Beware of Thieves at your club or shooting ground

Help Support :

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Salopian

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2011
Messages
5,013
At my local shooting ground last Sunday I was unfortunate to be behind a group of six who insisted on seeing 'show pairs ' on EVERY stand , and ALL six did it on every stand, one of them often asked for two or three 'show pairs ' on some stands.

I politely explained the CPSA rule . THE REPLY i GOT WAS  " It's not a CPSA shoot , what the F*** has it got to do with you , you F***ing  Nosy C*** ".

Little local club shoots cannot survive if people waste clays like this .

 
At my local shooting ground last Sunday I was unfortunate to be behind a group of six who insisted on seeing 'show pairs ' on EVERY stand , and ALL six did it on every stand, one of them often asked for two or three 'show pairs ' on some stands.

I politely explained the CPSA rule . THE REPLY i GOT WAS  " It's not a CPSA shoot , what the F*** has it got to do with you , you F***ing  Nosy C*** ".

Little local club shoots cannot survive if people waste clays like this .
That behaviour isnt acceptable anywhere.do you think these scrotes thought they would get away with it,because of your age? ( no offence intended).  They are peobably like that in all parts of their life,not just when clay shooting. Very sad.

 
Some shooters are absolutely amazing, some are complete tossers and some are absolute scum, looks like the scum are out in force.

 
With an attitude like that , they are not fit to hold shotgun certificates .

Good on you  for telling them which way is up  , even though it resulted in you getting a torrent of abuse.You stood up for the dozens of others who were probably wishing they had had the balls to say something. 
 

 
A claymate system at 45p per clay sharpens the senses. (Or 30p if you’re up north 😆). I admit on the rare occasion I use claymate I read the sign and look for the trap very carefully rather than going flicking clays out. About 10 years ago, pre claymate, EJC used to reckon they charged for 55% of the clays they consumed. They used to have a Wednesday evening self button practice. 50 birds £15 or something. You would see a group with a huge bag of cartridges just banging away, mugging the place. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sadly, it happens. Several years ago I volunteered to help out running a stand at a 100 target charity shoot. All very laid back, nothing serious. A group of shooters shot their targets, the second one missing what was a fairly simple crosser from about 20 metres away. ‘Loss’ I called and immediately the abuse started from him and his friends. I simply put the button down and walked away.

Dare I say that sporting does tend to attract a few like this. The vast majority were very pleasant and sportsmanlike but unfortunately not everyone. 

In 15 years competitive shooting I’ve never seen anything like this on a trap line. Gamesmanship, definitely, cheating, certainly but never outright abusive behaviour.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
The principal reason for installing Claymate at Ian Coley's (or Chatcombe as it was called then) was because the Thursday self buttoning evenings meant using at least 30% more clays than expected. Many times I saw people shooting far more than 5 pairs and sometimes even going round twice and I'm pretty sure some people pulled up, shot round and left again without even checking in at the desk! 

 
Did you report them to the ground owners, because like you say small shoots like this won't survive that

 
Did you report them to the ground owners, because like you say small shoots like this won't survive that
If you're asking me then the answer is yes I did. But rather than have a witch hunt or ban them from the ground they chose the Claymate route which inevitably put the prices up for the honest members as well as the others.

 
I think a trip back to my car, collect mobile phone and then return to take some 'Pics' would have been my course of action. These would then be shown to the ground owner, I would also have taken 'pics' of their vehicles. IF I was then threatened again, a reminder as to them being likely to lose their shotgun certificate,  should the situation escalate.

 
how do lowlife like that obtain shotgun certificates ?   
A group of six you say, I would not mind betting that one or two in the group did not have an SGC 

I have never seen an aggressive group like this, but I have seen many large groups acting stupid and un safe. The common denominator is that all these instances were on Sunday morning straw bailers. That is why I no longer go to such shoots. 

I very rarely shoot on a Sunday and if I did it would be at a cpsa reg event.

 
If you'd told me before I got involved with the clay counting controls that installing a system would save a ground 30% of their stock outlay I'd have laughed at you.

I now know that that is the bottom end and some grounds do discover that they have been mugged by all and sundry. Even modest sized grounds find they are recovering the installation cost a lot faster than they thought they would. Seems shooting has as many bent participants as any other pursuit in spite of the screening that happens when it comes to getting a ticket.

Sad reflection on society in general I suppose.

 
A small self contained club shoot I was on the committee of some years ago used to hold occasional open sporting shoots. At one of these an elderly local shooter who we only ever saw at these shoots arrived at a stand I was buttoning and scoring on. He was the only shooter there at the time.. He hadn't had a chance to see the birds so I asked him if he wanted to see a pair. "No boy" he said "just tell me where the traps are, they pheasants don't give you advance warning."

We used to get the low-lifes as well as previously mentioned but they soon got fed up when they realised that they weren't going to 'see a pair' each having watched the previous squad shoot the stand. Their usual comment was that they weren't coming back again because the shoot was rubbish but nobody asked them to come in the first place. They would come again for the next open shoot usually the same four shooters in one car.

Vic.

 
"No boy" he said "just tell me where the traps are, they pheasants don't give you advance warning.

Vic.
Perfectly true. That's all a shooter needs to know.

When I do a bit of lone sporting shooting , I am happy if the stand says A in coming, B left crosser etc. I just wait for the birds gun down ,then shoot. Much more enjoyable. If I hit the pair I move on cant see the enjoyment of repeating an identical shot time and again. Unless I keep missing of course 😁

 
Perfectly true. That's all a shooter needs to know.

When I do a bit of lone sporting shooting , I am happy if the stand says A in coming, B left crosser etc. I just wait for the birds gun down ,then shoot. Much more enjoyable. If I hit the pair I move on cant see the enjoyment of repeating an identical shot time and again. Unless I keep missing of course 😁
+ 1 exactly!

 
All this has come as a shock to me. Are you actually telling me those non descript squiggles on the whiteboards, written it 2007 are meant to tell me where the clays are going to fly?!!!😂

I generally stand fairly square in the cage with a low mount for my first pair. My ears have become highly tuned at picking up the noise of a trap arm from any angle!

Certain grounds seem to attract groups of idiots. Usually 4/5 lads dressed like they're going clubbing, with one shotgun between them. I avoid them like the plague.

PM.

 
Back
Top