Pennsylvania Game News - March 2018 - 56

Where the 12-gauge takes the lead
is in "American Handicap Trap," where
shooters start at the 16-yard mark and
competitively progress, a yard at a time,
back to 27 yards.
By the time the shooter is 27 yards
back, the clay bird could be 40-plus
yards away at the shot. At that distance,
every pellet counts. Those who acquire
the target quickly have a greater chance.
As with skeet, a version of "wobble
trap," will test your patience to the benefit
of your shooting skills.

SPORTING CLAYS

No matter how good someone is at
skeet or trap, the game of Sporting Clays
can be very humbling and challenging.
Originally developed in England in the
early 1900s to replicate bird and rabbit
hunting, the game uses clay birds thrown
from hidden distances and at varying
angles.
The game began taking off in the U.S.
in the 1980s, on walk-through courses
about the size of Par 5, 9-hole golf
courses. Each sporting-clays course has
10 to 15 stations, each with two hidden
trap throwers.
The clay birds can be thrown toward,
away or across the shooter's line of vision,
at any angle, height, distance and speed.
Every station is different and challenging, and courses vary. Trap throwers at
each station also can be repositioned, and
smaller clay birds might be used at some
stations, or thrown in pairs.
Where I've shot sporting clays,
improved cylinder and/or modified combination chokes worked well. But this
shotgun game can be frustratingly fun.
And it's considerably more expensive
than skeet or trap.
I have seen course prices vary from $65
to $100 or more.
56

5-STAND SHOOTING
For those gun clubs that don't have
enough land for a full sporting clays
course, a similar experience can be created
in skeet or trap fields with a game called
"5 Stand Shooting."
Here, shooters stand close to the usual
five-station trap-shooting positions, but
there are 10 trap throwers surrounding the
shooters, sending birds at different angles,
heights and speeds within the bracketed
firing line of each shooter's stand.
Those birds could be coming at you,
going away from you or sailing over you.
And there can be high flyers or low-to-theground runners.
Five birds are thrown to shooters
at each station, but there's a different
sequence at each.
The first bird is a single, and shooters
can take a second shot if they miss it.
The next two sets are doubles, with
birds coming from different throwers.
After the five birds are thrown, the shooters change stations, where they'll encounter different shooting sequences.
Even though the 5-stand shooters know
from which stations the birds are being
thrown, those doubles can be tricky, since
they can come at different directions,
angles and heights.
It is to say the least that 5-stand can
be equally humbling as sporting clays,
but it takes less time to shoot, there's a
lot less walking around and it's far less
expensive - usually the price of a round
of trap or skeet.
As common as it is for a good shotgunner to hit 25 birds in a round of skeet and
trap, it's far from common in 5 stand.
But any of these games will sharpen
your skills, and give you the opportunity to share some fun time with
friends, or make new ones.

Pennsylvania Game News - March 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2018