Trap shooting is one of our newer sports at Palestine High School. The team consists of five people from Palestine and two from different schools. The people from Palestine included are Kaden McCormack, Wade Bickers, Jake Christine, and Shawn Divine.

There are many safety rules in trap shooting, but these are just a few of them. You have to have the proper safety equipment to participate, or even watch the practices. You have to have safety glasses and ear muffs. They provide the ear muffs, but you have to get your own safety glasses.

Before they get ready to shoot, they always shoot a practice shot, this helps them know whether or not the need to adjust the machine throwing the discs. They can shoot one to two birds at a time depending on there preference. When they are getting ready to shoot the official will yell squad ready. Then they will fire the shot. The machine has two ways of shooting the “bird” off. Then they will either manually pull it or do it over the microphone.

They shoot twelve gauge shotguns at these discs, and the more you hit the better your points are for the team. Every discs is worth one point, and they shoot fifty altogether for the team. However many they shoot is how many points out of fifty they get. They usually stand on the sixteen yard line to shoot first, then they scoot farther back every time. The farthest you can shoot is 24 yards. The discs shoot at forty miles an hour, so it is definitely a talent to hit one of them, let alone all of them.

They come in teams of three to five. Three is okay, but they prefer five because it’s easier that way. They need more people to go out for trap shooting so they can have more than just one team, so if you’re interested go out for it now, while you have the chance.