Clay sports life reboot...

Thirty years ago I spent many nights at the local sportsman’s club while my dad shot trap. I hung around downstairs with the reloaders between club nights. I shot a bit myself—not a ton—but I was a decent shot with my grandmother’s Winchester Model 42.

In my late teens, life happened and I didn’t do much with shotguns. By my late twenties I was married with kids and had gotten into bow hunting. Up until about two and a half years ago, if you’d asked me what I wanted for a shotgun I probably would have said I didn’t want one—I preferred a rifle or a bow.

Then my oldest joined the local trap team, fueled by Grandpa’s stories of his youth shooting heavy trap competition while sponsored by Remington. During the state trap shoot in Alexandria at ASP, my son told me he wanted to meet Steve. At the time I didn’t know who Steve was, but my son had watched a lot of TFL videos. We went inside and my son asked if Steve was around. Steve came out of the office, and it made my son’s day—conversation, photo, the whole thing. As that moment was wrapping up, Steve mentioned Shotgun Fest and handed me a card. At that point I still hadn’t picked up a shotgun for clays since my youth.

Fast-forward to Shotgun Fest. I still hadn’t even shot a round with my son—I’d just taken him to practice and, with Grandpa’s help, coached him through his first season. Before we left for the event I found a local club that had 5-stand and skeet. I only watched him shoot those because they weren’t my sports, and I wanted him to experience them before Shotgun Fest.

We brought his trap over/under and a Remington 887 because it was almost my only other shotgun (a 28" field model that had belonged to my brother that I took possession of it after he passed). The plan was that I’d finally shoot a round or two of trap head-to-head with my son on VIP night, do some demos the next day, and mostly just support him while he lived it up.

On the very first round of trap the stock on that 887 came loose. I asked around for tools, and when Steve heard the request he told me he didnt have tools handy but to go inside and pick out one of his. I told my son to choose one so he could try somenew with whatever he grabbed. He picked a Mossberg 940. We did a second round of trap together, just the two of us, and then the open trap etc started winding down.

As Annie Oakley was getting going, people noticed I was sitting back. After some encouragement I gave in to the peer pressure lol and joined in. It took most of the night, but I eventually got into a groove and won a round that qualified me for the championship the next day.

I wasn’t expecting much for the championship round at this point. I did the demos and event competitions, enjoyed the social connections made at VIP night. By the time the championship round started, my shoulder was hurting—I hadn’t shot that much in a single day in a very long time. I kept hanging in there clay after clay. Eventually I wasn’t even shouldering the gun properly; I had it up on my bicep because my shoulder couldn’t take it anymore. As we got to the last few, the pressure was really on. My son was giddy, watching and hoping I’d hang in there. Somehow, in the end, I managed to win.

That was it. I was hooked.

I got a myself an all around shotgun, bought a used Atlas thrower, upgraded my sons trap gun, and started shooting all the time with my son. After a second year of Shotgun Fest and trips to other local clubs to shoot more and more together, I’m fully back into clay sports. I’m moving into coaching my son’s team and trying to improve my own skillset every chance I get.