Chapter XI: Trap-Shooting

The amusement of trap-shooting is pursued in the Northern States, on the margins of the western lakes--as some eminent marksmen of Buffalo and Niagara Falls can testify--and on the sea-coast--as some famous matches at Islip would prove. It is not a field sport; it is hardly a sport at all; and a pigeon is not, properly speaking, a game-bird, in spite of the instances quoted. If this work were to be confined strictly to its professed objects, this chapter would have to be excluded; but for the reason that it belongs nowhere else, that an account of this peculiar style of shooting will be useful to many sportsmen, and that no published book contains any information on the subject, the writer has presumed to collate the experience of his friends rather than of himself--for he does not pretend to much skill in this particular art--and to offer it to the sporting public.

Trap-shooting, although quite an ungrammatical expression, is perfectly understood as a sporting term, having acquired a conventional meaning; it signifies neither shooting at a trap, which its construction implies, nor shooting out of a trap, but shooting at a bird--generally a pigeon--released from a trap. Although not a highly scientific sport, and somewhat open to the charge of cruelty, it has its devotees; and certainly, amid a crowd of spectators and competitors, to take the palm and carry off the prize is no mean glory. The birds probably suffer as little, cut down with the whistling charge of fine shot while on the wing, and with a chance for life, as though their necks were remorselessly wrung by the poulterer; and in either case they find their way to market and furnish food for the people.

The most serious objection to this sport is, that the wild pigeons have to be taken from their nests in the spring, and thus, either prevented laying their eggs, or hatching their broods. As the preservation and increase of all species of wild birds, animals, and fishes, and the prevention of their destruction at unseasonable times, are the first duties of a sportsman, the killing of pigeons ere they have raised their broods is on a par with shooting ducks and snipe in spring, and is excusable only because the feeling of the people does not require the enactment of thoroughly appropriate laws; and while it prevents the protection of the latter, makes the preservation of the former--which is a comparatively valueless bird--scarcely worth the trouble.

Under these circumstances, and in order to fill up a season of the year when there is no other legitimate sporting excitement, trap-shooting has grown in public estimation, and being adopted by a large class of sportsmen, has led to the employment of a numerous body of followers, skilled in the secrets of trapping and preparing birds so that they may be presented to the shooter in the best possible condition.

This class of underlings, who attend to the many wants of the sportsman, whether in the field or at the trap; who break his dogs, carry his bag, or tend his birds; with their quaint wisdom and innate honesty,--deserve more consideration than they receive: but above all, in trap-shooting, are they a necessity, and is their uprightness above price? An unfair trapper may give one man strong birds, and another weak; may pull their wing-feathers, or keep some without water or food, and thus almost decide a contest beforehand.

Their labor is excessive; they have first to catch the birds, and attend to their arrival at the place of shooting early enough to meet the sportsmen; and then they have to run eighteen or twenty-one yards over the uneven and often muddy ground for every bird they place in the trap. Hence, in selecting a place to shoot pigeons, it is desirable, by avoiding sand or soft earth, to save the trapper; under the most favorable circumstance, he will soon be exhausted, and with every advantage, cannot trap more than five hundred birds in a day. Two birds are released, either together or successively, ere the traps are replenished; the trapper, carrying two birds, runs to the traps, sets one after the other, and returns also on the run--for the marksman by this time is at the score--and selects two more birds from the box; this labor, continued during the noontide hours of a blazing day, is not over-remunerated by liberal pay and the surplus birds, that, unless claimed by the shooter, fall by common consent to the share of his hard-working assistant.

The most rapid way is to use five traps, in single-bird shooting, and employ five boys--with a relay of five others when the first are exhausted--to set them; boys are naturally more active than men, and are buoyed up by an excitement that the latter do not feel. The five birds are shot at before the traps are refilled; and by the time the last bird is released the boys stand armed with a fresh one apiece, ready to reset the traps in a moment. In this mode, with good luck in not having too many birds that have to be retrieved, and with regularity, fifteen hundred birds may be shot at in ten hours.

The difficulty of obtaining pigeons in our seaboard cities has been so great of late years, as advancing civilization has reduced the number, and driven westward the migratory hosts which once visited the Eastern States, that not only has the expense enormously increased, but the practice of trap-shooting has diminished. The ordinary price along the Atlantic coast is from twenty to thirty dollars a hundred, and the supply is so small, that the collection of any considerable number, even at that rate, is extremely difficult.

As skill in the act of shooting birds released from a trap, where the sportsman stands prepared, gun in hand and nerves disturbed, if at all, only by the presence of spectators, does not imply ability to acquit oneself well in the field, and tends but little to that end; so it is pursued not for improvement so much as for temporary excitement during the dull months of the year. Pigeons nest in June, a season during which there is absolutely no legitimate sport with the gun whatever; the woodcock are not yet grown, the snipe have passed to their northern homes, and the sportsman fills the vacancy with the emulation of surpassing his associates at trap-shooting. The attempt is exciting, and the art peculiar, requiring great self-command and utter disregard of the jeers, praises, or contemptuous laughter of a thousand spectators.

Tame pigeons are not so well adapted to the purpose as their wild brethren, having a quiet way of ignoring the object for which they are produced, and walking towards the stand, or picking up scraps of food the moment they are released, that is trying to the expectant shooter. Then they are strong of wing and well feathered, so that the shot must be driven hard to penetrate to a vital spot; and they fly as often towards the crowd assembled behind the score as in the contrary direction. Their flight is uneven, and frequently, after rising a few feet, they will suddenly alight, or pitch down part of the way. The best shots, therefore, prefer the wild birds, that go off with a rush the moment the trap is pulled--for, although they fly faster, they are more certain in their motions. Tame birds are collected in the neighborhood of towns and through the country, but rarely in large numbers; and being accustomed to the presence of man, require little special care. Wild birds are brought from long distances, frequently from the confines of Wisconsin, and in consequence of their timid, excitable nature, require continued care. They are captured on their nests, where they congregate in millions; and being cooped in shallow boxes made of slats, only deep enough to allow them to move, but not to use their wings or bruise themselves, are transported as rapidly and tenderly as possible to their destination. They must invariably be accompanied by a careful person to wait on them, and supply food and water, of the latter of which they require large quantities, and they must be moved as rarely and carefully as possible.

The moment they arrive, they should be placed in a prepared room; and each one, as he is taken out, must have his head plunged in water, and be allowed to drink freely. The ceiling of their apartment should be low, or there will be difficulty in catching them, and the windows may be slatted; a sufficient number of perches to accommodate them readily should be set up, and they must be disturbed as little as possible. Food and water should be introduced three times a day, either very quietly, or after the apartment has been darkened by closing the shutters. In spite of the best of care, about ten per cent. will perish on the journey, or in consequence of it.

Having been retained in the room two or three days, they will be in their best condition, recovered from their exposure, and not yet injured by their confinement; and may then be caught, replaced in the boxes, and carried to the shooting-ground. It is a common practice to pull out some of the smaller feathers under the tail, or to stick a pin in the gristle of the rump, with a view of making them fly better; as a bird that remains in the trap, when a ground-trap is used, after it is pulled, and refuses to rise, baulks the shooter, and any pain inflicted on them just as they are being used will make them wild and anxious to escape.

There are three kinds of traps used, called the ground, spring, and plunge traps; the former is so arranged that when the string is drawn, the trap, which is composed of tin plates, falls over and lies flat on the ground; while the others, through the instrumentality of a spring, or by a vigorous jerk on the line, throw the birds into the air. The ground-traps are considered by many the most scientific, leaving the shooter in doubt as to the direction of the bird’s flight, and preventing his shooting on the calculation which can be made very accurately with a spring-trap--that the bird will invariably be thrown to a certain place, and may be killed there, nominally on the wing, but before he has really got under weigh; but in the West the plunge-traps are generally preferred, as they insure the bird’s flying at once.

The traps are also spoken of as “H and T,” or “head and tail” traps, and are usually marked with a large H or T; but this means merely that the shooter may select the trap to be pulled by the toss, in case the terms of the contest permit it. The sportsmanlike mode, however, as claimed by Eastern sportsmen, is to allow the trapper, provided he can be perfectly relied upon, to pull any trap he may choose, without notice to the shooter.

Four or five traps are generally used, placed several feet apart, at twenty-one yards from the score in single-bird shooting, and at eighteen yards in double-bird shooting. In double-bird shooting the two birds are not placed in the same trap, but two traps are pulled at the same time. In single-bird shooting only one barrel can be discharged at one bird; and to save time, the shooter should fire at two birds, one after the other, before he leaves the score, being thus compelled to use both barrels of his gun.

A bird, to be credited as killed, must be retrieved within the bounds--that is to say, must be gathered with the hands alone; and it was formerly permitted to take him not only on the ground or in the air, but from a tree, and the shooter might walk round a running bird and drive him towards the trap; but more modern rules require that the bird shall fall, and shall be proceeded to straight from the score. The bounds are eighty yards radius from the centre of the traps in single-bird shooting, and one hundred yards in double-bird shooting. The distance should be measured with a rope, and marked by small flags or painted stakes set up in the ground.

The judges order the shooter to retrieve any bird they think proper; and in case there is doubt whether a bird was hit, although duly retrieved, they must examine and decide, being occasionally compelled to pick the feathers in order to ascertain.

In case of a missfire, according to the rules of the New York Club, if the cap explodes, the bird is counted against the shooter, although his gun may be properly loaded, he being responsible for the cleanliness of the gun; but in case the cap fails to explode, he is allowed another bird. Other clubs only require that the gun shall be properly loaded; and others score the bird as missed. If in double-bird shooting one bird only rises, it used to be counted to the shooter, and he was allowed another bird in place of the one that failed to fly, thus really shooting at two single birds. This was so manifestly unjust that the rule has been changed by the State Association, and the shooter is required to shoot at a fresh brace. The sportsman stands at the score and directs the trapper when to pull; he must hold the butt of his gun beneath his elbow, but usually drops his head, and bends his body into the position it would take were the gun at his shoulder, so that he merely has to raise his gun to his eye and point it. In double-trap shooting, undoubtedly, the marksman requires every advantage he can obtain, and then will have many birds pass beyond range ere he can fire; but where a single pigeon is presented, it would be advisable to require every contestant to hold his gun with the muzzle above his head. Professional shots usually extend the arms and assume an attitude, and gain an advantage that would be impossible to them in game-shooting.

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The weight or character of gun and load of powder have not heretofore been restricted, although it is unreasonable to match a light field-gun, loaded with three drachms, against a fourteen-pound ducking-gun, driving its charge of No. 10 shot with six drachms of powder. The load of shot should not be over one ounce and a quarter; but even with this restriction the heavy guns will have the advantage, being able to send fine shot stronger, and have the benefit of the extra quantity of pellets. The size of shot in light guns is generally No. 7, with three and a quarter drachms of powder. The guns are loaded in the presence of a judge selected for the purpose, and the shot is poured into a measured charger; but with breech-loaders, as the cartridges are already prepared, it is customary to select one of the latter at random and open it.

A good shot will frequently kill twenty single birds in succession, and some persons who have made this sport their specialty have been known to kill many more; but the majority of excellent sportsmen will not kill over nineteen out of twenty. The best field-shots are often bunglers at trap-shooting. Where double birds are shot at, it is rare that twenty are killed without a miss, and an excellent average out of ten double rises would be seventeen birds. The second bird is frequently so far off ere he is fired at, that, even if hit, he will go out of bounds and be recorded as missed, although he falls dead. In this shooting there is much in accident, not only as to the bird’s falling out of bounds, but as to the mode of flight; for if both birds go directly away from the stand, the chances are against the shooter, whereas if one approaches, the difficulty of killing is not much greater than with single birds.

In England a better rule in shooting single birds generally prevails, by which the rise is extended to twenty-five or thirty yards, but the shooter is allowed to use both barrels; thus occasionally making some brilliant shots at long distances, and proving the qualities, not merely of the sportsman, but of his weapon. Firing a single barrel at a pigeon within thirty yards, is dull sport; better marksmanship is required to stop him at from thirty-five to forty with the first barrel, even with the additional chance with the second at from forty to fifty.

No scattering gun, filling the air with its cloud of mustard-seed, will answer for this work; the closest and strongest-shooting gun will have to be held so true that the centre of the charge will hit the object, to obtain the least chance with the second barrel, or to insure certainty even with the first. Fewer birds that are fairly hit will go out of bounds, as the second barrel may complete the work of the first; and the best marksman will generally exhibit himself by the management of this barrel, to use which at all will require extreme rapidity and accuracy.

This fact has been recognised occasionally at conventions, or where the contests were for honor and not money, by increasing the distance at which ties are shot off. In a large match there are always several ties, which are shot off at five birds, and frequently not finished till repeated several times. At the New York State Convention of 1865, held at Niagara Falls, the parties tying one another were set back five yards at every tie, and still at thirty-one yards four birds out of five were killed with a single barrel--although, of course, at this distance much will depend upon the direction and mode of flight. Success, even with the use of both barrels, will require far more brilliant shooting than in the present mode.

There has always been great dispute among trap-shooters as to the best trap. The New York City Club claims that a bird released from a ground-trap, selecting his own time to rise, and mode and direction of flight, is harder to kill than one tossed heels over head from a plunge or spring-trap. But our Western brethren, who are naturally more rapid, and who have less difficulty in obtaining pigeons, are so annoyed with the waste of time occasioned by a dilatory pigeon, that they universally prefer the plunge-trap.

Probably the mesne between these two opinions is correct, or more properly a combination of them both; a single bird is undoubtedly harder to kill at a ground-trap, whereas the plunge-trap will free the two birds in double-shooting, to go off at the same moment. So that for these reasons, and to insure skill at both, they should be appropriated to these offices respectively. The best Western shot, if not the best gentleman shot in the world, who has killed his eighty-four out of ninety double birds, was terribly baulked by the ground trap, to which he had not been accustomed, when he first attempted to kill even single birds from it. But for double-shooting, as it is essential that both birds should fly together, the trap that insures this is preferable.

One of the worst features of trap-shooting is, that it has fallen mainly into the hands of professionals; and although there is no reason for not pursuing a legitimate sport because blacklegs enjoy it also, they have introduced tricks and artifices that degrade the entire amusement. The use of heavy guns is one of the mildest of these, for it is madness for the best shot in the world to match his ordinary field-gun against a number six bore single-barrelled piece; and they will put a clod of grass or even a dead bird in the same trap with the live one, and if this is a spring-trap, the adversary will be taken at a disadvantage. They deaden their own birds by squeezing them under the wings, and excite those of their opponent by plucking them or pulling their feathers, and can even give them an irregular flight. The professionals, therefore, may be expected to gain a nominal superiority, and claim to be champions, more from their cunning unscrupulousness than from their actual skill, and, by this fancied superiority, degrade the entire sport.

The rules which were adopted at a convention of the principal clubs in the State of New York, held in 1865, when the best sporting talent in the country was represented, are given in the Appendix. Although an improvement in many particulars on the former rules, they are not perfect; it is probable that they will be further amended, so as, while increasing the difficulty of killing the bird, to place all sportsmen on an equal footing, and to remove as far as possible the influence of accident.

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And now, apologizing to the many sportsmen who are abler shots and have had far greater experience than himself, the author urges in extenuation of his presumption in publishing this book, that as they would not commit their experiences to paper, he felt justified in attempting it; and as the other sporting writers have utterly neglected this field of labor as beneath their notice, he could not be blamed for entering upon it and doing with it the best of which he was capable. And to those persons who follow in the track of the literary sporting men, and affect to despise the various kinds of water-fowl and bay-shooting, the author would say that he only wishes they may have such days with the geese and ducks, the marlins, yellow-legs, and dowitchers, the rail and the plover, as he has had, in the full confidence that they will be very soon converted.