Clay Shoot

11th May 2008

Perfect sunny day, incredible idylic surroundings, large box full of ammunition, all ingredients for a memorable afternoon shooting clays. John and son Steven had very kindly agreed to let us have a "blast" in an otherwise quiet corner of their Dales farm, and Adrian (a friend of Neil's) supplied the clay trap, gun, and consumables. Adrian's brother Chris came along, as did Kris, David and Neil.

Since we were almost all novices we didn't take it too seriously at first, and took turns getting used to the gun and using it to break little orange clay frizbees in the sky...

Eventually Kris showed his competitive streak and suggested a competition. 10 clays each, simple count of the number hit. John explained that in competition they expected you to hit it with the first barrel, or sometimes you got two points for the first barrel, just one for the second barrel. However we all agreed that hitting it at all was challenge enough!

Final score was Adrian 7/10, Kris 7/10, David 6/10, Neil 3/10. Since this was a draw, Ade & Kris had a shoot-off of 5 clays each, but it didn't help - both getting 4/5 and agreeing to a draw. We had a pleasant wander about collecting the mountain of debris (cartridges, wads, clays etc) from the beautiful sheep-grazed landscape. Finally we were carted off back to the farm in a sheep trailer attached to a quad. Nursing bruised shoulders, we reluctantly climbed into our vehicles and left, vowing to return and planning on it being another perfect day.