WHEN SHOOTING AT DUCKS DROPPING TO DECOYS. GUN MUST BE HELD WELL UNDER. 
barrels stationary, but assits uncon¬ 
sciously in estimating the allowance the 
bird requires. 
Clay Bird Practice 
'pHE invention of the clay bird has 
facilitated practice at moving 
objects and although objected to by 
some, it is noticeable that the men who 
condemn it on the ground that it ruins 
field shooting are as a rule neither good 
shots at the trap nor in the field, 
whereas we are unable to recall one 
good trap shot who is not also a good 
game shot. We do not mean by this 
that simply practicing at clay birds 
will make a man a good game shot, 
for it will not, as skill in the field and 
control of the nerves at the sudden 
flush or rapid flight of game birds can 
be acquired only by experience. Prac¬ 
tice at clay bird shooting, however, 
will enable a man to acquire a com¬ 
plete and ready control of his gun, so 
that he can handle it with safety to 
himself and his friends. It will edu¬ 
cate his eye and brain and hand until 
they work together, giving him a clear 
insight into the theory of wing shoot¬ 
ing and affording him valuable exper¬ 
ience in judging speed and distance 
and estimating the lead it is necessary 
to give moving objects. 
The weak point about clay bird 
shooting, from a fixed trap as ordinar¬ 
ily conducted, is that the shooter 
stands in an unnatural position with 
his gun fast at his shoulder and usu¬ 
ally pointed at the edge of the trap 
where he knows the bird will appear, 
the moment he gives the word. These 
conditions never exist in the field, for 
there the sportsman does not know 
from what patch of cover the snipe, 
grouse or quail he is pursuing may 
flush, nor has he anything but a gen¬ 
eral idea as to the speed and direction 
of its flight, and it is only after the 
bird is in the air that the gun is raised 
to the shoulder. 
The objections that have been raised 
to clay bird shooting from the fixed 
trap are all eliminated by using a 
hand trap. With one of these inex- 
Page 557 
pensive and handy affairs the different 
shots that are met with in the field can 
be simulated under quite natural con¬ 
ditions, as with it birds can be thrown 
in any conceivable direction. The 
shooter can walk around a field carry- 
Shooting on the wing is a mechan¬ 
ical art like billiard playing or 
boxing. There will, of course, be 
degrees of excellence; but anyone 
with the full use of his facul¬ 
ties and the ambition necessary 
to attain success can acquire it. 
"'iiiiiwiiiii 
ing his gun in a natural position, as 
if he were out after game, the man 
with the hand trap following behind 
or at one side, and from time to time, 
without warning—other than the noise 
made by the trap—throw birds either 
high or low over the shooter’s head, 
quartering to the right or left or at 
various angles across his front and 
skimming along the ground. Valuable 
practice can be obtained also by select¬ 
ing some open spot in the timber, 
across which birds can be thrown so 
that they are only visible for a short 
interval of time, or the assistant can 
take up a position on one side of a wall 
and throw birds over it at various 
speeds and angles toward the shooter 
who stands on the other side. 
r p'HE beauty of clay bird shooting is 
that it enables a difficult shot to be 
lepeated often until it is mastered 
and in the course of an hour more prac¬ 
tice can be obtained and more experi¬ 
ence acquired in handling a gun than 
could be gathered by spending a week 
in the field, for there a difficult shot is 
seldom repeated and the actual number 
of shots fired comparatively limited. 
The approximate speed of game birds 
has been determined as sixty feet a 
second, and singularly, this is also the 
speed of the clay bird when the spring 
of the trap is working at full strength 
and the line of flight approaches the 
horizontal. The average pace of the 
clay bird for the first ten feet after 
leaving a trap is sixty-eight feet per 
second, this agreeing closely with the 
speed of fast game birds, but as the 
clay bird proceeds on its course the ve¬ 
locity falls off, though curiously 
enough, during the first thirty-five feet 
of travel the pace is very nearly uni¬ 
form, the clay bird averaging about 
sixty-four feet per second. The aver¬ 
age velocity of a load of shot with 
standard ammunition is approximately 
one thousand feet a second, so that in 
one-tenth of a second a load of shot 
will traverse one hundred feet. In one- 
tenth of a second a game bird or clay 
target flying at the rate of sixty-four 
feet a second will traverse six and four- 
tenths feet and thus would be quite out¬ 
side the circle of pellets at the time of 
their arrival. It is therefore evident 
that in shooting at crossing birds at a 
distance of from thirty to thirty-five 
yards, it is necessary to lead a bird 
(Continued on page 573) 
CROSSING SHOT 
Swing along with and past the bird until 
proper amount of lead has been taken, then 
still keeping the gun moving, press trigger. 
