You know you are old when you can remember manual cocked and loaded skeet and trap traps. Back then even the calls were different. Mark, Bird and Pair was how I learned to call for birds at Skeet. Being a trap boy was a hard job in those old, hot, houses. Not fan, no breeze, just hot work for fifty cents a hundred. Our birds came wrapped in newspaper to reduce breakage in shipping and handling. So you had to unwrap each stack before you could start loading. After you were done all the papers and boxes had to be taken out and burned, the house swept out and closed up. Later we had a electric buzzer connected to the puller to signal you to release the bird. Then they had a trap which was manual cocked and loaded but released by the pullers cord. Those were very unsafe. A release when you were loading could cost you and arm, hand or few fingers. I refused to work on them and the "men" at first complained about my "silly fear" but after one or two close calls pulled that machine out. You could work all day for three to four dollars. No fifteen dollars an hour back then. And I loved it.
Instead of feeling threatened by the first automatic trap our club bought I felt freed. Free at last. Now you can get traps for just a few hundred dollars, we could only dream about them back then. A friend has one of the MEC clay throwers and has thrown a lot of targets with it and is very satisfied. I have had excellent service from them on their reloaders and expect they are the same on their trap machines.
