Old Schoolers, Let's Hear the TRUTH About Reading Traps

I really enjoy reading/hearing about the glory days of trap and I think I have a fairly good sense of how things were, for a person who wasn't actually there. But the one subject I get vastly differing accounts of is the prevalence and importance of reading traps back before interrupters were added. I hope Brad Dysinger, Hap, Flyersarebest and some of the other old-schoolers with credibility will level with us now.

Case-In-Point: A few years back I was having a great talk with an amazing shooter in his 80s who I met down at the Sarasota Trap Club. I happened to mention this interview in which Britt Robinson claimed he didn't read traps:

http://www.itrapshooter.com/britt robinson interview itrapshooter.html

This old guy laughed loudly and said, "Let me tell you something you can take to the bank -- I shot against Orlich, Etchen, Snellenberger and everybody else good back when trap was in its heyday and, although nobody likes to admit it, EVERYBODY who made money back then absolutely WAS reading the traps and anyone who tells you otherwise is a damn liar." He also said, "That's why the Professional squads shot so fast and with such consistent rhythm -- hell, you could stand there and watch the pattern of angles go back and forth in the air as they smoked targets." Yet two other older, excellent shooter have told me this is pure myth.

So what's the real story?

-Gary

 

Gary,

If they couldn't read the trap they would never have needed the interrupter.

3 hole targets are not nearly as hard when you know where they were going.

 

OK, but let's be nice please. Not looking for a pissing contest, just some facts about how things really were.

-Gary

 

My Dad shot in the late 1960's and early 70's. He quit in the mid 70's. I got interested around 2000. He started shooting again with me at that point. He had a difficult time at first because he would get in the zone and forget that he was shooting with the interrupter. He would guess/read where he thought the target should be going as he had become accustomed 25 years earlier. It took him awhile to retrain his brain not to read the trap. Squad rhythm was a key to making it work back in the day according to him.
Doug Allison

 

I was a trap reader. I didn't so much read for straightaways I read for areas, that's saying I tried to keep the trap on the left side or the right side depending on what post I was on. I could get it right about 23 out of 25, sometimes better sometimes worse. My gun mount was what set up my timing. In fact Morris Stienbring and I made a video on the subject in the early 80's. Shoot Better Trap. When the 2 hole target came along I stopped reading as there was no need. Brad

 

Wow, isn't it great when people have the courage and character to just tell the truth?

THANKS BRAD!

-Gary

 

Brad, so what do you make of Britt's tale of five AA27 shooters who could get past 7 birds with the trap locked on straightaways?

-Gary

 

Gary, one year at the Ohio State shoot at Vandalia the EC was thinking about Trap Readers, Hiram Bradley was the best of the best so they came to him to see if delaying the ability of the trap to be sprung for 2 or 3 seconds would keep shooters from being able to do it, I think the year was 1979 or 80. Hiram had Tommy March, Ronnie Sizelove, himself and me shoot a trap that he had found that he said a blind man could read. All of us were trap readrs. Dave Bopp and the ATA President Dr. Dillon pulled the targets, the ATA brought a case of AA's and told us to shoot as many as we needed.

We shot a partial round, figured out the trap and then shot a full 25. That day on that trap field, even with a 3 to 7 second delay we shot all straightaways. I could have put the target through a basketball hoop if need be, the interrupter didn't work. As we walked off the trap Hiram asked David if he needed to see anymore they didn't and a hair brained idea was nixed. Brad

 

GREAT story!! Thanks again, Brad.

-Gary

 

Hey, check out this trap-reading article entitled "How To Win" I just found on page 8 in this 1969 Field & Stream magazine!...

https://books.google.com/books?id=ELrbPh2iGE8C&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=what year were interrupters added to traps&source=bl&ots=3H2weLM4n3&sig=0Ccl4A-gIWOs9z1At5o8Y5grUtU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Bo3iVPb0GYi9ggTi1oJ4&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=what year were interrupters added to traps&f=false

 

Thanks for the article GW22. I was a junior shooter during that time and I believe the article is 100% accurate. However it was written pre-interrupter and the part about that eliminating the problem really didn't come to pass. Reading simply went from 98%-100% to around 94% with interrupters. A top shooter who reads about 94% could very often pick up the other targets through superior ability but the 94 read targets sure helped. Some top readers did fade away, but not very many. One shooter I am positive never read a trap was Frank Little. I watched him shoot many times over a span of at least 27 years and he chased targets all over the place. Broke most all of them too.

 

Some shooters were very good at trap reading . Some were not nearly as good at it as they claimed to be and some shooters didn't try to read traps. Even after the interrupter came into being and now with the Pat traps some are very good at figuring out the area where the target will go. One of the hard parts of trap reading is having the ability to break the target if it fools you and go'es to where you figured would be the least likely area. From my experience it always seemed that thinking probably rather than absolutely where the target would go worked best. I never felt that I was very good at trap reading.

Before the Winchester 1524 electric trap the trap angles were changed by a ratchet and gear assembly and after seeing only a few targets some of the old timers could tell exactly where every target would go. I can't confirm this but I heard this story from some of the old time shooters when I first started shooting. Fact or fiction it was always a good story.

Dave Berlet

 

Once locked for the trap setter to place the bird on the arm, these guys were skinning the kids fingertips they called so quick! It took a real good fast setter for decent targets because if he began dropping them on, lots of broken birds would exit. Either that or the target would be placed too far up on the arm giving it less rpms and speed. Those so inclined could leave you watching several smoke balls hanging in the air at the same time on a windless day!

The average shooters attempting this failed at it miserably while attempting to mimic the best of the best!

TF1, I watched Frank Little in singles shoot-offs at Vandalia and noticed his various speeds to different angled targets also! He was a tad slower than most of the top shots were in the day but he certainly was deadly accurate though!

HAP

 

Gary, great article Thanks. Brad

 

TF1:

94% is a curiously specific number. Where does that come from?

So do you think today's Big Dogs are still reading the traps, despite interrupters? If so, do you believe it's really predictable enough to help them more than the distraction hurts them?

-Gary

 

The 94% is my guesstimate but I was referring to the western handsets with the interrupters installed as mentioned in the article. The number is also from some personal experience with the Rhodeside interrupters which we referred to as mechanical interrupters. I also know that some shooters are pretty good at zoning targets with Pat traps. I also had it demonstrated to me that at least the early Pats would stop and "park" themselves on a hard right if left alone for a few minutes. Not the best target, but if you know where it's going, still an advantage. BTW, I think many "Big Dogs" do at least try to put their targets in a certain area and I don't think the occasional error distracts them much. Their levels of ability, concentration and experience don't allow for many distractions.

 

The very best in those old days were great trap readers. Why not? It took me a few years to figure it out but when I did look out. When the interrupters were added I still could read most of 'em but those opposites were a challenge and I gave it up. When I say opposites I mean the interrupter kicked in at the wrong time and instead of a straightaway I got an angle.

Please don't tell me Little couldn't read targets as I watched him do a little muzzle shuffle when the same thing happened to him. Frank had such great gun control he simply took a split second longer and made the shot. I suppose that's why he encouraged everyone to hold high gun and look down with their eyes!

 

I didn't start out shooting trap,I started out setting in a hot trap house(1964-1967) loading the old winchester hand set traps and I can tell you right now that all the better shooters could read the machines.When a squad of the better shooters came to the line you could tell immediately.You had better have your birds ready and better get your hand out of the way as soon as the bird was on the plate! They shot so fast and in a rythm that would make a ball room dancer jealous.I remember haveing to flip a coin to see who was going to load or pull.It was a different time in thoes days and I care nothing about going back however;I will always cherish the memories.Just an old farts take on trap reading.

 

oleolliedawg, I shot with Frank a lot, he could read when he wanted to. Brad

 

What a wonderful thread.

I love hearing the stories from the “good old days.”

I am fortunate to hear about them down at my local club every week. All the old timers talk about Vandalia and other venues such as Missouri and Pennsylvania, and they do it with a kind of reverence. I can sit at a table for hours and listen to stories told by Norm Fitch, the only shooter who has shot at more Grands then Dave Berlet. The stories he tells about the shenanigans that took place are far and away the most fun. Most of the old guard were really a crazy bunch in their youth. I am sure that Brad and Dave can tell you some shooting stories that have nothing to do with actual shooting.

I am also fortunate to spend a couple of hours most weeks down at the club chewing the fat with Louie Morgan. Louie is hilarious. He doesn’t mean to be. It just comes out that way. The subject of comb posts came up one day when a guy mentioned he needed additional length posts to achieve the adjustment he needed on his comb to accommodate the higher rib he had installed on his gun. Louie told the guy he had a lot of “postesses” in his workshop and would bring him a couple. The whole table roared. It was just another great word in the Louie vocabulary. He has hundreds of them. We just call it Louie speak. And his stories are great. Louie can’t remember where he left his car keys, but he can remember every shoot and every target that he dusted.

Soon, the stories will be gone. No one is getting any younger. And in the years to come, the young shooters of today will be telling tales about what happened when they were shooting.

I doubt they will be very good.

 

Bombay I've told a lot of shooters that over a long period of time I don't think that there is anywhere that I've had more fun than I had in the BEER STAND at Vandalia during the Ohio State Shoot and during the Grand. I have always thought that there should have been a monument erected where the beer stand was located that said something to the effect of that "if you didn't here it here it wasn't worth hearing".

Dave Berlet

 

This is exactly the reason we need to return to the 44 degree angles and 50-52 yard distance, to make the targets more of a challenge. The top dogs wanted a more challenging target, one that could not be read.

Gary Bryant Dr.longshot

 

Actually the top dogs were the best trap readers. LOL

 

I guess it was alright to fleece the sheep who couldn't read a trap BUT the supposed soft angles and slow targets should be illegal it ruined the game. Who but a fool would play options against the trap readers and you ask where did the money go, what difference what hole they were in. Bitch about current targets but be proud you could read a trap making the targets really easy. Does Hypocrite ring a bell.

Lefty

 

Come on, I thought we were going to keep this thread nice.

-Gary

 

I shot with the same 4 guys on my squad for a few years. Until for one reason or another we all had things in our lives that stopped us from doing so.

Some pullers didn't want to pull for us because we were so quick. Drop a shell on the ground, don't even think about picking it up. Get it on the change. Have those two extras in your vest in case it was the last station. Broken target? Ask to see one and get back on the train.

On a nice warm summer day with no wind we would have 5 puffs of smoke hanging in the air at the same time. I solid ball on the last shot and the first starting to fade away. Load, call, shoot, reload,close the gun and real quick it was your turn. I couldn't read every target but I was pretty good at knowing which "slice of the pie" it was going to be in.

Ask yourselves this. Would you break more targets if you just knew which HALF of the field the target was going to be in?

Find some old stories about the REAL old timers tapping the side of their stocks to keep time. Things get out of sequence? Call a slow or fast pull and start over. Now, I'm not quite THAT old but it seems readers have been around since the invention of the "modern" machines.

As far as guys like Dysinger being able to read a trap? More power to em. They all put in the time and money. I just never had enough of either to learn to read the angles. All I wanted to know was which half of the field to watch.

The funny thing was when you misread one and had to make a PANIC move to the target. That one always got a few laughs when we were changing traps.

"Nice recovery dumbazz ", was the usual response from one of my squad mates.

Flyersarebest, But I'm Still A Trap Shooter.

 

Hey, if I wanted to spend the time and money they did to learn to read the trap as good as they did I would have.

It was a 3 hole target going to the 50 yard stake. They weren't EASY!!!!

Sounds like one of the "everybody should be a winner" crowd to me.

"Hey, you trap readers aren't allowed to shoot anymore. It's not fair to the rest of us. Just because you can use your brains and we can't you have to quit."

DUH!!!

Flyersarebest