Trigger Happy S-R’S 81St Trapshoot Hits The Firing Line Next Week, Regardless Of The Weather
Shotguns, and possibly snow shovels, will be swinging next Sunday at gun clubs throughout the region.
For the 81st year, The Spokesman-Review’s Inland Northwest Trapshoot will bring out shooters of all abilities for an eight-week contest that blasts away regardless of weather conditions.
The event has been a winter tradition since 1916, lapsing only for three years during World War II.
In the beginning, shooters fired 25 shots at their home clubs and telegraphed the results to the newspaper.
This year, the results will be sent to the newspaper by mail, fax and e-mail. Other than that, little else has changed.
The shooting once again will continue at home clubs ranging from the sprawling grounds at the Spokane Gun Club, to the humble range at Rockford.
Trap ranges are still a social staple in the region’s smaller towns. The weekend volleys of shooting are familiar in Dusty, Wash.
Men, women, boys and girls show up at the ranges year-round. Cold weather, however, weeds out those with a casual interest.
In the history of The Spokesman-Review shoot, there’s never been a winter too bitter to silence the guns or the desire to see a shot string vaporize a clay target.
Veteran shooters like to recall the winter of 1968-69, when they had to shovel the lanes and shoot between six-foot high piles of snow.
Trapshooters from Coeur d’Alene reported to their stations that winter wearing snowshoes.
The shoot has three divisions, plus categories for women and youths. Indeed, clubs often give kids special privileges. For years, youths at Endicott (Wash.) Gun Club have been able to shoot their first round free.
The trapshoot brings together a variety of cultures.
Serious shooters might have signature clothing and exotic shotguns. At Malden-Pine City, Wash., one might see a few farmers shooting battered pump guns in the same coveralls they wore to grease the tractor.
Workers from various companies, such as Washington Water Power, often form teams and make arrangements to shoot at a club.
The best shooters in the region can drop a few targets from their score when the winter wind numbs their fingers and stings their eyes. But everybody must shoot the same day and under the same rules.
Participants record the first 25 shots they fire each Sunday.
No exceptions are allowed for a chilling gust of wind or frozen eyelids.
No sympathy for targets that are so cold, the pellets punch cleanly through the frozen clay without breaking the disk.
Each club sends in the top four scores of the day to compare with those shot at other clubs.
After eight Sundays, the individual and team champions earn pins, trophies and rights to brag that they took a shot at a winter sport, and won.