Breaking a few clays
I started clay shooting in 2002. It happened almost by accident.
I was along with a friend of mine one day, lending a hand at our cricket club before the season started. He opened the boot of his car to get something out and I noticed he had a shotgun with him. He was leaving to go to a practice DTL shoot and asked me if I wanted to go. I always had an interest in clays and often thought about trying it but didn't know how to even go about getting into it. I didn't even know he shot clays. I wasn't long in accepting the invitation.
On my first DTL line of 15 targets, I managed to hit 3. On my second line, I hit 11. That was me hooked. I went and bought my first shotgun the following week. A good old Baikal. I have been shooting clays since.
I have shot a few of the different disciplines if clay shooting over the years. Skeet, Automatic Ball Trap (ABT), Olympic Trap, Sporting, Compak Sporting, but I am definitely a Down The Line (DTL) shooter. It is where I started and where my main interest would still lie. I don't mind Sporting at all and look forward each month to the Sporting shoot at my club but I also look forward to getting back to DTL again the following week.
My attitude and interest in DTL has changed over the years too.
I am a Club shooter. I shoot the very,
VERY, occasional 100 Bird Registered shoot but I am very much a club
shooter. A much better atmosphere and more relaxed than the registered
scene I find.
About 10 years ago I would have really like to have tried the registered scene and would have tried hard to represent the Northern Ireland team at International level. I was shooting well back then and had a real hunger and grit that I wasn't going to miss anything. I went weeks on end without dropping a single target. I had shot hundreds of targets without missing. Then it started playing on my mind. This could be the day I drop a bird. I was getting nervous even before I'd left the house to go to a shoot. It started to annoy me. Eventually, one day in the middle of a line, I called pull and fired two shots into the air to get the monkey off my back. I haven't counted any spells of targets since.
I then went through a spell where I really lost interest in clay shooting. I stopped shooting club competitions altogether. I still shot on practice days, but it was more for something to do than any interest in the sport. I was only shooting DTL then. Week in and week out. I didn't really find any challenge in it. I was almost ready to give it up.
Then we started shooting Sporting at the club. Once a month. We set out a few traps and have a 40 Bird shoot over 4 stands. I am not as good at Sporting as I am at DTL but I love the challenge of it. I miss targets but I don't mind that. It has really helped me to start enjoying shooting again. That break once a month, or more when we visit other clubs, has made me look forward to, and enjoy, DTL again. I still don't shoot in the club DTL competitions but I now really enjoy and look forward to, the releaxed Saturday afternoons at my club.
The more I think about it, I realise that my outlook has changed again. I have went as far as I possibly can at club level. I have no real interest in going down the registered side of the sport, so where does that leave me?
We have a few members at the club who are relatively new to shooting. I have tried my best for them. Being UCPSA Safety Officers, myself and my good friend Graeme, have shown them how to handle a gun safely at a clay ground. We have also shown them the basics of feet position, gun hold point, and how to break a few clays. I now get more satisifaction of seeing them shooting good scores than I do out of shooting big scores myself.
It is this line of thinking that is one of the reasons for starting this blog. Perhaps I can help a few other newcomers to the sport, and even perhaps a few who have been shooting for a while, to break a few more clays.
I'll add new content over the coming weeks and hopefully a few people will enjoy reading it.
