I went clay pigeon trap shooting today!~By Kyle

Today I went clay pigeon shooting with Richie and Lydia! They were kind enough to pick me up (only three days till driver's license time!), and shuttle me out to the Morton gun range, where several friends and people from FFA were having a sort of practice run for the competitions they are having later. I had a blast (pun intended ;0) )!

Here is how it works. There are five people competing at a time at five different "stations", a "puller", AKA "button pusher", and a score keeper. After the five shooters are in place and ready, the shooter at station one says "pull" and button pusher does his job. A clay pigeon is launched from the trap in the traphouse some twenty feet away from the stations, and (duh!) the shooter tries to shoot it out of the sky. A hit or miss is recorded by the scorekeeper. Then shooter number two in station two loads a single bullet in his gun and prepares to shoot; it is considered proper etiquette to keep your gun unloaded and the chamber open until the person in the station ahead of you shoots. Shooter number two says pull, and so on down the line of stations. After each shooter cycles through five shots, the command "change" is given by the scorekeeper, and the shooters move down a station. You continue cycling through until you have shot at each station, so each shooter has twenty-five shots in total. Pretty cool, huh?

 

So what were my scores? Ugh! No I am not kidding :0), at least for my first round. After an Ofer on my first round, Richie came alongside and gave me some pointers, and I actually did pretty well on my next two rounds. I tied for first with two other guys on the second, and won the third round.
My scores;
0/25 (:-o)
15/25
17/25

I knew several of the six younger people who were there, so it was pretty fun. Two of the guys played on my baseball team a few years ago. I am looking into joining FFA so I can maybe compete in the real competitions; Richie assures me they are a lot of fun.

Yawn! Enjoy your extra hour of sleep! Set your clocks back!