The league trap season is over. There is the state tournament remaining, but unfortunately, we will be on our way home from Spain, so we will miss it. We have another sporting clays event for fun coming up in the next two weeks. I am pretty sure that I will talk about sporting clays after we do it but today I thought I would talk about my son’s first season.

I think it is starting to sink in. Getting the stock to fit was the foundation, coaching, experience and consistency were the building blocks. On the first day of practice, he shot a 2 and a 7 (out of 25). Yesterday, he shot two 17s. I think another season and he will be shooting in the 20s. That is a pretty good bench mark and will put him in the upper echelon of shooters at the state tournament.

The previous years, I was a parent and didn’t hear all of the coaching. This year, I paid attention to what they were saying to the kids and I learned quite a bit. I learned that body position at your station is important. For instance, you want your body positioned for hard lefts on station 1. That means your core is angled away even though your shotgun is positioned pointed at the left corner of the trap house.

I heard a podcast recently from a (Olympic level) shotgun shooter. It was her contention that trap shooting was relatively easy because there are only so many variables unlike skeet or sporting clays. She said, it is easier to make a good all around shooter a great trap shooter then to go the other way around. What was being encouraged is to shoot the other disciplines to get more experience.

To a large degree, I think all of that is true. Muscle memory is the number one factor for success. Further to that point, I can hear all of the coaching tips and tricks but if I don’t apply them, I don’t see the feedback. With that, they are already better shooters than me and probably always will be. Only having an interest and never any coaching, how could I possibly get better?

Two years ago, spring trap was cancelled (because of Covid). Last year, we had a total team size of seven shooters. Most of them are back this year. But, the daily average score started off around 10 and by the time the season ended it was more like 18. This year, I would say that we started off at 15 and now averaging 19. This is a total team composite, so some are averaging much higher, while others are much lower.

End Your Programming Routine: With everything else going on and the weather being poor all season I am glad that we are coming to the end. I really do enjoy the game and I find being a coach rewarding as well. That being said, the 10 weeks of commitment certainly cuts into the other things that I want to do. It’s difficult to sit around and watch week after week as well. We did usually get a chance to shoot each week, but we always had something more pressing to do. I am looking forward to go back to the rifle range as well.