I also first shot skeet overseas. Rod & Gun Club, US Navy base. Kenitra, Morocco. I'd been shooting trap to that point and found skeet more to my taste. I still shoot a lot of skeet, but like Le Fusil, with my hunting guns. Haven't shot a straight recently, but a bunch of 24's with a 6 pound Parker VH 16ga (0 frame gun) and a 6 pound SKB 20ga. The way to shoot station 8 is as a going away target. Call for the high house bird while facing the low house and vice versa. Or, if you pivot away from other members of the squad, pivot and take those two targets going away.
Skeet really took off prior to WWII. All the makers of American sxs made skeet versions of their guns. Back then, it was shot mainly with sxs and pumps. There's a poster in the men's restroom at one club where I shoot. Advertises the Winchester Model 21, with which a shooter had then set the world's record: 229 birds straight. As noted above, that's back when you called for the bird from the low gun position. Back when I lived in Iowa, we used to hold a shoot every year at about this time to benefit the Ruffed Grouse Society. Two rounds of skeet. One standard rules. The other low gun and with a variable delay of up to 3 seconds. It was funny to watch the "grooved" skeet shooters on Station 8. They'd get very twitchy.
