With summer now in full swing, the Yorkton Wildlife Trap and Skeet Shooting club is inviting everyone with an interest in the sport to come down and check it out.
As Don Cannon, President of the Yorkton Wildlife Federation (which owns the Trap and Skeet club), indicates, the club's membership has been steadily growing over the past five years.?Still, they are open to new members all the time.
"We have a reasonably active club this year... for four or five years things have come back again quite a bit," Cannon indicates.
With facilities equip-ped to run four trap machines and a skeet set-up at once, the ability to try whatever area of interest is well within the club's capacity.
For those unfamiliar with the difference between skeet and trap shooting, Cannon offers this analogy.
"In trap (shooting), the birds are going away from you. In skeet, they'll cross and come at you and do all kinds of different things. Basically, if you want to compare to what bird shooting would be, skeet is basically every other bird but a pheasant."
With membership increasing all the time, Cannon says that they are still focused on keeping costs low.
"We try to keep our costs as low as possible. With shells it costs $10.50 a round. Without shells, if you have your own shells, the clays themselves run $4.00," Cannon details.
For clarifications sake, a round itself consists of 25 clay 'pigeons'.
As is with any unique sport or skill, there is a certain level of apprehension from newcomers who may not have the skill or equipment to start with.
Cannon addresses these fears, "We have shotguns that we supply, here on the club. We have... four people that are pretty good trainers. We can get somebody that really hasn't shot before and have them in a really short period of time hitting some targets."?
The club itself, located at the East side of York Lake Regional Park in the Yorkton Wildlife Clubhouse, hosts a variety of events throughout the year. Cannon says that they cater to 'drop-in' shooters as well as commercial shoots and banquet events.
Every Tuesday night from 5:00 p.m. until dusk, the 'club shoot' is held at the facility. This is the one that is open to the general public, at all times.
"Anybody can come and show up.?We're welcoming anybody," Cannon emphasizes. ?Bringing in new members and introducing them to the sport is well within the club's best interest, Cannon explains.
"We try to help everybody that wants to come out. (We) get them started, get them going and if they really like it they end up back here."
