The death of trap in BC

stubblejumper said:
I started as a hunter, and took up skeet to improve my wing shooting. I chose skeet over trap , because it more closely represented shot presentations on birds with targets coming and going, and broadside targets, as opposed to all targets going away. Then I started to like shooting skeet as a sport in itself. But once I tried sporting clays, I found that I enjoyed it more than skeet, and I only shoot skeet , because it is much more affordable than sporting clays, and is much closer to home. If the cost was similar, I would only shoot sporting clays. I also like not having to wait between squads, our regular group shoots the sporting clays league every week , and it is rare that we have to wait for anyone, we just go from station to station and shoot. So I shoot sporting clays once per week, and skeet in between.
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Similar for me. My local club originally only had trap. Would shoot probably 4-6 rounds per month. Then they put in 5-stand. Now I rarely shoot trap and shoot my 4-6 rounds of 5-stand per month. Much more like hunting. I also like the 5-stand's "rabbit" clay! My buddies and I always ask the "thrower" to throw "random" so we don't know if it's coming from the left, right, straight-away, rabbit, etc. Much more enjoyable to us hunters (IMHO)
 
Falconflyer said:
Your perfectly correct Frank and perhaps I used a bad choice of words however, trap is a lot more boring for me and not necessarily anyone else and I didn’t mean to offend. Maybe “more variety” would be more accurate instead of boring. One of the things I can’t stand at a trap shoot is waiting around for your turn to shoot, I find that tedious at best.
I kinda go in spurts at trap, I’ll shoot it for a few years then take a break as I see my scores decline due to my mind wandering and in turn my focus deteriorating. After a break for a couple of years I again start shooting trap and I can do well for a while until I get bored again. Skeet for me is an occasional thing and at one time I shot a lot of it but again I get bored. I shot a few rounds of skeet last year when we installed new machines at our range and I’ll shoot a few more rounds this year but I’ll never go hard at it. I see it more of an exercise in the fundamentals of shooting better sporting clays. Sporting clays however is totally different than trap and skeet in that I never get bored and never really need a break from it.
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No offence taken. Just didn't feel trap fell under a "boring" blanket. If you actually look at numbers in registered shooting, not casual shooting the ATA has a larger membership than the NSSA and NSCA combined. Comparing attendances at the Grand American World Championships, there is almost 5X the number of entries to the World Skeet Shooting Championships and over double the World Sporting Clays Championships and still has more even with the two latter combined so there must be a segment that finds trap fun?
Numbers in Canada for Canadian Championships I've no idea how they compare but I am going to research it as it has peaked my interest. I enjoy shooting all the games available and I especially enjoy 5-stand but I never really got a big charge out of SC after attending a dozen or so shoots. The last one I attended had over 300 entries. That was the largest single venue shoot I've attended since leaving Ontario. The 2021 Satellite Canadian Trap Championships had about 460 entries in a single day but it was over multiple venues due to covid restrictions.
 
I stopped shooting registered sporting about 12 years ago and only go to fun shoots these days. The cost was one driving factor, prior to Covid I could shoot at a range or at a fun shoot for almost half the cost of doing a registered shoot. The politics of the association at that time was a turn off and cheating was another. I would see lots of people cheating either intentionally or because they never bothered to read the rule book. When your friends are the score keepers they can hardly be impartial. That’s one thing about trap and skeet, the rules are simpler and the scorer can often be more impartial as they are not always your buddy.
The main thing to remember is to have fun, that’s the whole objective and if you lose sight of that then it’s time to find another hobby!
 
Falconflyer said:
I stopped shooting registered sporting about 12 years ago and only go to fun shoots these days. The cost was one driving factor, prior to Covid I could shoot at a range or at a fun shoot for almost half the cost of doing a registered shoot. The politics of the association at that time was a turn off and cheating was another. I would see lots of people cheating either intentionally or because they never bothered to read the rule book. When your friends are the score keepers they can hardly be impartial. That’s one thing about trap and skeet, the rules are simpler and the scorer can often be more impartial as they are not always your buddy.
The main thing to remember is to have fun, that’s the whole objective and if you lose sight of that then it’s time to find another hobby!
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I never tried registered sporting but at the few casual shoots I attended I witnessed the buddy scoring system. Registered trap has it's cheaters too sadly. Registered skeet was imo the most honest scorekeeping system I've ever participated in. There is no way to cheat your way in that game unless you've bribed the referee. Best part to me was that the scorer is just that, a trained referee. In order to be a skeet scorekeeper you must familiarize yourself with the rule book and pass an exam. Then to referee the worlds you go through even more courses and get certified again then you are overseen by a Master referee. It's a great system imo. Maybe one day I'll go and participate at all three just so I can say I have done it. I don't even care about target requirements any more. I am quite content to shoot whatever class I would be given penalty to.
 
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The thing is that the scoring is done on the honor system just like golf is and there’s lots of cheating going on at golf. Usually the cheaters won’t play competitive golf but when they do they’re soon found out to be sandbaggers when they can’t play to they’re handicap, it’s the same with a lot of shooters. I’ve seen golfers take a couple of mulligans to score a bogey and I’ve seen shooters count dust as a break.
Others just don’t bother to read the rules or play/shoot to them and they get angry when someone calls them out and they lose a pair of targets because of it. I’ve seen quite a few shooters get a second try at a target simply because the person scoring didn’t want to offend them by calling the target lost as it should have been. It’s one thing at a fun shoot to not know the rules but it’s another thing altogether at a registered shoot where there are awards or prizes for score.
Then there’s the person scoring that doesn’t see breaks and doesn’t call them, these are perhaps the most annoying of all. I was recently at a fun shoot where there was a relatively new shooter with us and she wanted to score but didn’t call lost or dead and wasn’t recording the score accurately. By calling the target it can be verified by all present before moving on to the next pair so there is no surprises when your done the station and look at the scoresheet and discover your score isn’t what you thought!
 
Falconflyer said:
The thing is that the scoring is done on the honor system just like golf is and there’s lots of cheating going on at golf. Usually the cheaters won’t play competitive golf but when they do they’re soon found out to be sandbaggers when they can’t play to they’re handicap, it’s the same with a lot of shooters. I’ve seen golfers take a couple of mulligans to score a bogey and I’ve seen shooters count dust as a break.
Others just don’t bother to read the rules or play/shoot to them and they get angry when someone calls them out and they lose a pair of targets because of it. I’ve seen quite a few shooters get a second try at a target simply because the person scoring didn’t want to offend them by calling the target lost as it should have been. It’s one thing at a fun shoot to not know the rules but it’s another thing altogether at a registered shoot where there are awards or prizes for score.
Then there’s the person scoring that doesn’t see breaks and doesn’t call them, these are perhaps the most annoying of all. I was recently at a fun shoot where there was a relatively new shooter with us and she wanted to score but didn’t call lost or dead and wasn’t recording the score accurately. By calling the target it can be verified by all present before moving on to the next pair so there is no surprises when your done the station and look at the scoresheet and discover your score isn’t what you thought!
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Whether fun or league, our group calls targets honestly, either the group sees pieces of target, or they don't. Nobody is afraid to offend anyone, as is evident by the teasing among us. Sometimes not everyone sees a piece, so we go with the grkup concensus.
 
stubblejumper said:
Whether fun or league, our group calls targets honestly, either the group sees pieces of target, or they don't. Nobody is afraid to offend anyone, as is evident by the teasing among us. Sometimes not everyone sees a piece, so we go with the grkup concensus.
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Absolutely, group consensus decides. And the group of guys I often shoot with don’t let anything go by, if it’s a marginal break you’ll probably sooner take a “lost” than suffer the ribbing and trash talk you’ll get!
 
the spank said:
No offence taken. Just didn't feel trap fell under a "boring" blanket. If you actually look at numbers in registered shooting, not casual shooting the ATA has a larger membership than the NSSA and NSCA combined. Comparing attendances at the Grand American World Championships, there is almost 5X the number of entries to the World Skeet Shooting Championships and over double the World Sporting Clays Championships and still has more even with the two latter combined so there must be a segment that finds trap fun?
Numbers in Canada for Canadian Championships I've no idea how they compare but I am going to research it as it has peaked my interest. I enjoy shooting all the games available and I especially enjoy 5-stand but I never really got a big charge out of SC after attending a dozen or so shoots. The last one I attended had over 300 entries. That was the largest single venue shoot I've attended since leaving Ontario. The 2021 Satellite Canadian Trap Championships had about 460 entries in a single day but it was over multiple venues due to covid restrictions.
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Let us know what you find on Canadian Championships as far as Sporting and Skeet go. Not aware of any real Canada wide events in those disciplines.
 
If the drunken antics and political infighting I witnessed at the last shoot are any indication, there won't be any registered shoots in BC pretty soon.

On the financial note, I just returned from three weeks of driving around BC shooting trap. I travelled roughly 2800 km, shot 3000 targets or so and spend about 5000.00 on fuel, targets and ammo. That was just to attend three registered shoots in BC. I won a little bit of money but no where near enough to cover anything. Those are just preliminary numbers but it illustrates how much it costs to get around to just a few shoots in BC. If I lived in Vancouver those costs would be much lower but all the other costs would be higher and I would still have to pay to go to Fort St John or Prince George.
 
It will probably be more once all the bills come in. The BC Provincials are in Vancouver this year and that will cost a fortune to drive down there and stay for a week. There's a reason there's so many Porsches and BMWs at these shoots. The 20,000.00 shotgun is the cheapest thing you'll buy.
 
Westward1 said:
Since we have you participating in the discussion. A large issue in clay shooting in general is ammo pricing and availability. Any insight on what we can expect going forward ?
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Thankfully for us, we import our shotshell ammunition direct from the manufacture out of Europe so our supply has been a lot better than others. Unfortunately, due to the prices of everything going up, we haven't been able to keep the price of Clever Mirage ammunition as low as it use to be, but at $115 a case of 250rds for T1 Super Target, I'm pretty sure its the lowest cost for shotgun shells in Canada.
 
The state of Trap was a topic after our multiplex shoot Wednesday and although there were several younger (35+) the others were much older.Consensus was we are in difficult times and the 3-5 hundred bird events are going to be a thing of the past replaced by the 150 (multiplex) style except for the Provincials.Price of targets ,shells club % all on the increase how can we keep what we got and encourage others.Affordability seems to be the answer so smaller shoots could figure into that.
 
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