FOREST AND STREAM 
455 
Reaching the 
Far Ones 
How many times you miss the far fliers be¬ 
cause you haven’t quite the necessary shooting 
power. 
The advantage is yours if you can count on 
your gun at 50 and 60 yards. 
For 35 years consistent work has been 
done with 
LEF EVER 
SHOT GUNS 
For Trap, Brush, Field, Blind 
Write for Art Catalog. 
Shoot the Lefever Single Trigger 
This Year. 
LEFEVER ARMS CO. 
20 Maltbie Street - SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
MY FIRST TRAP-SHOOT. 
My wife said I would get hurt, but then she couldn’t 
know anything about such things, for ther~ never was 
a gun in her family, though to be sure she did have a 
cousin who was cashier in a shoot-ing gallery. 
But I knew it was all perfectly safe. I knew that 
trap-shooting was just as safe a sport as croquet. Hadn’t 
I read all about it for years in the “Sportsman’s Home 
Journal”? 
We had lived in the city all our lives till we married 
and then we lived there in a flat for five years, but 
finally we read so much about raising your own Brussels 
Sprouts, and selling eggs for ten cents apiece instead of 
buying them, that we decided to move to a small town, 
and we did. Well, it was fine. I had a job there, or I 
suppose I should call it a position, since that is what 
my wife says it is, but after I’d planted the Brussels 
Sprouts and gathered the eggs and worked at my posi¬ 
tion for a while I began to want to see a show or be 
one or something. So the first thing I thought of was 
shooting clay pigeons. 
I had always wanted to be a trap-shot, or a trap- 
shooter, whichever it is, and I always read the scores 
in the papers that told how many birds they broke at 
Travers Island or at the Sportsman’s Show or at the 
Grand American Handicap. I never had a chance in the 
city to trap-shoot, but out here at Boobyhurst I thought 
I could get up a gun club because there is plenty of 
empty atmosphere here to shoot into. I talked to some 
of the men about it, but they didn’t seem to be very 
enthusiastic gunmen, or gunners I should say. They 
said there was a shot gun in town they thought because 
the constable had been ordered to kill somebody’s dog 
that was dangerous, and as the dog disappeared it must 
have been shot. Finaly I found the blacksmith had a 
shot gun. He said it was a shot gun. It looked to me 
like a coast defense gun. It was, I think he said, an 
eight gauge with 34 inch barrels. 
Anyway the blacksmith was a sport and he said he’d 
like fine to try a crack at clay pigeons if I’d show him 
how. So I agreed to manage the game. I was sure that 
after starting some of the other men would come in. I 
went to a sporting goods department in a department 
store the next time I was in the city. The girl in charge 
showed me a very pretty gun that she said was a lovely 
trap-shooting gun. It had scroll work on it and the 
hammers were blue and it was as shiny as a stovelid. 
She let me have it for $6.98. I asked her about clay 
pigeons, but she said they didn’t keep any live animals, 
•nd when I explained that these were saucers to shoot 
at she sent me to the china department. I tried to get 
out of going but she watched me, and I had to go, but 
I decided that saucers was a sort of racing term and 
they wouldn’t understand it in connection with trap¬ 
shooting, so I just said I was only looking around and 
then I looked around to see if the girl who sold me the 
gun was looking, and as she wasn’t I went into -the ele¬ 
vator and started for another store. None of the depart¬ 
ment stores seemed to have any clay pigeons, and I was 
about discouraged when one salesman said they would 
get me some, so I ordered a dozen sent out to Booby¬ 
hurst by parcel post, C. O. D., and went home. 
I foigot to say that I had the gun sent because they 
told me I would be arrested if I took it. It was some 
days before the pigeons arrived and I spent all my spare 
time down at the blacksmith’s and he and I polished our 
guns. Mine was a 16 gauge and the barrels were 26 
inches long, so it looked like a baby beside the black¬ 
smith's. We finally named his “The Swamp Angel” and 
mine “Tiny Tim.” The blacksmith’s name was Batty 
Bob. He wasn’t quite all there, but if he had been he 
would have been a smart man, because as it was he 
knew more things than any three other men in town. 
The only trouble was they weren’t so. 
I would go right down to his shop every afternoon 
when I got through with my position and we would -talk 
trap-shooting. There was a long and wide empty lot 
back of the shop, just the place to shoot, and we would 
go out there and take position and practice motions. 
Finally the pigeons came. Funny looking little dishes, 
aren’t they? Two were broken. We each had a box of 
shells we had been saving, and Batty Bob left the horse 
he was shoeing when the mail came, and we went right 
out to try our hand at the new game. 
“You shoot five times each turn,” I told him. “And 
the high gun is the man who hits the most pigeons out 
of twenty-five shots.” 
We -had it figured out that we ought to be about forty 
yards from the pigeons, and there was an old bit of shed 
out there in the lot, so we stood forty paces from that, 
and one was to throw the pigeons out from behind it 
while -the other shot. Batty -Bob was to shoot first. 
I took the pigeons and went behind the shed. When 
he called ready I threw out a pigeon. Bob shot all right. 
I had never heard his gun go off before, and I thought 
the blacksmith shop had blown up. He hit the pigeon 
and it broke into a thousand pieces. There seemed -to 
be a shower of shot or something hit the shed all around 
me and something scratched my leg so it bled. 
“You must have had a big shell in your gun, didn’t 
you”? I shouted as a crowd of people came running from 
all directions. “No, just the regular size that fits the 
gun,” he said. The -fire bell -began -to ring, and through 
the smoke I could see -the horse Bob had almost got the 
shoe on going up the street. 
Well, I didn’t have any desi-re to throw any more 
pigeons for that gun to shoot at, but Bob insisted that 
he had four more shots and as he began -to get a little 
peevish about it, people -commenced to leave. So I said, 
“Here, you take my gun and shoot the other four with 
that. It’s safer.” 
Then I went back behind the shed and tied up my 
leg and threw another pigeon. This -time there was just 
a comparatively little crack and the pigeon fell on the 
grass. I threw three more and he didn’t hit any of 
them, but two of them broke. They must have been 
defective. 
Then it was my turn. I knew just how it was done, 
because I had seen pictures of “gunners at the traps.” 
I took hold of the barrel and put it up and it seemed 
to be quite warm. I counted my shells, and out of 
twenty-five eight were gone. I asked Batty Bob about 
it and he said he shot eight, -two at a time. “I always 
shoot both barrels of mine,” said he. I suppose that was 
why he got the first pigeon. 
Well, -the gun wasn’t so hot but that I could hold it, 
so I put in a shell in each barrel and pulled -the trig¬ 
gers back and aimed. “All ready!” I called, and Bob 
threw up a pigeon. I pulled. There was a tremendous 
explosion I think. I am sure I heard the beginning of 
one and saw a flash of flame. The next thing I knew 
the cashier of the bank was helping me to the pump 
OPENING OF TROUT SEASON 
California, April 15; Colorado, May 
25; Delaware, April 15; Iowa, April 1; 
Massachusetts, April 1; Maryland, April 
1; Maine, when ice goes out of lakes, for 
county regulations see Game Laws in 
Brief; Michigan, May 1; Minnesota, April 
15; Nevada, April 30; New Hampshire, 
April 1, for county regulations, see Game 
Laws in Brief; New Jersey, April 1; New 
York, including Long Island, April 15; 
North Carolina, December 30; North 
Dakota, May 1; Ohio, April 15; Pennsyl¬ 
vania, April 15; Rhode Island, April 1; 
Vermont, April 15; Virginia, special per¬ 
mit from Board of Supervisors; Washing¬ 
ton, May 1; West Virginia, April 1; 
Wyoming, May 15; Connecticut, March 
31; Wisconsin, April 15. 
A R EAL GUN 
The L. C. SMITH 
WITH 
Hunter One Trigger 
|Won Highest Honors For 1913 
The Official Amateurs Average Score shot 
at 6,080 broke 5,817, average 95.58% 
in hands of Bart Lewis. 
NOW STARTS 1914 RIGHT 
At Pinehurst shoot E. H. Storr was high 
for entire program, including Handicaps 
shot at 800, broke 752. 
At New York Sportsmans Show in 
Madison Square Garden Feby. 23-28, 
Mrs. L. T. Vogel won Ladies National 
Indoor Championship score 47x50. At 
same shoot Neaf Apgar won Professional 
Championship score 239x250. A Smith 
gun equipped with Hunter One Trigger is 
a Ladies as well as a Gentleman’s gun at 
1 /iTrap or in the Field. 
Two Guns in one and at price of one. 
Prices $25.00 to $1,000.00 
Send for New Catalogue of Redesigned 
Grades Manufactured by 
THE HUNTER ARMS CO., 
No. 776 Hubbard St., FULTON, N. Y. 
back of the shop and washing the -blood that was run¬ 
ning down my face. 
The people were coming back again by this time, a 
bigger crowd -than before, though there couldn’t have 
been much noise. Finally I discovered that it was -my 
nose that was bleeding and that my head was not torn 
to fragments, and after I got -my breath I asked the 
cashier what happened. 
“You shot both -barrels at once and the breech blew 
open,” said he. “Where did you get that toy musket 
anyway?” 
I told him about my purchasing it. 
"It’s a damn wonder it didn’t blow your head off,” he 
said. He was excited I suppose or he wouldn’t have 
used such language. “Why, man, didn’t you ever see a 
gun before? When you get over this, come up -to my 
house some night and I’ll give you a few pointers. I've 
got some guns that are guns. Don’t shoot this old gas- 
pipe, suicide machine again. What were you and that 
crazy blacksmith trying to do anyway?” 
“We have formed a gun club,” I explained, “and this 
was our first trap-shoot.” 
“Trap-shoot?” he yelled and then he lay down and 
rolled over on the ground. “Where’s your trap?” he 
asked, when he could finally get his wind back. 
I hadn’t thought of that. Probably we ought to have 
had a trap. I was beginning -to feel better in my head, 
but the folks standing around were beginning to smile 
to -themselves, so I decided not to give myself away by 
any foolish remarks. I merely said, “I’ll be mighty 
glad, old man, to come up and get a few pointers. It’s 
a long time since I have done any shooting and I’m 
rather rusty. Trap? Oh, we thought the grass was long 
enough out there so the pigeons wouldn't break even 
without a t-rap to catch them in.” 
Herron Hill Gun Club. 
Pittsburgh, Pa., March 24, 1914. 
Owing to there -being a general primary election over 
the state of Pennsylvania, it has been found advisable 
to make one alteration in the dates of the Pennsylvania 
State Sportsmens Association Tournament, held under 
the auspices of the Herron Hill -Gun Club at Pittsburgh, 
Pa., on May 19th, 20th, and 21st, to change the date or 
