Nothing but Dust

Q: What is one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S., outranking snow skiing, mountain biking, tennis, softball and many other popular  outdoor recreational activities?
A: Target Shooting.
Q: What sport has been an Olympic event since 1900 but rarely gets media coverage in the United States?
A: Target shooting.

It surprises many people to find out that target shooting is one of the most popular and fastest growing sports in America today. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, shooting sports are on par with golf in participation and equipment expenditures, and they easily outrank almost every other form of outdoor recreation. There are approximately 7.5 million skiers in the U.S., while there are over 13 million Americans who participate in shooting sports, including pistol, rifle and handgun target shooting, cowboy action shooting and the three very popular shotgun disciplines of trap, skeet and sporting clays.

Another surprise to many is the number of women who are discovering the thrill of target shooting, making up the fastest growing segment of target shooters in America. Since 1988, participation by women has grown by more than 80 percent as women discover that shooting sports offer a level playing field for women, where eye-hand coordination and quick reflexes are more important to success than physical strength.

The shotgun sports of trap, skeet and sporting clays boast approximately nine million participants with many new shooters joining the ranks each year. It’s not hard to see why. There is something addicting about pointing a shotgun at an orange clay target as it sails into the sky, pulling the trigger at exactly the right moment and then watching the target burst into a puff of smoke—or as veteran trap shooters like to say, “nothing but dust!” New shooters are usually hooked as soon as they break their first target.

Many newcomers are introduced to the sport of trap shooting each year at our local Heber Valley Gun Club. Just 15 miles south of Park City, tucked into the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains and overlooking picturesque Heber Valley, the club regularly offers free to low-cost introductory shotgun clinics. The small, non-profit, all-volunteer group that manages and operates the facility also hosts two Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) events each year, along with summer and winter leagues, and many other one- and two-day shooting competitions designed for different levels of shooters, including beginning, women and youth categories.

Many people are pleasantly surprised by the family-friendly environment they experience at the Heber Valley Gun Club. Although the club has been hosting ATA events since its inception, in years past, the club was primarily a place where men would go to unwind, socialize and shoot the breeze—along with a few targets. Today, with the influx of so many new shooters, the environment and the offerings of the club have changed dramatically. Nowadays, you are likely to see nearly as many women and youngsters as you do men at shooting events.

The rustic two-story clubhouse, built and paid for entirely by volunteer members who founded the club in the mid-1970s, features a snack bar, a large dining room area, restrooms, propane heat and a wood-burning stove. There’s also a “kiddie-corner” with a television, videos, art supplies and games for the kids who are too little to shoot. Situated on land owned by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the club also maintains a public pistol and rifle range. The local group of cowboy action shooters, the ‘Big Hollow Bandits,’ meets at the range the first Saturday of each month for some rootin’ tootin’, old-fashioned fun with their period rifles, shotguns and pistols, replete with colorful cowboy names and costumes.

Another new offering at the club is sporting clays, the most popular and fastest growing of all the shooting sports. Like golf, sporting clays involves walking a course and shooting at a variety of different pairs of target presentations that mimic real bird hunting situations in the field.

Shooters may enjoy the sporting clays course at the Heber Valley Gun Club the last weekend of each month from May through September.

As shooting sports continue to grow in popularity and acceptance, the Heber Valley Gun Club continues to welcome many more new shooters to the ranks.

For more information, call the Heber Valley Gun Club at 801.377.3350.

Wendy Mair is a volunteer event coordinator for the Heber Valley Gun Club and the NRA ‘Women on Target’ Program. She also serves on the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources ‘Becoming an Outdoors Woman’ steering committee. Wendy is a certified shotgun instructor, an avid bow hunter and a pretty decent trap shooter. Her articles about the shooting sports, hunting and other outdoor recreational activities have appeared in several regional and national outdoor publications.