Bustin' Clay Pigeons.....well trying anyway

Last week a friend of mine flew in for a week long meeting from Dallas and we decided to take him out to shoot sporting clays over in NJ where we had Pheasant hunted a couple weeks ago. Sporting clays looked to be a good time, kind of like mixing golf and guns so how bad could that be. As I told you all before I need to some work on my shooting skills and was looking forward to this experience. In the end we found out the Sporting Clay course would actually be closing at 3:30 and that wasn't going to work for our meeting schedule. After a tip from another friend and a little research we decided to go shoot trap/skeet at Ommelanden Range in New Castle, DE. Turns out this was a great find! Ommelanden is a state run facility that has, Trap, Skeet, 5 stand, Pistol range, rifle range and an archery course. It is only $3 a round for Trap and Skeet, what a bargain. 3 of us walked into the small clubhouse where there was a older man behind the desk and a younger guy (early 20's) looking half a sleep in the a fold out chair. Turns out the the younger guy, whose name was Josh, would become a real help for the 3 of us that couldn't hit a cow in the ass with a plank. We started on Trap and the first round of shooting commenced with everyone seeming to hit about 1/10 (it might not have been that bad but it was pretty bad). Josh was kind of enough to spend some extra time giving us pointers about how to grip the gun and where to hold in comparison to the "house". I am now throwing out the lingo as if I am a professional. The next round got better and we started busting clays more frequently I would say hitting more like 1/2 or 1/3 which is a hell of an improvement. One more round followed which was even the better than the first with me shooting 15/25. I plan to increase the percentage through out the year but I was satisfied for the moment. Now feeling a little confident we moved to skeet which we had watched when we pulled into the parking lot. For those of you not familiar with the difference Trap is clay birds being thrown directly away from you where skeet is being thrown from side to side. I knew this would be a real week spot for me as you really have to recognize the lead that is necessary depending on which station you are at. Surprisingly enough I did pretty good. The first station you shoot a single that comes out over your head, then a single coming from directly across from you and finally getting a double shot where they throw at the same time. Holy crap I couldn't believe it but I actually hit the both clays on the doubles in the first 2 stations. Feeling very proud I was humbled a bit on the last 2 stations when I couldn't seem to get both but still managed to shoot one of them. I would recommend anyone who is feeling the end of hunting season blues to get out there and find a range and give it a whirl. Next time I go I really want to try the 5 stand which is a scaled down version of Sporting Clays where the clay pigeons are thrown to represent different types of hunting situations, rolling across the ground, strait up like a pheasant, etc. I will let everyone know how it goes in a future post. If anyone out there has any questions or pointers please use the comment section, I would love to hear anything you have.