October 19, 1999 — Earle Darby speaks loudly, very loudly.
Perhaps this is because he often talks to people with plugs in their ears. But whether those plugs are meant to deaden the sound of shotgun fire or that of Darby’s booming voice, I am not sure.
Regardless, I had no problem hearing the 67-year-old Gainesville man as he described what he believes to be the four benefits of skeet shooting.
You don’t need a license.
You can do it year round.
You can shoot as many clay targets as you like.
“And maybe the best part of all,” continued Darby, “when you go home at night, you don’t have to clean them.”
Additionally, I added, there isn’t a People for the Ethical Treatment of Clay Targets — not yet, at least.
It seems everyone has to have a cause these days.
Darby’s cause is promoting the sport of skeet shooting in Georgia. For his tireless efforts in that regard he was inducted into the Georgia Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame last year.
Gainesville’s Cherokee Gun Club, of which Darby is a member and former president, has even named an annual shooting competition after him. The sixth Earle Darby Skeet Shoot was held at the club earlier this year.
“I’m just honored that they named the shoot after me while I was still alive,” chuckled Darby, who was also a skeet official at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Darby retired from the U.S. Forest Service in 1988 and spends much of his free time practicing the sport he was introduced to as a 13-year-old in Florence, Alabama. He shoots at Cherokee as many as four times a week.
The rest of the time, Darby tries to get others — like me — hooked on skeet. Another one of his pupils is his grandson, who will be 13 in February.
“I had to wait for a good long while for him to get big enough to where he can physically handle a gun,” said Darby. “I’ve been really impatient about getting him started. But I think, based on what he’s shown me so far, he’s going to be a good one.”
Based on my performance last week, I doubt Darby would say the same about me.
A member of the clay target games family along with trap shooting and sporting clays, skeet was developed in 1920 by a private group of hunters in Massachusetts wanting practice for bird season. In 1926, the until-then-nameless sport was introduced to the public and was dubbed “skeet,” an old Scandinavian word for “shoot.”
I tell you all of this because it is somewhat interesting … and to delay the revealing of the fact that I missed 21 of the 25 targets I was to shoot at during my lesson. I say the “targets I was to shoot at” because during the occasions when there were two targets in the air at once, I often managed to get only one shot off in time.
Those little orange discs move, baby.
The shooting area in skeet is a semicircle with a radius of exactly 21 yards around a center stake. Two houses, a high house and a low house, are at either end of the semicircle. From the houses, the clay targets are released, passing over the center stake at a height of approximately 15 feet.
There are eight shooting stations, seven of which are spread out around the semicircle. The eighth is at the center stake.
In competition, participants shoot at 400 targets, 100 each with 12-, 20-, and 28-gauge, and .410-bore shotguns.
It’s probably a good thing we kept my lesson to 25 targets instead of 400. I did the math. Twenty-one missed targets is a lot easier to swallow than 336.
After Darby went through the basics — the positioning of the feet, the gun, the eyes — he released a target, or “bird,” to show me the speed at which they move.
“Whoa,” I gasped as the orange dot flew out of sight. “That’s fast.”
“You’ve got to be coiled like a snake,” said Darby, who later hit 24-of-25 targets during his go round. “You’ve got to be ready to strike instantly when that bird comes out.”
I donned my protective glasses and ear plugs. Then I yelled “Pull!” for the first time.
The bird flew out of the high house. I jerked my gun trying to follow the target’s course and squeezed off an errant shot. Same thing on bird two out of the low house. Targets three and four, known as doubles, were released simultaneously. My lone shot missed them both.
Still at shooting position No. 1, I awaited my mulligan (you’re allowed one for every 25 shots). I took a deep breath and tried to remember everything Darby had taught me.
Keep your head on the gun. Open your eyes big. Follow the target smoothly. Lead the bird with your shot.
“Pull!” I yelled. Then I pulled the trigger.
The clay target shattered, and fell in tiny pieces to the ground.
“See? Miracles never cease!” cried Darby.
Well, sometimes they do. I hit just three of the next 20 birds.
But four times I got to see that little orange disc stopped in mid flight.
And it’s a beautiful thing.