My grandfather got me into shooting trap when I was 16. First from targets thrown from his own foot trap on the farm and then at a local trap club. The trap club atmosphere was stuffy, formal and serious business, mostly I shot with older fellas. Later I joined a club north of Toronto, that had two skeet fields and one trap. I stuck with trap as that is the game I was raised on. I enjoyed trap and got good at. Then one day the trap machine broke down, and the fellas talked me into going over to the skeet field. I loved it, way more action, less stuffy, more social. I was hooked, shot registered targets for a few years, until work scheduling ended that. I still shot a lot, really a lot for several years. Had my ups and downs in the game, I stayed a solid A shooter venturing into double AA. The commitment wore thin after a while especially when I was doing 10K plus per year, so I scaled away back and enjoyed the game more, but it still had become old hat. Then sporting clays came along. I got introduced to it by my friend who took me down to the Rochester Brooks club south of Rochester. That was it I was hooked on that game. Bob and I traveled down to Rochester Brooks every Sunday for close to a year until. Uxbridge Shooting sports put in the first sporting clay field in Ontario. I shot there a lot and had great times there. Great bunch of folks there at the time. Then my home club put in a sporting clay field thanks to the generosity of a few members. I liked the action, diversity, social aspects, and the fact no two stations and fields where the same, a real challenge. In those years no one had ever shot a clear round on a sporting course which at time a normal round was 50 targets, the best round I shot was 46 at Uxbridge.
I have not set foot on a trap range since the late 70's, and a skeet field since the mid 90's, and a sporting field since somewhere around 2000. A lot of fellas think that if you have a decent gun, some good ammo, and natural talent with tons of practice at whatever discipline you have chosen that you will become real good. Well that's partly true, about two thirds the truth actually. The other part is the mental game. If your mental game is not perfected then you'll only ever be a mediocre shooter at best as equipment, raw talent, and mileage will only take you so far. Did you ever wonder why top Olympic athletes hire sport psychologists to work with the top athletes. It is to perfect their mental game. They already know how to figure skate, but can they give their very best performance on que when required with half the planet watching. When In a skeet shoot off it is doubles off stations 3,4,5, with a crowd watching. Miss and your out. This is were the fella with the strongest mental game wins.
