Shooting sports

08/08/2005 -- “Girls make the best shots….” at least that’s what I like to start off with when I’m dealing with a mixed group of boys and girls. It usually sets the girls who haven’t shot before at ease and at the same time challenges the boys to shoot as good as they can.

My last young naturalist group was a shooting session. We started off with simple marksman ship training. Proper sight picture, proper shooting position, trigger control, the basic building blocks that get the rounds on target.

One group has three boys and three girls. The girls did the best in on average with the paper punching proving my opening statement correct. If you get right to the heart of the reasons, typically the girls don’t have a flinching problem.

After that, we found fun ways to shoot and at the same time challenge the shooters.

The first activity we did was a swinging target setup. Six targets, three to each side. Two shooters square off side by side and try to shoot their three targets before the other shooter.

It was pretty exciting for the kids and the pressure definitely reared its head as one or two of the targets would be hit. We did have a couple times where one shooter that was 2 targets behind came back for the win.

The next thing we tried was a trick shooting idea. Shooting a match to get it to light. You have to hit the very top of an wooden match, but it you do it right, it will pop into flame. We had just one girl in numerous attempts get her match lit. Its serious shooting when you can do that.