn out process but it has been a pleasure working with both Director Dick Hamilton and Bobby Setzer our past WRC district commissioner. I can't say enough about them and their support of the funding. Susie Fish supported the range and kept the communicatoin lines open from nearly the begining. The Cold Mountain Shooting Range is one of a kind in the Western end of the state and could be a model for future shooting ranges; we firmly believe every district needs one.
In July, 2007 Executive Director Richard Hamilton recognized Wayne Smith of Haywood County, who has worked for years to remove barriers that exist for handicapped sportsmen. The Commission adopted a resolution, read by Hamilton, which names the Cold Mountain Shooting Range the Wayne E. Smith Shooting Range in honor of Smith’s efforts on behalf of disabled sportsmen, and especially in the construction of the shooting range. Smith thanked the Commission for the honor with gratitude for Director Hamilton’s cooperation and assistance with his suggestions about hunting and fishing accommodations for the disabled.
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