- Skeet Low House
I spend several Saturdays each month on the skeet field at Weld County Range in Colorado www.wcfw.org. This entails mostly watching for range safety, fees, and restocking the traps before closing down the skeet field again. I’m able to shoot most all day or pull for other shooters when my arms finally get wimpy on me.
I’ve always shot with the Ladies Browning Gold 12 GA and my HIVIZ CompSight until recently I bought a Remington 1100 20 GA in preparation for two possible bird hunts later this year. The 20 GA is much lighter, has a lower drop on the comb, and swings completely different. It feels great….just need some more time on the range to adjust to the differences and get comfortable with it. After all, I don’t want to shoot poorly on my first bird hunt!
This prompted a little curiosity on my part as to the origins of the skeet game. The sport started in Andover, MA around 1920 by a small group of upland game hunters shooting at clay targets as a means to obtain wing-shooting practice. This developed into a regular game that gave each shooter the same series of shots so they could compete evenly. By 1923, the activity progressed to much of what we see today. In 1926 Gertrude Hurlbutt of Montana suggested the sport be called “skeet”, a Scandinavian translation of the verb “to shoot”. As the sport grew, the formation of a National Skeet Shooting Association was formed around 1935. Then during WWII, skeet became nonexistent for civilians but the government used the sport in gunnery training to teach servicemen the principles of leading moving targets. After the end of WWII a group of skeet enthusiasts revived the sport with the public and the current NSSA was formed in 1946, www.nssa-nsca.org. In 1968, skeet made its first appearance in the Olympic Games.
Well, this is the nutshell version….and I started the sport a bit in reverse. Competition skeet first and now hoping to hone some bird hunting skills with it!
For you skeet shooters, I still have my hat…. shooting 24 straight and missing my second low eight. Ahhh, I tell people I like to leave something to “shoot for”…yes, pun intended.
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