2023 – Michael Peterson

Lifetime Targets

96150

Wisconsin State Titles

12 Gauge (3 times) – 2013, 2017, 2022

20 gauge (6 times) – 2010, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2022

28 Gauge (6 times) – 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022

410 bore (4 times) – 2007, 2013, 2017, 2022

Doubles (9 times) – 2009, 2011, 2014, 2016-2018, 2020-2022

HOA (10 times) – 2007, 2011-2017, 2019, 2022

HAA (9 times) – 2010-2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022

Champ of Champs (1 times) – 2022

Zone 5 Titles

2013 HOA Champion

2015 Doubles Champion

2018 Doubles, 12 Gauge, and 20 Gauge Champion

2019 Doubles and 20 Gauge Champion

2023 Doubles, 12 Gauge, 20 Gauge, 28 Gauge and HAA Champion

World Titles

2008 Junior 410 Bore Champion

2010 12 Gauge, 410 Bore, HOA, and HAA Champion

2015 Open World Doubles Champion

2015 Open World HOA Champion

2015 Open World HAA Champion

2017 Open World Doubles Champion

2022 Open World Doubles Champion

Major Accomplishments

400×400 – June 15-16, 2013, Great Western, Northbrook Sports Club

500×500 – June 15-16, 2013, Great Western, Northbrook Sports Club

2017 NSSA 28 Ga High Average Leader – 0.9950

2017 US Open 28 Gauge Champion

2018 US Open Doubles Champion

2023 US Open HOA and HAA Champion

NSSA All-American Teams

2009-Junior First Team

 2014, 2015, 2018*, 2022 – Triple-Sub Senior First Team (*Captain)

2016, 2018, 2019 – Open First Team

2017, 2020, 2021 – Open Second Team

Statistics

Total Lifetime Targets – 96,150

Lifetime 4-gun Average/5-gun Average – 0.9730/0.9696

100 Straights – 205 Total

12 Gauge – 49 

20 Gauge – 75

28 Gauge – 52

410 Bore – 12

Doubles – 17

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Michael Peterson is a third-generation skeet shooter, following in the footsteps of his father (Thomas Peterson) and grandfather (Dr. M. L. Peterson). He was introduced to the sport initially by joining his father at the Wausau Skeet and Trap Club for his father’s league nights and was eventually given the opportunity to try shooting himself when he was 11. Mike quickly found he had a passion for the sport and started on a skeet league at Wausau the next year with his father. Mike continued to enjoy the sport and his father took him to his first registered skeet shoot at the Van Dyne Sportsmen’s club in 2003. Tom and Mike shot only 12-gauge, 20 gauge and Doubles in that first year, and Tom invested in a Browning Citori XS Skeet in the off season and sent it to Briley for Sub-Gauge tubes for the next year of shooting. Mike and Tom shared that Browning for one year until Tom bought an almost identical version for himself the following year. Mike and that first Browning were nearly inseparable for 15 years, and it helped Mike accomplish some of his most significant wins. The first of which was the 2007 Wisconsin State HOA title with a score of 395, Mike would also win the .410 title that year after a shootoff with WSSA Hall of Famer and World Champion Mark Reichow. Mike still uses the bag awarded to the .410 Champion that year and cherishes the memory of that eventful Sunday. 

Since that State Shoot in 2007 Mike has amassed 48 State Titles, 12 Zone 5 Titles, 4 US Open Titles, 5 Open World Titles, and wins at many other major shooting events. Mike was also able to accomplish a feat only matched by a few Wisconsin Shooters in the past, all of them Hall of Fame members, by shooting a perfect 500×500 at the Great Western held at Northbrook Sports Club on June 16^th, 2013. Mike has been chasing that perfection ever since and has come within 1 target of the perfect score 4 times since, with the most prestigious of those times being at the 2015 World Skeet Championships held in San Antonio, Texas. Mike was 1 target away from perfection in back-to-back tournaments that year in the Mini-World and the Main World Championships and took home both the HOA titles from those tournaments and recorded an 8-day total of 1048/1050 targets, not including shootoffs. That 8-day stretch was the most impressive of Mike’s accomplishments of Mike’s career, as he won the Mini-World Doubles Championship on the first day for his first ever win in San Antonio and followed it up with the Doubles Championship in the World Championships by outlasting 13 competitors over 5 boxes in the shootoff.  Mike was on the podium for 7 of the 15 events of that 8-day stretch, standing atop the podium 6 times. Mike would also find that top step of the podium in the Doubles events in 2017 and 2022.

While that week in 2015 may be infeasible to repeat, Mike has continued to compete around the country and has continued to win. With his consistent success, and a Browning that had given nearly all it had to Mike, he was approached by Krieghoff International to become one of their Pro-Staff shooters in 2019 and Mike happily agreed. Mike also has a long-standing relationship with Briley Manufacturing and between the two first class companies, Mike was set up with a gun that he could compete with for many years to come, and compete he has, winning a Mini-World title in his first year with the Krieghoff and following it up with another the next year.  In 2022, he was able to sweep the Wisconsin State Championships and win the Open Doubles World Championship with his Krieghoff. A year later he won the US Open HOA and HAA Championships. 

Mike has enjoyed success on the field but would not have been able to without the support of many friends, family, fellow shooters, 2-man team partners, and skeet moms. His original two-man team partner was his dad, but Mike has been honored to team up with many throughout the years. Ken Schmirler and Mike were able to win the 2010 Junior World 20ga Coach/Child championship, an event Mike and Tom had also won 2 years earlier and it is one of Mike’s proudest moments to have won the event with both of his biggest supporters. The late Randy Riehle and Mike partnered for many years and put each other “on-notice” many times as they took friendly jabs at each other. Mike also partnered with Dave “Eggy” Maas and the two were able to take home Open Two-Man Team World Championships, in addition to 5-Man Team World Championships with a few different squads. Mike has also partnered with Atticus Clark who Mike coached when Atticus was a member of the Marquette University High School shooting team. Although there has been a lot of individual success, the team events have always been special to Mike, and he enjoys partnering with close friends to hopefully get into shootoffs with!

Shooting is in Mike’s blood, and he has made so many friends throughout the shooting community that it is much like his family. He truly could not have accomplished all that he has on the field without the support of his skeet family and hopes to bring even more people into the skeet community for years to come.