At What Age Did You Start Shooting Trap?

At What Age Did You Start Shooting Trap?
Who started you? Was it just to get ready for hunting season?
When did you start Registered shooting?

I was 10 off the tailgate of my uncle's'65 Chevy truck.
The gun was a 20 ga. 870 field gun. Mainly just to teach me how to handle a gun safely and ( unbeknownst to me) to get me ready for hunting. Uncle didn't have any kids at the time and needed a hunting buddy.
Got more serious in high school with actual trapshooting in FFA.
Did the weekend warrior stuff with Legion and K of C meat shoots for a bunch of years.
Started registered in '07 when my oldest son joined a youth team.
Didn't shoot very much, 1 or 2 shoots a year.
Boys aren't shooting much now with job and school obligations so I'm planning on shooting more this year.
Still shooting an 870 only this one's a 12 with 30" fixed full choke.

 

Started as a kid. My Dad dragged me to the shoots, non registered meat shoots. I enjoyed it because every other kid got dragged to the shoot too, so there were a lot of other kids hanging around trap clubs back then. . We got put to work, setting targets, fetching beer, ammo, picking up empty's, etc... Sometime during the day, they would let all the kids shoot 5 - 10 targets or so. I shot my Dad's Winchester 101.

Once I got a car, I got away from the trap shoots, but then got into bird and rabbit hunting. Went and got me a brand new Remington 1100 - for maybe $200 at a "Woolco" department store. To sharpen up for bird season my cousin and I went and got a hand thrower and a few cases of clays, and went to my Grandma's farm to bang away.

Then I got into duck hunting. The last duck hunt I went on - the temp dropped, decoys freezing in the water, boat motor conked out, had to change fuel filter, wind started picking up and water started to white cap, when we got back to boat ramp it was iced up and we only got one lousy duck anyway, and i got stuck with taking it. I was only into hunting for the shooting anyway - so I said to hell with it. I know where i can shoot all day long and you don't have to get up early and you can drink beer (back then anyway), they got hamburgers, hot dogs, hot soup in the clubhouse. That is for me so I headed back to the old meat shoot gun clubs my Dad drug me to as a kid.

Didn't start registering targets until probably 5 years after getting serious with trapshooting at the meats shoots. The registered guys would show up and complain about only breaking 98, 99 at their last registered shoot, etc.. Breaking only 98 or 99?? WTF??? I didn't think I could compete against them, even though they (registered shooters) didn't seem to shoot any better than the rest of us at our meat shoots. So I stayed away from registered too intimidated I guess, finally got dragged to one by another shooter. Didn't know there was such a thing as a "legal target" at our meat shoots. Ended up shooting a 97 on 16s that day and got punched for a 93 on handicap. I was hooked then.

 

58. Wish I found trap earlier in life. Better late than never.

 

14.5 yo. and countless guns later. Took me most of the next 55 years to know what it takes to get good.

 

41

 

started hunting at 12, single shot 20ga. then a springfield 67 20ga, shot some meat shots with it. moved up to a Winchester 1400 12ga. for hunting and trap ( had receiver drilled for piano wire to catch empties at trap.) shot it, and won alittle, bought a 870 TB trap at 17. money I made baling hay. shot meat shots and ata registered at the junior level. got away from trap at 18. cars,girls, college. got back shooting at 40 at local club.

 

1967 trapshooting- registered 1968 27 yrs old

GTB.........................DLS

 

63

 

Fifty three years ago--Set trap for three hours-- got to use a gun- a box of shell- and twenty five bird- I was hooked

 

65, last year. Wonder how good I could have been if I started at 25.

 

1974 (age 26 ), bought a Life Membership on the second day of a two day shoot (used my lunch money for the next two weeks ) at the Maywood Sportsmans Club in Elmhurst, Ill in spring of 1975 ... Had to get in lots of extra hours and even worked a second job so I could shoot , keep the kids, wife , dog fed and make the house and car payments ... I was very lucky, met a lot of really good people and made lots of friends over the years ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

70....... Sat benind a stack of straw bales when I was 9 or so and set traps.......... men would let us shoot a few and give us a beer or a sip of whiskey. Paid "four bits" too. But actual shooting?? 70 was the age... Larry

 

19 I started ATA but I had shot clay targets at Cloverdale when I was 9. I didn't shoot much between then and when I stated in 1974 shooting ATA because I thought shooting clay targets was a waste of shells as I would rather be hunting. Today I shoot very rarely only once or twice a year. I haven't shoot 200 targets in the last 3 years altogether and haven't shot ATA for a lot longer than that.

The longer I stay away the easier it is. I now know how and why so many shooters I knew over the last 40 years just quit. I think back in the day the average life span of an ATA member was 3 years. Brad

 

27 yrs old back in 1975 when I worked at Electro Motive in LaGrange IL. I didn't start registered until I left EMD that was 1987 Muscoda WI

 

12 years old ATA, 3 years before that shooting practice rounds...Hard to believe that was 37 years ago.

 

We used to haul into EMD on my side job at Murphy Motor Express ... My Off days at the dept I drove for them ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

i started 3 years ago at age 49 to get warmed up for pheasant hunting, now i shoot atleast 3 to 4 times a week

 

26 @ the start. Now 45 years later (and close to a million targets) the thrill is gone.

 

14 years and a few months in 1966. My dear ol' dad gave me a Browning A-5 w/28" Mod. choke for my 14th. Could hunt at 14 in Utah. My birthday was February so I shot trap at our local Provo Gun Club which had 3 traps and some REAL GOOD ATA shooters. I shot my first registered that summer.
As a graduation present from junior high school at 15 years (9th grade), my pop gave me a Remington 870 TC trap gun with 30" full and Monte Carlo stock. I shot that gun in registered and casual trapshooting so much that I broke the left slide bar and got it welded and shot it till I broke the other side. You gotta shoot a lot of shots through an 870 to break a slide bar just from shooting. I still have that gun and it has some decent factory wood on it.
I shot the 870 till I bought my first Perazzi when I was 21 in Italy from Daniele himself. (At least, I met him and Ennio Materelli when I bought it. I have pictures of me with them somewhere but have not been able to put my hands on them recently.) And, I still have that Perazzi as well.
This game has been part of my entire life with several extended sabbaticals.

 

Yea. I get that. Too bad. Ever shoot bunker? That'll put the thrill back in it. Promise.

 

1965, age 11. I received an 870TB as a gift after using a field grade to start.

 

1986 I was 15yo and I was an obsessed bird hunter, and fisherman. Raised by an even more so outdoorsman. To me it was a natural progression to try "skeet" (didn't know the difference) but pops wouldn't take me to the local gun clubs. He new full well the addictive power that targets and smoke had over the mere mortal. One month after after my 16th Bday I borrowed the truck on a Sunday and took my 870 20ga and went to The Club. Knowing nothing I walked in, introduced myself, and the old codgers got me signed up on a 16yd. I watched one squad shoot, then we shot. I broke a 21x25. Was hooked. Dad wouldn't go for 5 more months. I went to the state shoot that year, and when I left with a friend he handed me a check and said to find him a BT99 "old style"., so he'd been doing his homework too. I found a NIB beavertail for $600 (1986) for him (I'd already progressed to a 870 TB). Away we went....

 

I believe in 1955. My first ATA targets were shot just before my 15th birthday in 1957. Amazing how fast the years go by.

Dave Berlet

 

At age 19 in 1965 at the Whitewater Valley Gun Club.

 

I started shooting Trap when I was 12. Shot till I was out of high school then quit for 7 years. Started again in mid twenties. Quit again to raise kids. Spent the better part of the last 15 years watching them play baseball. Now I'm about to start shooting again at 50. Man does time fly.

 

58. should have started way earlier!

 

51 and I also wished I would have started way sooner

 

Early 1974 got talked into joining a league. First trap gun 870 TC. Have been enjoying it since.

 

I started shooting Trap in 2013 at 50 years old. When I started I was using a TriStar Setter ST, 28" barrels and Carlson's extended chokes.

 

I started at 29, then shot competition Benchrest rifles, and picked it back up 3 years ago. I am 44 now.

 

50. I've been shooting trap for 4 1/2 years now.

 

fifty three year later -- from a $69.00 Mossberg 500 -- Times sure have changed looking at the SCTP pictures of those little kids with all those high end gun of today