Skeet, Trap or Sporting clays?

I think a lot of these differences have to do with most Trap fields having voice-activated throwers. You’ll learn to ‘save’ all the comments until after the round.

It’s been years since I’ve shot Skeet, but I don’t even recall seeing microphones at each station.


maynard said:
Trap is pretty easy to learn but hard to master. Usually not much talking going on during the relay. Shoot 5 shots in turn and move one station to the right. Some serious shooters that will look down their noses at you if you are not shooting a trap gun. Heaven forbid if you don't have a shell catcher on your semi.
Skeet is more social, a squad of 5 shooters moving around as a group 2-4 shots at each station. After a couple rounds the routine is easy to catch onto. Usually some friendly banter going on. Shoot what you have, O/U, semi, pump, SxS.
Sporting Clays is like playing golf with a shotgun. Can be serious or more laid back depending on the squad you shoot with.
Skeet is my favorite, followed by Sporting Clays.
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stubblejumper said:
I started with skeet, I find it much more representative of actual bird hunting, because you have targets coming and going , and broadside, as opposed to trap, where are targets are going away from you. Sporting clays has the greatest variety of shot presentations, but is much more expensive to shoot. As has been mentioned, skeet is much more relaxed and more social than trap, and I find sporting clays similar. Skeet or sporting clays shooters tend to do much better at trap, than trap shooters do at skeet or sporting clays. I run a skeet field and shoot sporting clays with a group of friends that mostly come from a trap background , and it took them a while to get used to incoming targets, compared to those of us that came from a skeet background. I enjoy sporting clays most, but as I posted, it is much more expensive to shoot, so I shoot more skeet.
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Mister stubblejumper.

And a question to all of you of whom I most respectfully read your advise and wisdom.

Yes or no?

Is a skeet range not the most friendly of the three most important shotgun sports?
A place where new shot gunners watch and bs with other's while the teacher instructs

A trap range where some people think the only achievement in their lives is a systematic 25. Very serious for some folks. Calm down you guys.

Sporting Clay's. A mix of trap and skeet.
Where the socialization amongst new shooter's should be kept at the level of skeet.
A fun little shooting experience.

And bring the girls, And have the guns and loads for them.
 
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bluelynx said:
Mister stubblejumper.

And a question to all of you of whom I most respectfully read your advise and wisdom.

Yes or no?

Is a skeet range not the most friendly of the three most important shotgun sports?
A place where new shot gunners watch and bs with other's while the teacher instructs

A trap range where some people think the only achievement in their lives is a systematic 25. Very serious for some folks. Calm down you guys.
Getting a 17 does not make a newbie a loser to spit a you people and walk away hoping to close your range.

Sporting Clay's. A mix of trap and skeet.
Where the socialization amongst new shooter's should be kept at the level of skeet. 7
A fun little shooting experience.

And bring the girls, And have the guns and loads for them.
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It depends on the club, but I find both skeet and sporting clays to be very social compared to trap. Then again, the voice activated release system used on trap fields keeps people from talking.
 
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Trap shooting is for old guys who don’t know how to socialize…. Skeet shooting is for old guys who haven’t completely forgotten how to socialize…. I’m 74 and happy to say that I shoot a fair bit of Sporting Clays . It is somewhat like full contact shooting with lots of friendly good-natured bantering going on, certainly in our group at least. If you want to participate in a social event, and who doesn’t, then Sporting Clays is the only such event in town. JMHO…. Skeet might be a bit easier to get acceptably OK at for a novice because the birds always fly the same way. The shooter just rotates around the various stations, changing the angles somewhat at each station. No matter which event you choose, it takes a lot of practice and more than a fair bit of skill to get “good” at it.
 
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I've found skeet to be the most satisfying personaly, as I see my improvement more quickly. The sporting clays I've shot were on fields that were set up by guys making it intentionally difficult and unless you knew where the birds were, just about impossible which turned me off it.
 
ghughes said:
I've found skeet to be the most satisfying personaly, as I see my improvement more quickly. The sporting clays I've shot were on fields that were set up by guys making it intentionally difficult and unless you knew where the birds were, just about impossible which turned me off it.
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Understandably so. There are sporting clays presentations that the owner and I attempted to shoot on a windy day for fun with only one hit.
That was when we shot behind the target. Do not get frustrated. Skeet and Trap are the best training for basic skills. Yes. Swing don't point.
 
ghughes said:
I've found skeet to be the most satisfying personaly, as I see my improvement more quickly. The sporting clays I've shot were on fields that were set up by guys making it intentionally difficult and unless you knew where the birds were, just about impossible which turned me off it.
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It's unfortunate that you've found sporting clays to be "just about impossible", in my opinion a clays course should not be a vision test and if it is then it's not set up correctly. It's not unusual to run into a set or two that is difficult to see but if there is more than a couple then the course designer really needs to change what they are doing. Of the best courses that I've shot all stations had targets that were easy to see but challenging to shoot.

The socializing at trap is done before and after shooting, on the trap line it's time to be quiet and not disrupt the flow of the squad.
A number of years ago I had a new shooter on my left and he would swear every time he missed a target and he missed a lot. So he would shoot and I would raise my gun and about the same time that I said pull he would let loose an expletive and it would mess me up. On the very last target he missed and I figured that I would outsmart him so I waited a few seconds for him to swear before brining my gun up but he didn't so I proceeded and as soon as I said pull he swore at that exact same moment. We had a little talk afterwards.

Skeet can be very social as long as people quiet down when others are shooting and one doesn't try to coach the other shooters too much, that can get tiresome quickly.
The skeet range is the place to develop gun handling skills, much more so than the trap range. I coach new shooters and the skeet range is where I usually do it.

Sporting clays is the ultimate social shooting event in my opinion and some of the people I shoot with will cause you to double up on your hearing protection. Not for the gun shots but for the good natured teasing and trash talking that goes on... you need to put on your thick skin some times. It's all in good fun though but over the years I've compiled a short list of people that I'll never shoot with again, mostly these guys just take themselves too seriously, don't know the rules or cheat. I avoid them and life is great!

Trap and skeet are ok but sporting clays is definitely my first pick of the shotgun sports for fun and socializing..
 
Falconflyer said:
It's unfortunate that you've found sporting clays to be "just about impossible", in my opinion a clays course should not be a vision test and if it is then it's not set up correctly. It's not unusual to run into a set or two that is difficult to see but if there is more than a couple then the course designer really needs to change what they are doing. Of the best courses that I've shot all stations had targets that were easy to see but challenging to shoot.

The socializing at trap is done before and after shooting, on the trap line it's time to be quiet and not disrupt the flow of the squad.
A number of years ago I had a new shooter on my left and he would swear every time he missed a target and he missed a lot. So he would shoot and I would raise my gun and about the same time that I said pull he would let loose an expletive and it would mess me up. On the very last target he missed and I figured that I would outsmart him so I waited a few seconds for him to swear before brining my gun up but he didn't so I proceeded and as soon as I said pull he swore at that exact same moment. We had a little talk afterwards.

Skeet can be very social as long as people quiet down when others are shooting and one doesn't try to coach the other shooters too much, that can get tiresome quickly.
The skeet range is the place to develop gun handling skills, much more so than the trap range. I coach new shooters and the skeet range is where I usually do it.

Sporting clays is the ultimate social shooting event in my opinion and some of the people I shoot with will cause you to double up on your hearing protection. Not for the gun shots but for the good natured teasing and trash talking that goes on... you need to put on your thick skin some times. It's all in good fun though but over the years I've compiled a short list of people that I'll never shoot with again, mostly these guys just take themselves too seriously, don't know the rules or cheat. I avoid them and life is great!

Trap and skeet are ok but sporting clays is definitely my first pick of the shotgun sports for fun and socializing..
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Great description FF !!! ^^^^^THIS ^^^^^^ is why we all do it, and we travel around 3 provinces to do it !!!

Skeet and trap are great practice for sporting clays, and will give you some real good basics on wing shooting or going away targets before you jump into SC's !

Our squad is full of Chit Slingers and Trash Talkers, so are a few other squads...lol I got hats made that say...The Magnificent 7/8 Rides Again !! Been called the Brownetta's too because of the mix of shotguns and vests, but mainly cuz of the continuing trash talk !! LOL
We're also known as "The Fun Squad" in our shooting circles ! Always getting requests from other members...if you have an extra slot, I'd gladly shoot with you guys anytime ! Says a lot in my books.

My mobility has been reduced to about 10%...A double knee replacement was put off in 2020 cuz I was sick...and it never came around again ! But, I still make do and my compadres don't mind my slower pace at all ! Off road E-bike scooter is now coming to fruition...could be a game changer for me at 65 !!!

I do enjoy skeet and trap as well, It's just the fact that I love all shotgun sports, always have.
I always said...sporting clays is the most fun you can have with your clothes on ;) ;)
The day it stops being fun, and we're not enjoying ourselves is the day I, and most of our crowd I hang with are done ! Rain or shine it's clay killin time ! Try some.. betcha you'll get hooked !
 
It's been a while since I was a member but the skeet field was very respectful, no bs and the chatter stopped as soon as the shooter was on the station. They would periodically close the sporting field due to lack of interest. Sad how much money was spent and it wasn't utilized to its fullest. 5 stand would have been a better choice I think.
 
That's how the skeet field should be, the razzing and ribbing should be limited to friends only while giving newer shooters a pass.

It's difficult for me to comprehend closing a sporting clays course due to lack of interest. 5 stand is easier to maintain and run but still isn't the same as sporting, given the choice I'll take sporting over 5 stand any day.
 
I run a trap and skeet club and we have a sporting clay's club 15 minutes from here, I like shooting all clay sports but have never shot a registered event in skeet and only shot 1 sporting provincials event. They are for sure different disciplines, skeet and sporting are more practical presentations for bird shooting.
As far as the social aspect goes I really don't see a big difference save for the fact that sporting and skeet are manual pulls so the talking during a round doesn't set off the throwers, the trap line has mic's so talking and kidding your buddies is a no no until the round is done. I have met some great people on the trap shooting circuit and have made life long friends as I'm sure others have done shooting skeet and sporting, the discipline doesn't made the comradery, the people do and most are there to enjoy the sport and meet people.
As I grow older my reflexes are slowing down, my eye's aren't as good as they were as my old dearly departed buddy once said, " I'm not a competitor anymore just a participant " but the people are great and nothing beats a nice sunny day of burning gun powder and seeing your friends again. :D
 
I really don't care about the friendly banter and trash talking going on during a round of skeet or sporting clays, I do it myself. And I am the first one to make fun of myself when I drop station one high house. Once I am on the station I shut out all the banter and ribbing.
I don't mind shooting with new shooters, everyone has to start somewhere. I try not to get too involved in trying to coach but might just let the shooter know how much lead they need to break a target. New skeet shooters find it hard to believe that you need 4 ft of lead to break birds on station 4.
 
If this was practice, and if running off a prepaid card, my first concern would have been how many targets were being wasted and I would have (safed my gun) walked to the control to pause it – and then issued a reminder to the entire squad.
Was that person so clueless they didn’t figure out that targets were being thrown (wasted)?

Lesson learned too, not to squad with this individual.

Falconflyer said:
A number of years ago I had a new shooter on my left and he would swear every time he missed a target and he missed a lot. So he would shoot and I would raise my gun and about the same time that I said pull he would let loose an expletive and it would mess me up. On the very last target he missed and I figured that I would outsmart him so I waited a few seconds for him to swear before brining my gun up but he didn't so I proceeded and as soon as I said pull he swore at that exact same moment. We had a little talk afterwards.
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As victim of friendly banter it can go too far. Most years don’t shoot a lot of practice as shooting a competition every weekend and lots of shoots being 4 days or more after a while practice can be detrimental. And I tend to shoot with others that are of the same mind set to shoot their best.

At a sporting clay shoot a number of years ago was around 8 stations deep without dropping a target starting off the morning 100. Had this prick in the group that had never shot a score worth bragging about in his life really start to tie into me. Eventually of course I did drop some targets much to his joy.

One good thing about trap is if someone is disrupting the harmony of a squad he can get the punt.
 
JIMMY 808 said:
As victim of friendly banter it can go too far. Most years don’t shoot a lot of practice as shooting a competition every weekend and lots of shoots being 4 days or more after a while practice can be detrimental. And I tend to shoot with others that are of the same mind set to shoot their best.

At a sporting clay shoot a number of years ago was around 8 stations deep without dropping a target starting off the morning 100. Had this prick in the group that had never shot a score worth bragging about in his life really start to tie into me. Eventually of course I did drop some targets much to his joy.

One good thing about trap is if someone is disrupting the harmony of a squad he can get the punt.
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That's why I say that I have a small list of people that I'll never shoot with again.
 
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