Shotgunning games - Fun and Practice

Big Fin

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This video is a game Matthew and I started playing when he was about 8 years old. We use a hand thrower to toss pigeons in a manner, direction, speed, and angle that you think will make it hard for the other guy to hit them. When he first started shooting, it was about him breaking birds and getting accustomed to shooting. Within a few years, he was making me look bad and it became much more of a competition.

I think this pic was one of our first trips out playing the game and he was already plenty handy with his youth model 20 gauge.

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Since he turned fourteen, I think I've only beat him in one round of sporting clays or other shooting contests. But when we get out in the field and the birds are flushing or the mallards are coming in, I'm usually the guy with the smug look and not many empty cases needed for my limit. I will hold my own when the birds have feathers, not clay.

If you have young kids and you want shooting to be fun, get them a gun that fits right, give them good hearing protection and safety gear, take them to a spot that is well set up for shooting yet not crowded with people, and let them shoot until they want to call it quits. It will be as much fun for you as it is for them. It will provide good teaching opportunities, safety habits, and if they take to it, give them something to be good at that builds a lot of confidence. Most likely, it will be something they take with them through life as a passion and interest.

Here is a video we shot in August of us playing the game. Thanks to the editor conspiring with Matthew, the outcome was pretty similar to all other times we play this game. The smiles were as good as always. And the new Pointer shotguns impressed us. As they did when we used them for dove hunting in Arizona last month.

[video=youtube_share;ckLfvikAqns]https://youtu.be/ckLfvikAqns[/video]

I remember one of the first times when a wisp of spent powder rose like smoke from a hot barrel. Matthew turned to me, almost as if he was going to tell me a big secret about his first girlfriend, and whispered, "Dad, I love the smell of gun powder."

Take a kid shooting. You'll be glad you did.
 
I love range time with my sons, all 3 of them tend to school me on the range - and in the field. We go through spurts of lots of shotgun rounds, then we'll go through hundreds of pistol rounds, but the rifles are always used and used heavily. Range time is a great way to spend time together waiting for a chance to hunt together.
 
Very nice! I spent a good portion of my day at the range with my 6yo and 9yo. Fun times!
 
Brings back memories of when I was a kid. My dad and uncle used to play that game with me in our backyard. We would even go off to the side so the clays would come in from right or left.
 
my 8 year old boys are just starting to shoot with a .410. they get tired quick (although they can run around all day long and never get tired...??) and the shootng doesn't last too long yet.

But my 12 year old girl joined the high school trap team as a 7th grader this fall. her first round was a 3 out of 25. It was a 7 week thing and her second to last round was a 20 out of 25 and she loves it.
 
I like how he started the day off with excuses about how he was going to miss shots.

It was a fun day of shooting and it isn't all the time that you get to shoot guns fresh from the factory.
 
It wasn't shotguns, but I got my girls some Battleship targets that they had a lot of fun shooting .22LR at. I had to take on the winner with my Browning HP 9mm (and she wouldn't give me a distance advantage). :)
 
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