THE question is often asked whether trapshooting increases one’s ability in the field and the matter is open to a good deal of discussion. In my opinion, a lot depends upon the personality of the shooter to be considered. For, while I believe that in most cases it will help considerably, in others it will have decidedly the opposite effect.
Unquestionably, it is the best way to break in the novice, as, under the careful supervision of an old hand at the game, he will be corrected at the start in the many little faults that the beginner is so liable to acquire and which are so hard to break later on. Thus, while familiarizing himself with the proper handling of a gun and learning the rudiments of shooting under conditions where he is sure to be cooler than he would be in the field, he is becoming a safe man to take out.
But let him practice until he can break eighty-five per cent of the clay targets, then fare forth in quest of feathered game, and he is doomed to be rudely disappointed.
The reasons for this are easily given. Trapshooting is methodical and tends to make a man deliberate. A grouse or a woodcock does not wait for the word “pull” to flush, nor does a sportsman walk through the woods all day with the gun at his shoulder. And no matter how often the angles are changed in trapshooting, the shots are always more or less the same; they are always going away from the shooter, at the same rate of speed, at the same distance from him, and at about the same angle of elevation; they do not dodge about but sail straight away (except on windy days) clearly to the open. As an illustration of this, a few years ago a friend of mine who had, at the time, won the amateur championship of one of our leading trapshooting states, expressed the desire to accompany me on a trip to the lower Adirondacks for a few days woodcock shooting. The sport was good, due to a heavy flight, and in two days and a half I had bagged twenty-two birds, while my companion killed three, despite the fact that the best opportunities were offered to him. This man could easily have made me look like a beginner at the traps, but he lacked field experience.
To be sure, many of our expert trapshooters are wonderful wing shots, as are many who are known to the writer, but in every case that I can call to mind, they are old hands at the game, who had their first lessons in the field and were very proficient there before they took up trapshooting, or they were men who had the necessary time and means at their disposal to devote to both.
Almost any man can learn to be a good clay-pigeon shot by careful and constant practice, but many of these lack the qualities which are important to the practical hunter. For the sportsman who has the opportunity for but a limited trip each year in quest of his favorite game, be it covert shooting or wild fowl, a reasonable amount of practice at the traps is a great help. It gives the hand and eye the necessary practice to keep working in unison and in good time, which is so important, and makes one careful of his leads and also of the proper handling of the gun.
But to break into the first class of pigeon shots one has got to acquire the habit of shooting methodically, as it is this machine-like regularity in shooting, which only comes from constant practice at the traps, which is the secret of making long strings of hits. This in itself will often mar one’s field shooting. One cannot shoot methodically at grouse or woodcock.
Therefore, while a help to be reckoned with in duck shooting, it may have the opposite effect for upland work and, while excellent practice for the excitable, nervous gunner, it sometimes slows up the cool hand to too great an extent.
Undoubtedly, the regular method of trapshooting is not the best field practice, no matter how fascinating it may be as a separate branch of gunnery. To begin with, the best type of trap guns are in no sense of the word good for practical field shooting, and since the advent of the automatic trap, the shooting has become so rapid that a squad of gunners will go through their string of twenty-five targets each in about ten minutes. This is so fast that a novice cannot give much attention to the cause of his misses.
To get the most effective practice out of it for your fall shooting, it is plainly evident that some other method must be adopted to attain the best results. Make up a squad, shooting with the gun at the hip when the command to pull is given, with the privilege of using the second barrel if necessary to break the target. Also practice walking towards the trap house from the twenty-five yard mark and shooting at birds unexpectedly sprung. Practice at birds thrown across you and towards you and at doubles. Squads can be formed to take up this eccentric style of shooting which affords far more fun, is better practice, and has the added charm of being much less expensive as it takes more time.
For those that would like to go in for this form of shooting, aside from the regular shooting at their clubs, an excellent device is the hand trap. This is practically the same as the expert model only it has two handles, instead of the base to be fastened to the flooring, and is operated at arm’s length, throwing the targets fully as hard as they would be thrown from the regular “expert.” It requires no practice and can be used anywhere there is room to shoot in safety.
Another excellent device is the target slinger. This contrivance is held in one hand and the target is propelled by the force of the operator’s arm instead of a spring. It is light and handy to carry around and has the added advantage that, if necessary, when alone the shooter can throw targets for himself by holding his gun in the left hand while the target is thrown with the right. By means of an elastic which is put over the shoulder while shooting, the slinger is prevented from falling to the ground when it is dropped as the gun is grasped in both hands to shoot.
Of course it is much better to have some one else to throw the targets, as the shooting is then more natural and a greater variety of angles can be had. Also, birds may be thrown by one behind you at unexpected intervals while walking through a field, thus affording the best kind of practice. The targets can be propelled at a greater speed with this slinger than by an automatic trap, if desired, and this available speed and distance, together with the difficult angles attainable, afford shots of which an expert, in my opinion, could not hit better than seventy-five per cent. Of course, the birds thrown low to the ground are falling rapidly soon after leaving the trap and this is the only fault that I have to find with the slinger, as it is almost impossible not to overshoot such shots with it, and when shooting at game birds, no matter how straight and low to the ground they appear to fly, they are always rising a little.
Trapshooting, as we know it at the gun club, is a fascinating sport that is diverting the attention of thousands of busy men in search of a few hours’ relaxation, but it is not the good field practice, in its present state, that it could easily be made. The English sportsmen better appreciate its value in this respect, as they have numerous shooting schools where they go for pleasure and practice and shoot at the clay targets under all possible conditions. They are sprung from towers ninety to a hundred feet high, going away from or towards the shooter, and from numerous traps well concealed in field and cover that offer the best out-of-season practice.
Trapshooting will afford one the opportunity to learn the peculiarities of his gun and what loads are best suited for it, as the shells that give the best results on the targets are very apt to be the best in the field, and, if practiced with the above mentioned methods, should lead to greater efficiency in the game field. But shooting under the cut-and-dried rules of the Amateur Trapshooting Association it is nothing but a game, far removed from practical shooting. It is this short-sightedness upon the part of the A. T. S. officials who close their eyes to the fact that they are catering to the cranks and keeping the great majority of the sportsmen of the country out of the game that has stagnated trapshooting as a sport.
In England, where they use arms more nearly approaching practical field weapons, and release the target while the shooter stands with his gun below the elbow, using both barrels if necessary and a load of but one ounce and an eighth of shot, instead of the American charge of one and a quarter, the game is much more interesting to both the contestants and the onlookers, and of some practical value. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the visiting American teams (who are specialists) have invariably beaten them in the international contests, the Britishers are seriously considering the adoption of our rules. It is to be hoped for the good of British shooting that they never will, as their game, lacking the mechanical monotony of the American method, is one which commends itself to the hard-headed sportsmen of the country as well as the minority party of cranks.