722 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Nov. ii, 1911. 
POSITION AT 
the arm straight and stiff; the right hand gripping the 
gun firmly at the “grip”; with his gaze concentrated on 
the point where he should first catch sight of the target, 
his mind intent simply on the breaking of that target 
and on nothing else, and with both eyes wide open, so 
as to instantly gauge the flight of the target and get on 
to it as quickly as possible; that is how the expert, the 
man who “breaks ’em all,” stands and acts when ready 
to call “Pull.” His attitude is not strained nor awkward; 
his body swings easily from the hips to meet the ex¬ 
igencies of a sharp right-quartering target or of one 
thrown equally sharply to the left. 
Just how the butt of the gun should be held when 
calling “Pull’-’ seems to be a matter of choice. All the 
experts before giving the word of command, bring the 
gun to the shoulder and note whether the alignment is 
correct. After that the method changes among individ¬ 
uals. Some, and among them are many of the very best 
shots in the country, drop the butt of the gun slightly 
from the shoulder, replacing it when they catch sight of 
the target. Others keep the gun to the shoulder and 
slightly raise their cheek, bringing the cheek back to the 
comb as soon as they see the target in the air. Others 
again never change the position of either stock or cheek, 
once they have aligned the gun correctly—i. e., once they 
are sure that they are looking straight down the rib to 
the sight. Beginners in the sport will find that it will 
be much better for them to adopt the last-mentioned 
position, for there is then no doubt as to whether the 
butt will go back to the proper place, or that the cheek 
will find the same place on the comb. 
An easy position at the score is, therefore, what a be¬ 
ginner ought first to strive to adopt. It is easier to 
start right than, having started wrong, to unlearn every¬ 
thing and begin all over again. Watch the experts, both 
amateurs and professionals, and learn how to stand from 
the object lessons they give when at the traps, for few 
indeed in either class adopt any other than the easiest 
and most natural position. 
SHOOT WITH BOTH EYES OPEN. 
Use both eyes; you need them both, and sometimes you 
will wish you had a third—the clay targets will steal out 
and get away from you somehow. 
“Keep both eyes open” is a rule that must be adhered 
to, if success is to attend your efforts to become an 
expert at the traps. This rule should be strongly im¬ 
pressed upon every beginner, for the natural impulse is 
perhaps exactly the opposite, namely, to close one eye. 
Try it for yourself: Take, a walking cane or a “tick of 
wood and pretend that it is a gun; select some object to 
THE SCORES. 
aim at, fix both eyes on the object and throw the stick 
to your shoulder as you would a gun. Don’t you then 
close one eye and instinctively look along the stick to see 
if you pointed right? To be sure you do. And wasn't 
the stick pointing just right, too? Sure it was —both 
eyes did the trick. Do you shut one eye when playing 
billiards or pool, golf, tennis, baseball, or any game that 
requires hand and eye to work together? Ask Willie 
Hoppe or De Oro, W. J. Travis or Jay Gould, whether 
they close one eye when playing the games in which they 
have respectively made such names for themselves. Do 
you suppose llonus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Lajoie, Eddie 
Collins, et hoc genus orhne, the lambasters of the horse- 
hide on baseball diamonds, shut one eye when getting 
ready to line out hits for extra bases? No; two eyes 
are always better than one, and if you have two, don’t 
close one when shooting at the swift-flying clay targets. 
Sometimes a person, naturally right-handed, is the 
possessor of a left eye that is stronger than and the 
master of his right eye. He may not be aware of the 
fact, and the peculiarity or misfortune—whichever it may 
be—will cause poor shooting. You can readily ascertain 
the relative strength of your eyes for yourself, if you 
do not wish to go to an oculist. Fasten your gaze, with 
both eyes open, on some small but prominent object in 
your room, and then throw up your right arm, pointing 
at the object with the first (or index) finger, as if it 
was the barrel of a pistol. Hold it there an instant or 
two; then close the left eye, and, if you are right-eyed_ 
that is, if your right eye is the master of your left—the 
finger will be found to be pointing right at the object. 
Then, as a matter of curiosity, open the left eye and 
close the right—the finger will then apparently be point¬ 
ing away off to the right of the object. If, however, 
the reverse is the case—that is, if when you close the left 
eye the finger seems to be pointing to the left of the ob¬ 
ject-then your left is the master. In that case you 
should either learn to shoot from your left shoulder, or, 
if you still stick to the right shoulder, have your gun 
stock bent so that when it comes up into position, the 
rib is aligned immediately under the left eye. But in 
any case, use both eyes when shooting, for each does its 
necessary part. 
There are, however, a few shooters who do very good 
work at the traps, even if they do close one eye; "but such 
should probably be considered as the exceptions which 
prove the rule. 
SHOOTING GLASSES. 
If your eyes do not seem to focus well, or if you are 
not quite sure as to which eye of the two is the stronger, 
do not delay, but go to an oculist and let him tell what, 
if anything, is wrong. If necessary have glasses made 
to correct any defect, but above all, when having such 
glasses made for you, be sure to have them large 
enough, so that when your cheek is down on the stock 
and your eye is looking along the rib, you will not be 
looking over the top of the glasses. 
Special shooting glasses are made by all prominent 
oculists, and lenses suitable to any kind of freak sight 
can be had of several different colors—green, orange, 
pale blue, etc. The popular color among trapshooters 
seems to be on the order of an amber, and plain glasses 
of that color made for ordinary sight or according to 
some special formula, are much worn and certainly do 
help to kill the glare, light on the gun barrel, etc. Their 
use is decidedly beneficial when the sun is exceptionally 
bright, and there is snow on the ground, or when shoot¬ 
ing over water. 
“aiming.” 
Don’t aim at a target —look at it with both eyes open. 
The hand holding the barrel follows the eye, and in¬ 
stinctively points the gun where you are looking. Dis¬ 
regard the sight on the end of the barrel—if you hunt 
for that you will never catch up with the target and do 
proper execution. Use the sight to see whether the gun 
is properly aligned when it is in shooting position before 
you call “Pull”; that is the time when the sight is useful 
in clay target shooting, as well as when shooting at a 
stationary mark. 
If you will only remember this axiom, that “the hand 
follows the eye,” and also that the hand out on the 
barrel does the pointing, you will then realize that the 
most important thing for you to do will be to look in 
the right spot—in other words, look where you want to 
put the load, of shot, leaving all the rest of the work to 
the hand, which, with practice, will soon learn instinc¬ 
tively to put the shot just where you want it to go. 
The great difficulty that the beginner will experience 
at the start is to look in the right spot. Experts, both 
amateurs and professionals, have by constant practice, be¬ 
come so skillful that they can gauge the flight of the 
target as soon as it is thrown from the trap, and prac¬ 
tically in an instant decide the correct spot to place the 
load of shot if the target is to be broken. How seldom 
they figure wrongly is shown by the high scores they 
make and the long runs they are credited with almost 
daily. 
It may seem to some rather a curious piece of instruc¬ 
tion to tell a beginner to disregard the sight on his gun. 
But just considei for a moment: In billiards or pool 
you look at the ball, not at the cue or cue tip; in. tennis, 
you look at the ball and not at your racquet; in golf, 
INTERIOR OF TRAP HOUSE. 
TRAP PULLER. 
