Reviving an old sport made new in the Helderbergs

The Enterprise — Michael Koff

Michael Vincent demonstrates how to use an over-and-under shotgun, with stacked barrels, at the Berne Conservation Club in Berne.

BERNE — Trapshooting — a sport of skill, strength, and perseverance — lives on in the Hilltowns. The Berne Conservation Club’s members, however, are aging and hoping to pass their competitive history, and their love of the sport, on to the next generation.

“When I started, your father had a shotgun, your grandfather had a gun. It was handed down to you,” said Michael Vincent. “You can go to the store and pay $400, or $24,000.”

Trapshooting is for any age, Vincent said, as long as a youth is accompanied by a guardian, and can handle a shotgun.

Vincent, who competes regularly with the club, described the sport’s appeal; using good marksmanship, trapshooters attempt to shoot a clay bird mechanically flung from a trap into the air. Birds are released from five positions on a regulation field, and trapshooters complete five rounds from each position, for a total of 25 attempts, he said.

“To shoot, you’ve got to be limber,” Vincent said. “Some kids have eye-finger coordination at 14, and in a couple years get better than experienced adults.”

“As a rule, with persons under 16, a guardian is there,” Vincent said. At 16, a student can join the club as a junior member and practice without a guardian, he said.

“The weight would be harder for a younger person,” he said of hefting a shotgun. “Some women find it heavy.”

For lighter-weight marksmen, like smaller women or youth, a variety of barrel lengths and gun brands are available, he said.

“I’m a Winchester man,” Vincent said. Some participants prefer Remingtons, he said.

“I use an ‘over and under’ — one barrel on top, one underneath that,” Vincent said.

Kids, or women, may like to use a .16-gauge, which does not have as much recoil. Most members use a .12-gauge shotgun, he said.

“For every action, there’s a reaction,” Vincent said, describing the recoil that occurs after a shot is fired.

“You’ve got to make sure the butt’s up against your shoulder,” Vincent said. Personal preference also plays a large role in what weapon is chosen by club members, he said.

“It’s how you hold your gun,” he said. If a shooter holds the gun too close to his or her cheek, the recoil gives a little bump to both the cheek and the shoulder, he said.

Some shooters put additions on the stock of the barrel to help take up, or reduce, the recoil, Vincent said.

Trigger pressures are different, depending on the style of gun used, he said. Some shoot with a slight pressure, and some shoot only after the trigger has been pulled and released.

Related sports are offered at other nearby gun clubs including:

— Marksmanship with still targets, using smaller rifles;

— Hunting, using a variety of weapons; and

— Skeet shooting, aiming at two clay birds mechanically flung at the same time.

Berne’s club, however, is cognizant of its neighbors, and keeps its activities confined to trapshooting.

“People don’t like lead shot,” Vincent said. “We don’t want to hurt” nearby properties.

“Twenty-two-gauge shells [from smaller guns] go up to a mile,” Vincent said. “A shell has ‘X’-number of BBs in it, according to its size.”

Berne club members use sizes 8 and 7.5 for trapshooting, he said.

 

Pines line the field of the Berne Conservation Club Inc. in Berne. Club members are hoping new members will join to keep trapshooting alive in the Hilltowns. The Enterprise — Michael Koff

 

“Under our wing”

Beginners do not need to be discouraged about following a moving target, Vincent said.

“You can set a trap so it throws a straight bird,” he said, “so kids get used to it.”

With experience, shooters find the point in flight at which it is easier for them to shoot the clay bird, learning where the bird will fall and stop, he said.

“They can shoot it coming down, which is difficult,” Vincent said. “There are a lot of books to read — we have that.”

The Berne Conservation Club began in 1932, and is the oldest club in the town of Berne, he said. Many of its members are aging or have died, he said, but other towns and cities, like Schenectady and Albany, have thriving clubs with 80 or more members.

Vincent, who suffers from some stiffness in his maturity, said that he used to be fast enough for skeet shooting, getting two clay birds with one shot. Now, he continues to do trapshooting and he enjoys traveling to different clubs for competitions.

“Berne won over Voorheesville last week,” Vincent said. For sportsmen and women who shoot 25 birds in a rotation, the club provides a memento, he said.

“If you shoot 25, you are entitled to a patch,” he said. “If you shoot 50, you are entitled to a patch. Our patch is very unique. Our field is unique.

“It’s the background that makes each club unique to shoot,” he said. Some clubs use orange clay birds. Others use green, he said.

“Green is difficult to see against a pine tree,” Vincent said, referring to the pines that line Berne’s regulation field.

“If you go down to Coxsackie, you shoot over a pond,” he said. “Each club has something unique that makes a shoot difficult.”

Tuesday is the weekly practice night in Berne. Depending on the child, or the family, Vincent said, each practice will see a handful of members spanning all ages. Recently, children of 3 and 4 came with a parent, he said, and hunters brought their dogs to get them used to hearing guns go off.

“We have hearing protection,” Vincent said.

The young shooters learn from example, he said.

“We take them under our wing,” he said.

“Anybody can come,” Vincent said. “By the time they turn 13, if their parents are hunters, kids will enjoy it.”

 

Not just a hobby: Trapshooting is competitive for Berne Conservation Club members, who hold a practice night weekly at their regulation field. The Enterprise — Michael Koff

 

Age-old sport

“England has been shooting for hundreds of years,” Vincent said. “It’s quite a big sport.”

There are state and national competitions, and world events, he said. Berne will compete locally this Sunday in West Albany, he said.

“New guns come out. People try different styles of guns,” Vincent said. “The person should try different ones to see what fits their arm length, what fits their neck length, the amount of recoil the gun has. That’s the stuff you’ve got to teach the kids.”

 “We’re still here,” Vincent said of the aging club. “We’re shooting trap. It’s a family thing,” he said.

The Altamont Enterprise is focused on hyper-local, high-quality journalism. We produce free election guides, curate readers' opinion pieces, and engage with important local issues. Subscriptions open full access to our work and make it possible.