Edward Grossman, Field Work at Clay Birds
Outing, Sept. 1912
How to Give the Trapshooting Game a New Flavor of Variety and Excitement
http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/Outing/Volume_60/outLX06/outLX06j.pdfArms and the Man, November 6, 1913
The Shotgun As A Means Of Sport - Clay Bird Golf
https://books.google.com/books?id=tZgwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA109&lpg Mr. Edward Cave, writing in Country Life in America for September, presented what he called Clay Bird Golf. He described it as a fascinating new outdoor game which combines the best elements of golf and of shooting. He indicated a way to lay out the course and presented a system of scoring and rules for the game.
Our interest in this subject is such that we shall have more to say about it later on. It may be observed now, the essential principle of it is that one goes from place to place with a companion and fires either at singles or doubles thrown from concealed traps at unexpected moments and with a variety of angles and lines of flight, including overhead birds.
This plan appeals to us very strongly. We know a great many men who have shot for a season at the traps and do so no more. These are for the greater part men of the cities. When asked their reasons they say: I need exercise, and I really cannot afford to spend money for trap shooting when to get my exercise I have joined a country club where I may play golf or tennis. There are many such cases.
The cost of a clay bird golf course ought not to be greater than for a proper golf course. Each year, in this country at least, a larger number appreciate golf for its true worth. Men who scorned it for years, as a piffling pursuit, as a pastime of the senile, the old man's game, they said, upon trying it found that it is not only a game for the old man but for the young as well. They found that its chiefest merit is that it takes men into the open air and compels them to walk and swing their arms. That means exercise and exercise means more freely flowing blood and health and a greater capacity for work.
We have long held the opinion that some modification of the trap shooting game, which would make it more of a sport, would ultimately be found. We believe the suggestion for Clay Bird Golf to be of great value. Not the least benefit to accrue, as every practical reader has already concluded, is that shooting under such conditions will help a man do better field shooting, and that is not always the case with straight work at the ordinary trap.
Of course trap shooting should be continued with all the changes in its rules, which shall seem to those best advised the real improvements calculated to make it a more popular sport. It is a good game, worthy of all support. The more forms it has the better.
We sincerely hope some of the shotgun enthusiasts will quickly take up and energetically carry out sensible plans for making shotgun shooting at artificial targets a better game. We are not too long on earth as it is, and a little real pleasure, such as one gets from a successful reaching for things with a shotgun, adds much to the zest, and likely, to the length of life.
Fieldale Farms - Marshall Field's Gun Club
https://ourlocalhistory.wordpress.com/category/hunting-clubs/ Two 40-ft. towers have been erected to sail out clay ducks for the hunter in a blind below. For the quail, pheasant and partridge hunter, the store has built a 1,000-ft. fairway lined with corn shocks and rail fences. As the hunter stalks along, an accompanying triggerman follows him, releasing fast-flying clay birds that simulate the flights of the different game birds.
