FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 30, 1911. 
936 
Trap vs. Field 
By A. E. SWOYER 
T HE growing scarcity of game in the more 
readily accessible portions of this country 
has changed the conditions and practice of 
trapshooting immensely. A few years ago the 
cult of the clay pigeon comprised scattered clubs 
of shooters who followed the game to keep in 
trim for the hunting season; to-day thousands 
who have never heard the whir of a flushed 
grouse bang away cheerfully under more pro¬ 
saic conditions at the elusive saucers. 
With the increasing numbers engaged and the 
systematizing of the sport under a governing 
association, trap and field have become more 
widely separated. Many sportsmen have no 
means of gratifying their innate love of the gun 
except at the trap, while the numerous trophies 
offered in national and club contests induce 
shooters to become expert in this particular line. 
The result naturally has been to develop close 
shooting guns and a form such that trapshooting 
has become an art separate and distinct from 
field practice. 
Two viewpoints with relation to the sport may, 
therefore, be noted, the first being that of the 
old-time wing shot who eschews the trap and 
all its works as being unnatural and artificial. 
Such a man will claim, and with some show of 
reason, that the tournament expert, using a 
special type of gun heavily choked and with an 
almost straight stock, while knowing exactly 
when and where the bird will rise, is unfitted 
thereby to meet the totally different conditions 
of, say, grouse shooting. As a clinching argu¬ 
ment he will put forth that the man at the trap 
has a wrong conception of lead and angle, for 
the reason that the saucer starts with maximum 
speed, whereas the contrary is the case with 
game. 
The trap champion replies that the clay pigeon 
is the only bird not protected by a closed sea¬ 
son, and that by such shooting he quickens both 
hand and eye to the betterment of his general 
work. 
I make no pretense of settling this argument, 
but a year or so ago I had the opportunity of 
seeing rival exponents of the two sports try to 
prove their contentions. One of them was a 
field shot. He could take his old goose-necked 
cylinder bore and knock down doubles with a 
regularity that was beautiful to behold. The 
other fellow could stand at the trap and break 
targets with the precision of clock work. By 
a strange coincidence the first man had never 
pulled trigger at the traps, but he was certain 
that he cou’d break targets all day, while to 
the second the ways of the wily quail were as 
an unopened book, yet he was positive that he 
could kill his fifty straight if he ever took the 
trouble to try. Realizing the possibilities for 
argument in that combination, I brought the two 
sportsmen together, and the result was all that 
could have been anticipated. 
When they had exhausted their verbal ammu¬ 
nition, a wager was made. The hunter was to com¬ 
pete at the traps with the target crack, using his 
field gun. The following day the medal chaser 
was to accompany his rival on a hunt, using his 
trap gun. All misses and shots were to be 
counted, and the possessor of the lowest score, 
averaged for the two days, was to stand the 
dinners. I was to referee. 
Early the following morning we met at the 
gun club grounds, and the rivals took their posi¬ 
tions. The hunter had trouble in bringing his 
gun to shoulder in time to cover the speeding- 
saucers, and consequently shot when the range 
was too great for his scattered charge to be 
effective. Score, four out of twenty-five. The 
trap exponent broke his string straight. 
The next morning found the same trio skirt¬ 
ing the edges of a field of stubble. The target 
shot flushed the covey as he was balanced on 
a fence and stared at the birds open-mouthed 
while his rival made a neat right and left. 
Being shown where a single had lit, he edged 
up cautiously. Ten yards from the cover, five 
yards, three yards—and no bird. He turned to 
look inquiringly at us, and with a whir the 
quail was up and away, flushing almost under his 
feet. Unused to swinging on a mark from the 
carry, surprised by the rush of wings and for¬ 
getting the straight stock, he overshot by three 
feet. So it went all day. The club expert 
picked up four or five birds which he killed at 
unheard of ranges with his choke bore; the 
hunter killed the limit before noon and with¬ 
out a miss. I declared the contest a draw, but 
the joke of the whole affair is that the hunter 
is now practicing daily at the traps, and the 
other fellow has bought a little sixteen gauge 
and puts in his time throwing No. 8 chilled after 
the feathered bullets of the covers. 
What is the moral of this yarn? Perhaps it 
is, “Stick to your own game.” More practical 
it is, however, to shoot both at the trap and in 
the field, but not to adopt extremes of style in 
either. Of course,, if you want to become a 
tournament crack, you’ll have to discard your 
crooked cylinder bore that “knocks ’em dead” 
in the woods, but won’t dust a clay pigeon at 
twenty yards. If you hold “the full game bag” 
as your slogan, do not use your full choked 
trap gun as a means to that end, for if you do, 
you will find that you not only persistently over¬ 
shoot as a result of the straight stock, but that 
if you do hold on a bird at any reasonable dis¬ 
tance you will have little but bill and tail feather 
as souvenirs. 
Let me suggest a third course. Shoot at birds 
during the season and at targets the rest of 
the time, but try the trap in the following man¬ 
ner and note how your field shooting is im¬ 
proved, for the reason that hunting conditions 
are closely paralleled. 
Arrange the trap—or traps, if you are ambi¬ 
tious to try doubles—in a pit at the edge of the 
woods or of a brush lot, so that the targets will 
be thrown into a clearing. Measure off fifty 
yards back of the trap into the brush and mark 
this position as the starting point. Having num¬ 
bered slips of paper from one to fifty, place 
them in a hat and let the puller draw one; you 
are not to know the number on this slip. 
Take your position at the fifty-yard mark and 
walk toward the trap, exactly as if you were 
stalking a covert from which you expected to 
flush a grouse. As you advance, count each step 
aloud—one, two and so on. When you come to 
the number corresponding to that on the slip 
held by the puller, the trap is sprung. You 
must of course shoot from where you stand. 
The beauty of this system is that you shoot 
from the brush, exactly as when hunting. You 
do not know whether the bird will flush at fifty 
yards distance, or right at your feet, and if the 
trap is shifted occasionally, you cannot be sure 
even of its exact starting point. By using two 
traps, doubles may be attempted, and will fur¬ 
nish a test fit for the aim of the most skilled. 
Try it, some of you trap shots and never-miss 
hunters. If you make a straight score, even on 
singles, the first time out—well, my hat off to 
you. You are a better man than I am. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
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supply you regularly. 
