Bethel sharpshooter amazes, teaches ‘mere mortals’ the magic.

Jerome Holt’s Benelli shotgun is in pieces on a table in his back field. A clay target, meanwhile, floats in the late afternoon sky, losing the battle with gravity.

The plan here is preposterous: Jerome proposes to reassemble his shotgun and chamber a round in time to blast the clay out of the sky.

I have my doubts. In my heart, I feel there is no possible way Jerome can complete this trick; the clay will die a natural death by impacting the ground intact.

Then his hands start moving and they are a literal blur. There’s the click of metal meeting metal followed by the clack of a shell entering the chamber. Jerome raises the shotgun. He squeezes the trigger and the clay target explodes into a thousand bright orange pieces still four feet above the ground.

Simply amazing. And yet, only a small example of the crazy and wonderful things that Jerome Holt can do with a shotgun.

“They call it trick shooting,” he says. “But there’s no trick. It isn’t magic.”

Whatever you say, Jerome.

LIKE BRUSHING YOUR TEETH

For the next three hours (or was it four? Time loses all meaning in Jerome’s East Bethel Road yard) I will watch this man do things with a variety of semi-automatic shotguns that don’t seem humanly possible.

Shooting upside down? No sweat. That one is so easy, he can do it with a novelty 10-foot-long shotgun.

Firing two shotguns at the same time to blast a half-dozen clays out of the sky? Consider it done. He calls that one “The Rooster Cogburn.”

Shooting between the legs at a target on the ground and another in the air? Please. Don’t insult the man.

Any trick shot that a mortal can dream of, chances are Jerome Holt has tried it.

“Ninety percent of the stuff that I do, it’s straight out of my imagination,” he says. “At first I’ll think, ‘Oh, I’ll never be able to do that.’ Then I start working on it.”

Jerome, who performs at gun clubs, trading posts – anywhere he is invited, really – is one of just 10 shotgun trick shooters in the country. What makes his dazzling abilities more impressive is the fact that he is completely self-taught.

In 2005, Jerome went to see famed shotgun exhibition shooter Tom Knapp at a show. Knapp was so impressed with Jerome’s self-instructed mastery of the shotgun, he invited Jerome to perform in one of his shows.

Pressure? What pressure? Jerome had been practicing his craft so enthusiastically, the pressure of an audience couldn’t shake the exquisite relationship he had built with his shotguns. Blasting things out of the sky had become automatic.

“Do you ever think about how you’re going to brush your teeth?” he asks. “No, you just do it. It’s automatic. That’s how you should operate a weapon.”

Soon after the performance with Knapp, Jerome was off on his own, performing at a variety of locations around New England. For a time, he performed with shooting partners under the name “Team Zespy,” which pays tribute to his lineage – his full name is Jerome Anthony Zespy Holt.

Ultimately, Jerome stopped using regular partners for his show. Instead, he began inviting in the men and women who had come to him for instruction.

That’s right: Jerome also teaches the fine art of shotgun exhibition shooting to others. And when those others are suitably trained, he brings them in to perform in his shows.

It’s at least part psychology: Jerome wants to demonstrate that anyone can learn to shoot well, with enough practice.

“The average person, who only shoots a little bit, thinks, ‘I’d never be able to do any of that,'” Jerome says. “Well, I’ve taken people who only shoot a little bit, and now they’re good enough to shoot in my show.”

At 58, Jerome has been shooting pretty much all of his life. His current bag of shotgun wizardy is estimated to hold 140 tricks, although that number grows all the time.

THE ULTIMATE COUPLE’S COUNSELING

Jerome Holt’s skills with a shotgun are so impressive that he’s able to wow those who actually shoot for a living. He’s taught Navy Seals, for example, and a professional sniper.

Recently, five U.S. Marines came to shoot on Jerome’s land. They were lugging around their own pistols and rifles and figured they had nothing to learn from this logger and excavator with all the Benelli shotguns.

“I said, ‘Do you guys want to learn how to really shoot a shotgun?'” Jerome says. “They looked at me and said, ‘Nah, we do all right.'”

By the end of the day, though, all the Marines wanted to talk about was what Jerome could do with his shotguns and what he was able to teach them to do.

He says it isn’t magic, but it kind of is. But while it’s tempting to believe that mere mortals can’t likely rise to that level, one should first consider Matt Stagliano and his girlfriend, Nora McCormack.

For six weeks now, the couple has been training with Jerome in his back field.

“This is our date night,” says Nora. “It’s a great way to unplug completely. You can’t be tied to a computer or a phone when you’re out here. It beats dinner and a movie any day.”

It sounds like a couple on a meaningless lark, but don’t be fooled. This isn’t some louder version of Paint Nite meant to serve as a simple diversion. As soon as the shooting begins, it becomes clear that both Stagliano and McCormack are fiercely competitive. They don’t want to learn how to be adequate with their shotguns. They want to nail it.

“We’ll both have nights where we shoot lights out – we won’t miss a shot,” says Matt. “Then we come back another time and can’t make even the easy shots. It’s a perishable skill.”

Both have shooting experience. Nora, the daughter of a retired policeman, has been shooting pistols since she was 8 years old. Matt, who works as a photographer within the firearm community, has experiences with pistols, tactical rifles and the like.

Shotgun shooting – especially the physics-defying sort that Jerome teaches – is a completely different animal.

“Some of the fundamentals carry over,” Matt says, “but for the most part, the tactical stuff goes right out the window.”

Fortunately, Jerome has no interest in hosting pointless dates for the couple. He means to train them, and that means pats on the back will be scarce.

He begins by advancing them along. Shooting side by side, both Nora and Matt will be required to shoot single clays out of the sky three times before they move on to two clays. And then three clays, five clays and whatever mind-bending trick shooting Jerome has in mind for them.

“We’re kind of shotgun monkeys,” Matt says. “We’ll try anything he throws at us.”

‘YOU ALMOST HAVE TO USE THE FORCE’ 

By the end of the night, they’ll be spinning in circles, shooting briquettes, golf balls and paint can lids out of the sky and performing under the intense pressure of Jerome’s instruction.

At one point in an earlier training session, Holt called out math problems that Stagliano had to answer before he could fire at the disc hurtling toward the ground. That’s one of Jerome’s ways of engaging the mind of his student.

“It really gets your head moving in different directions,” Stagliano says.

Jerome likes to keep his students under pressure that way. That disc is only going to be in the air for a few seconds, after all. If you want to shoot it, mind and body have to work together in just the right way. 

“Being relaxed is such an important part of it,” says Matt. “You almost have to use the force – you have to feel where that clay is going to be before it gets there.”

Jerome fine tunes their technique every step of the way. He helps them make physical adjustments, and when that’s not enough, he employs psychology.

“I’ll back you up on this one,” he tells Nora.

Nora is trying to complete a trick wherein she has to pluck a shell off the table, load it and chamber it before taking aim at a clay that’s falling toward the earth. She’s missed in her first couple attempts. By backing her up, Jerome is promising to shoot the clay if Nora can’t do it herself.

Competitive shooters just hate that.

“They always seem to get it down when I say I’m going to back them up,” Holt says. “They don’t want to get shown up.”

Jerome didn’t have to fire a shot, as it turns out. Under the threat of being bailed out by her instructor – and heckled by her boyfriend – Nora destroyed the clay before it could make its final impact with the earth.

Jerome’s gambit worked. But, he says, his instruction is about more than littering his yard with tiny clay fragments and demolished briquettes. Training for exhibition makes a person a better shooter all around, whether it’s in a competitive context or one of greater urgency.

It’s a point not lost on Matt.

“Part of dealing with a random home defense situation is developing a training regimen beforehand,” he says. “Having solid, ingrained and repeatable weapon manipulation and fundamental marksmanship skills removes those particular variables from the equation. Under stress, you can then rely on your training to work the gun, thereby allowing you more time to think and solve the problem at hand.

“Now that Nora has been shooting with Jerome and dealing with multiple moving targets in a compressed time frame,” he says, “I feel much more comfortable knowing that she has the requisite skills to handle and efficiently employ a shotgun at a moment’s notice. My hope is that we never have to find out.”

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Jerome is a big believer in the notion that a person can learn to do anything if he commits to it and puts in the proper amount of time. This is a fellow who learned to build houses so that he could build his own, and who then learned to build furniture so he could fill his rooms.

Since he started performing, Jerome has compiled an impressive list of sponsors: Cabella’s, Windham Weaponry, Bear Arm Sporting Goods in Bridgton, Northeast Bank, Bethel Bait & Tackle, Daytona Fun Machines out of Florida . . .

That’s not bad for a performer who relies on word of mouth almost exclusively, although Matt is building Jerome a Team Zespy website to help spread the word. Jerome’s web presence has been almost non-existent, apart from a Facebook page and a few scattered YouTube videos.

When he puts on a show, he uses Randy Autrey to provide music and emcee services to entertain the audience. Jerome’s main concern is shooting, although he is not completely removed from the crowd. Where would the fun be in that?

“I love it when people heckle me during a show,” he says. “They’ll say, ‘You’ll never be able to do that trick!’ Then I’ll go ahead and do it. It’s a fun way to interact with people.”

While he waits for new sponsors and new invitations to perform, Jerome continues to teach. Anyone can learn to trick shoot, he says. Anyone can learn to do what he says isn’t magic, but which sure looks a lot like it.

“The old adage that practice makes perfect?” Jerome says. “Well, that’s not true. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

Scattered across his back field are roughly a zillion shards of spent clays, a few holey golf balls and a whole lot of briquette dust that prove Jerome’s on target, again.

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com

A trip to shotgun heaven

If shooting beer cans and the occasional watermelon were Olympic sports, I’d be all over it.

I love to shoot my Mossberg shotgun, but most of the stuff I shoot is just sitting there waiting to be annihilated. There’s no real time pressure involved, just aiming, trigger squeezing and the sound of a Schlitz can accepting a few hundred pellets.

When shotgun maestro Jerome Holt invited me to shoot at some clay discs soaring across the Bethel sky, I agreed at once, mostly because I enjoy shooting, not because I expected to hit anything.

I underestimated Holt as a teacher.

The first few discs, I missed completely, as expected.

“Shoot the disc as soon as you can see it,” Holt advised. “Don’t wait for it to start falling.”

Simple advice, right?

The next disc, I blew out of the sky. Same with the disc after that and the two following. Can I get some high fives?

Not from Holt, no. Jerome Holt is not a man who believes much in celebrating. He believes more in advancing his students’ skills.

“Now try two discs,” he said.

So I did. Missed a couple and then started nailing them.

“Now try it left handed,” Holt said.

So, I tried that, too, even though tucking a shotgun into my left shoulder felt as unnatural as kissing a first cousin. It felt weird, but Holt guided me through some adjustments.

Disc flung, disc blasted out of the air.

High five?

Nope.

“Now try it with this,” Holt insisted, and thrust his famous 10-foot Benelli shotgun into my hand.

Seriously, that freak of a firearm is four feet long with a six-foot extended barrel Holt made himself. I felt there was no way I could move it quick enough to take aim at an elusive disc in a hurry to reunite with the ground.

Holt thought I could do it, though, and Holt was right.

Lord, but I love shotguns, and Jerome Holt’s rambling property in the thick of Bethel is like shotgun heaven. Shooting is safe there because Holt insists on safety in all things.

The ammo supply was seemingly endless because Holt buys shells by the pallet and sharp-shooting duo Matt Stagliano and Nora McCormack had brought along a big supply of their own.

We shot and shot some more as the Bethel afternoon turned to Bethel dusk. Nobody wanted to leave, especially when there were shells remaining and a few discs that remained intact.

“It’s completely relaxed out here,” Stagliano observed, “and relaxing makes you a better shooter.”

True that. I went onto Holt’s shotgun heaven feeling like I’d never hit one of those tiny little discs and left feeling like I couldn’t miss.

Can I get a high five?

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