Cracking clays: Claybusters take aim in practice

By Sam B.

It is one of the fastest-growing sports in the state and the nation: trap shooting. Many people don’t know much about trap shooting, so my goal is to give you enough information to understand why it is one of the fastest growing. 

What most people know about trap shooting is that you shoot guns at flying discs. While this isn’t inaccurate, there is a lot more included in trap shooting. Yes, trap is shooting flying discs with shotguns, but there is more to that than it sounds. It takes necessary technique to be able to go from an accuracy of about 32%, which is average of most shooters 8th grade year, to a 93%, which is what most upperclassmen shoot. 

This is what an average practice looks like. When you first arrive to practice at your scheduled time, you first get out all the safety equipment. The first priority of trap shooting is safety. For shooters to be safe, shooters have safety glasses and ear protection for starters. More competitive shooters will buy lenses they can change depending on how bright it is outside. For example, if it is cloudy you may want to shoot with yellow or orange lenses, but if it is sunny you may want darker colors like black or dark red. Next is ear protection. You can use basic foam inserts, or buy ones you can form to your ear, which are more comfortable. 

After all of your safety equipment is out, you then get your shotgun out. Depending on what kind of gun you have, you may have to pull it out of a case and set it on the rack, or you may have to put it together first. Once you have your gun put together and on the gun stand, you get ammo and your vest, which holds ammo. In the beginning when you are learning to shoot, you will have to walk through proper form and how to hold the gun before shooting your first round. Once you learn how to hold the gun and the coaches make sure the gun is fit to you, you go over to the patterning board. A patterning board is a steel plate that has a clay in the center. You do this to see how your gun shoots so you can understand where you need to aim. I could go further into detail and tell the different parts of how to pattern and what the best pattern is for everyone, but that's a lot to go into right now. After you pattern, you shoot your first of two rounds and then after your two rounds are done lots of times the coaches will tell you what to improve and how to fix certain things. 

At our teams practice, we spend a lot of time in between rounds talking to each other and just having a good time before we shoot. Having fun is a huge part of trap shooting because if you are having an off day, it could throw you off completely. This is why we also like to shoot with our same squads, who are the people you shoot with. 

As you can tell our practices may not be as difficult as running five miles, but we have to put in numerous hours of practice and dedication to the sport to be able to be good at it. The final thing that I will talk about is the most important part about trap shooting. You can’t think too hard while you are shooting, because if you get into your own head you will for sure miss. The key is to rely on your instinct and all of your practice. That is why it is so important to practice.

If you are interested in joining for the spring, you can contact Coach Mark Schnurstein by talking to a current member of the team. 


Location: Story City, IA 50248, USA

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