There I was, holding a shotgun in one hand and a box of shells in the other. Everyone staring at me in anticipation. And I wasn’t even sure how to fire the thing. I slipped a shot into the cylinder, snapped the gun closed and placed the stock against my shoulder. I closed my left eye, lightly put my finger on the trigger and breathed for a second.
Here goes … “Pull!”
A bright orange disk shoots out of a wooden box, up and slightly to the left. I fire. It explodes, shards hitting a ragged grass field covered in “clay” pigeon chunks, which sure look like they’re made out of graphite to me.
I nailed my first ever attempt at trap shooting and it was all downhill from there. That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time, it’s just that I’m far from a natural. By the end of the day, I fired that shotgun 50 times. I think I only hit about eight clay pigeons, some I didn’t even kill, just maimed.
I went with three friends, all of whom performed better than I did. None of who rubbed it in much. We started with trap shooting, where the pigeon launches away from you at a random angle. After that we tried skeet, where the pigeon goes from one side to the other. I found both to be equally challenging, but I would say I liked skeet better because it was more social.
Trap was voice activated. You said “Pull!” into a speaker and the orange disk flew. That meant no talking in between shots. No joint celebrations or light ribbing. Just four guys, lined up taking turns shooting (and mostly missing) our flying targets.
But skeet was controlled by a remote. One guy pushed the button. One guy shot. Two guys cracked wise. Then we rotated.
It was harder than I thought it was going to be, but fun. And I sure hope I get to try it again some time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment