"Medical Pickwick" Volume 7, 1921
THE SPORT ALLURING by John D. Pollard, M. D., Chicago, Ill.
A man is unfortunate, indeed, who has not a hobby for some outdoor sport. I believe that a good, healthy tramp who has a love for the great out of doors is better off than a millionaire who has none. To my notion the king of all out-door sports is trap shooting, especially for the man who lives in one of the larger cities. There would be a great many more men interested in trap shooting if they only realized that they were welcome to shoot with any gun club in the United States without being a member. Speaking for the club that I belong to, The Lincoln Park Gun Club of Chicago, all any man has to do is to come out to the grounds and let it be known that he is interested in trap shooting. Anyone of the four hundred members will extend to him the right hand of fellowship and bid him welcome to the privileges of the club.
While we generally speak of trap shooting as clay pigeon shooting it has been many years since the real clay pigeon has been used. The target used now is made of a composition of pitch and plaster paris, saucer shaped about four and one-half inches in diameter and about an inch deep. These are thrown from a trap worked by a powerful spring; the trap throws them from fifty to sixty yards, and also gives them a whirling motion which makes them easier to break. While there are a number of experts who think nothing of breaking a hundred straight, the average shooter feels pretty chesty when he manages to break twenty-five straight. Almost all expert shots shoot with both eyes open. This would seem like a difficult matter to a person who has not tried it, but a little practice will show that one can aim better and quicker with both eyes open. Making good scores requires perfect co-ordination of the eye, the brain, and the finger— granting that you have normal vision, either with or without glasses.
Then the main factor is nerve control, and practice in trying to make good scores plus right living will go a long way toward acquiring the necessary nerve control. Regular practice at the gun club will make a poor shot good and a good shot better. The ability to make good scores at the trap will not only increase your own confidence in yourself but will also increase the confidence of others in you. Trap shooting is a substitute for game shooting, and for the man who lives in a city and can not spare the time necessary to go to the places where game may be found, while the game . season is closed, it is a most satisfactory substitute. I do not know of a more pleasant or healthy way to spend an afternoon than at the gun club. It takes you out in the open, gives you a reasonable amount of exercise, quickens the eye, and makes you forget all your troubles for the time being.
Trap shooting has many advantages over most of the other sports, either in or out of doors. One is the length of time a man can follow it up. With the exception of golf, a man is done in a few years, but in shooting there is no age limit. We have shooters at the trap from ten years old up to eighty years of age. Andy Meaders, of Tennessee, who took part in the last Grand American Handicap in Chicago, is over eighty years of age and is still shooting and shooting well. Fred Gilbert, of Spirit Lake, Iowa, broke the world's record a few years ago, after he had been shooting as a professional for the Dupont Powder Company over a quarter of a century. His score was 589 straight.
Another pleasant feature of trap shooting is the class of men you meet at the traps. The men that take up trap shooting are all on the square with their fellow-men.. In over a quarter of a century of trap shooting I have only met two men at the traps who were dishonest. It is a sport with a past, present, and future.
A shooter spends many a pleasant hour thinking and talking about shoots that he has been to, spends many pleasant hours at the traps, and is always figuring on those to come. Once a man is stung by the trap shooting bug he is doomed to be a trap shooter as long as he lives, or until he is blind in both eyes. The loss of an arm or leg means nothing in a trap shooter's young life, for at nearly all the shoots you go to, you will find some man taking part who has lost a hand or a foot. George Maxwell, a professional shooter, and one of the best shots in the world, is a one-armed man, and the arm he lost was shot off.
By shooting at the gun club and going to an occasional tournament you will soon have a circle of shooting friends scattered all over the United States, and it will be a source of great pleasure to you to read their scores in the various sportsmen's journals.
Every physician should join a club and take up the sport alluring. Trap shooters never commit suicide; they never die; they just keep on living until they dry up and blow away.
