The Williamson Conservation and Sporting Club hosted the Hunters Tour of WNY Sporting Clays shoot this weekend, and I witnessed something awesome.

For those unfamiliar, sporting clays is a shotgun game that simulates the unpredictable flight paths of various game birds and rabbits across different shooting stations. Courses are unique and can be changed by moving the target throwers or the shooter’s position. Think of it as “golf with a shotgun”. The Hunters Tour is a sporting clays league with 20 shoots at 10 different clubs, attracting hundreds of participants to each event. The competitors come from every career and background, using shotguns of all styles and price points. The one thing all guns have in common is that they must be able to shoot at least two shells before reloading, since two targets are thrown at each station. 

This brings us back to the club this past Sunday. A young man who recently joined a local school trap team had been coming to the club to practice each weekend. Trap is very different from sporting clays, requiring only one shot at a time. The trap field was closed for the weekend,  but he still wanted to shoot. His single-shot trap gun served him well for his practice, but it didn’t allow him to shoot a normal sporting clays station. He was limited to taking just one shot per turn. 

As the young man approached a station I was watching, the group of league shooters noticed his single-shot gun. They spoke to him about his firearm, not in a negative way—it was a very nice trap gun—but because they wanted him to experience the challenge of shooting a true sporting clays pair.

Without hesitation, one of the shooters handed his shotgun to the young man to try.

“Just don’t drop it,” was all he said.

The reason for the warning? 

It was a $16,000 shotgun.

He handed the expensive gun to a kid he had never met, showed him how to safely use it, explained the targets, helped him load it, and let him try for two targets at once. 

The kid smashed them.   All the shooters around cheered.

You have never seen a bigger smile.

At the next station, another shooter let the kid try his shotgun. This one wasn’t a $16,000 gun, but a $20,000 one.

The same thing happened. A safety explanation, a target explanation, and an invitation to have a go.

The kid was on cloud nine, and the league shooters were pretty happy, too. 

And that’s why I love this sport.

It’s full of good people doing what they can to help others enjoy it safely. 

Those guys didn’t have to do that.   They didn’t know this young man,  but they knew they had an opportunity to do something good for him.

That kid will never forget that, and I won’t either.