In this episode of NDO Podcast we’re onsite at the North Dakota Clay Target League State Tournament visiting with Brain Schaffer, department hunter education coordinator and league coach, and Adam Dunlop, coach, volunteer and parent, about the impact shooting sports has on kids, families and communities.
Cayla: Welcome to episode 101 of the NDO podcast. The wind whipped up just in time for that. We are if you can't tell, we are on site at Capital City Sporting Clays in Bismarck. For the USA Clay target league state tournament happening here this weekend and then some of it in Horace next weekend. So you can hear even a couple kids practicing there in the background. And so yeah, we're going to talk about youth shooting sports, this tournament. The impact it's had on kids, their families, communities. And to do that, we have well, obviously our co-host Casey, but we've got Brian Schaffer with us, the department hunter education coordinator, but also a pretty active volunteer, parent, coach, all those things.
Brian: Yeah. Thanks for having me on this week. Yeah, help out with I have a kid that shoots and run the hunter ed program so there's some correlation here between youth shooting sports and hunter ed program and recruiting new hunters so great to be on.
Cayla: And then we've also got Adam Dunlop coach, parent, volunteer, ex- US Fish and wildlife Service, North Dakota Game and Fish nesting technician or what was the.
Adam: Yeah, something like that. I have had 2 or 3 careers ago, spent some time working with the good folks at the Game and Fish Department and some biological research projects. So that's cool.
Cayla: Nice.
Casey: So did you, so did you do that? Did you like do that to get your master’s or just a summer job or what was it?
Adam: Yeah, it was the seasonal position grind that I'm sure you guys are familiar with as you tried to get into your, the roles that you're in today. So I worked on that for, for a bit, but yeah, so I've been helping out with the MRCTL. So that's Missouri River Clay Target League here that's been formed in Bismarck for, I think it's a decade now or it'll be a decade this year. So I've had a, a host of children that you know, came up and went through the program and you know, like a lot of activities, parents get involved in what their kids are involved in. And I wouldn't have predicted that it would kind of grow into what it's done today and kind of like the demand on my time and the amount of time that I've been spending out here, but I enjoy it. You know, like a lot of people here, pretty much everybody that's probably listening to your podcast and enjoy the outdoors. And it's just a natural segue into shooting and shooting sports and getting better at doing what you love to do.
Casey: Yeah. Well, and you can't, it's going to be a little breezy today, but the weather's going to be perfect so.
Adam: Yeah.
Casey: Give them a little bit of pigeon play out there with the breeze to make it interesting.
Adam: But yeah, just listening to your entry music get to hear the wind in the background and it's like just so indicative of North Dakota.
Cayla: Yeah.
Adam: Shooting sports and all sports in general. You just.
Casey: Gotta.
Adam: Deal with it.
Casey: Keeps the mosquitoes down. I’ll take the breeze over the mosquitoes.
Cayla: You talked about how you've been involved for almost a decade. Can you speak to at all, like how any of the growth or how it's changed since when you first got involved?
Adam: Yeah. So I, I had a daughter who was really into, into archery and we were really active in the, 4H shooting sports. And we traveled a lot in the wintertime and did a lot of shoots there. And she was in junior high or middle school, I guess at the time and interested in trying something new. And so, the MRCTL had just been formed the fall before and had gone through one season. And so, we got involved. There was, you know, there's, I don't know, the exact numbers, just call it like 30 or 40 kids in, in the first year. And that was strictly a trap event. So shot at, not at this club up at the other club off of 83. Okay. And you know, after one season that really blew up to like where we had 200 kids in, in the program. And so, the MRCTL is kind of interesting or unique that it's all of the Bismarck and Mandan schools. And we kind of came together to form this group that collaborates and puts it together. So while you know, I'm a coach for Century because that's where my kids have gone to school through the Horizon-Century program helping the Legacy kids and the Mandan kids and the St. Mary's kids. And every school program in Bismarck here has parents and volunteers, and we all kind of collaborate and work together to give the kids the best experiences we can. And, you know, this is a really intensive volunteer needed sport. Everything from like the basic setup and coaching to organizing the shoot times to you know, loading the machines and giving instruction, keeping everybody safe. Obviously is a top priority. So we've got you know, call it for every three kids that are shooting, you probably have one volunteer in some capacity or another. And right up and down the line, it takes a lot of resources to do that. So anyway that's kind of the background on MRCTL. And like I said, we've grown to now where we have to actually limit to 240 shooters in the Bismarck, Mandan area just because of the, the size of the clubs that we have. And so it's great to have that much appetite.
Casey: So how do you pick and choose? Do you have shoot-offs to see who gets in or not? Or what do you do?
Adam: Usually, we've been coming in right at that number. So folks aren't being left out at this point. But we do give preference to the kids that have done it before and make sure they get the first opportunity to sign up.
Casey: Yeah, it's we started one up in Turtle Lake and it's, it blew up to the point where it's like, how do you find enough people in the small town to help out? Yeah, but they've been, they've been doing pretty good. So.
Cayla: How does that work with, or Brian, we talked about this a little bit the other day, but like, is it involved with the actual individual schools or like how what has been the, the sell to schools to sanction or be associated with this?
Brian: Adam might be able to speak to this a little bit more. It's, I don't think they're sanctioned as like a varsity sport, but it's a, is it a club sport?
Adam: So it depends actually on the school. There are some within MRCTL that are and some that are not. But I think, you know, you get out to Turtle Lake. I don't know if they're sanctioned or not, but some of the programs definitely are. And then some of them, to your point, are more of kind of a club or an association. But.
Casey: So yeah, in Turtle Lake, it's kind of a, a mix almost. It's, it's the, the school says, yes, you can use our logo or our, you know, we're our co-op up there, Central McLean Cougars. So the co-op said, yes, you can use the logo and be Central McLean Cougars, but the school's not going to put any dollars or, or buses towards it. But they also allow the kids to letter in it. And so yeah, it's kind of a mixed bag with that, with that one for Turtle Lake.
Adam: But yeah, I think there's a, there's a variety of systems and programs and how much the school is engaged or not, you know, all of us coaches and the head coaches for each group are obviously all volunteers within MRCTL. So it's it, it, it's, you know, again, back to it requires a lot of volunteers and a lot of time. And I think a lot of parents just want to be engaged and, you know, are passionate about shooting sports and getting their kids engaged in the outdoors.
Casey: Yeah. And it's kind of weird too. I think there's a lot of opportunities for like help with funding and things, you know, either through our department at Game of Fish or, you know what, whatever that the schools haven't had to get as involved, you know, maybe as like their other sports. And so it's been an opportunity for them to kind of just see how it goes.
Brian: And yeah, absolutely. Especially in some of our smaller communities, I talk to because a lot of times in some of the smaller communities around the state, you know, the head coach of the trap team is also the individual who teaches hunter ed in that community. So we see a lot of overlap there. And just talking to them throughout the year. Yeah, communities really rally around these programs, getting kids involved in shooting sports and you find the right business who's a passionate outdoorsman or woman, it's a, it's a something people like to give back to. So I would say a lot of these, these teams have a lot of financial support in their own communities.
Cayla: And Brian, you've seen just like some of these communities, like some of these kids didn't really have anywhere to shoot or the local trap range was kind of on the downhill. And this is really kind of like re-engaged or I guess like reinvigorated those places and the need for it too like, we see requests for range grants and expansions because of the, the growth in the sport.
Brian: Yeah, absolutely. I worked with in some shooting sports stuff down in Kansas when I lived down there. And the Clay target League was just taking off in western Kansas, saw a huge growth. A lot of those clubs that had just a couple members left and then the youth got involved with the clay target league and, and now they're looking to expand. And when I moved back to North Dakota about a decade ago same thing is starting to happen in some of these again, hunter ed instructors are also local members of the trap club, and they're reporting the same things where the club was struggling to make do. And all of a sudden now they have 50 kids shooting out there. And then all summer long, those kids and their families are coming out. So it's been a really great thing for shooting sports, not only here in North Dakota, but across the country.
Casey: Yeah, yeah. It's also given some of those clubs that were kind of petering out like it's reinvigorated those members too.
Brian: Absolutely.
Casey: Like it's gotten them back involved and back, you know, working with the clubs. So yeah.
Adam: Yeah, definitely. The I think there's statistics out there, the fastest growing sport in the US over the, you know, past decade or so. And you look at the size of the state tournaments. So this state trap shoot that's been going on in Horace here in North Dakota for years, you know, they keep having to add days to that event to get all the shooters accommodated. And then there's opportunities to go shoot at a national event afterwards too. And, you know, you keep seeing the number of student shooters that want to go to those things increase year over year over year. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say it's also the safest sport. We've never had an accident or an incident, or an injury associated with any of the shooting sports. I think the closest near miss I've had was a bee on the course.
Casey: Yeah. No concussion, no sprained ankles, no blown out knees.
Adam: Nope none of that.
Brian: And it's a sport that you can do the rest of your life. Right. I mean, it's not something that you hang up your cleats the last time when you're 18 and never do it again. It's something you can do the rest of your life. And that's what I think a lot of the appeal is for, for these parents and, and shooters too, that it's something I can do the rest of my life and be engaged in my community. And it's just a really good thing for, for kids and parents and communities.
Adam: Yeah, yeah.
Casey: You mentioned something about the safety of it, Adam. And it's like when you go to the tournament with archery stuff, I mean. And you go to one of these shoots, it's almost like some parents can't believe the discipline that the kids have going through it. You know, it's like, if you want, if you want to help, you know, with your kids and discipline, get them into something like this, like it's so structured and so, you know that they just go right through.
Adam: Yeah, yeah, I, I think it, it's you know, like anything, if you're disciplined and orientated and this is expectation and any deviation from that expectation is immediately curtailed. You don't get on that slippery, slippery slope to ever, you know, even position anything towards a, towards an injury. And, you know, that's something I just don't think that we can talk about enough as you talk to, you know, again, back to the discussion about schools and schools supporting this, I think there's a natural kind of apprehension to people that don't understand the sport, don't understand the safety rigors that do we want X high school associated with something that they might not fully understand or might think is more dangerous than it actually is. And so that's kind of why I keep coming back to those statistics.
Casey: Yeah.
Brian: Then the next thing that does too is, and I'm sure you've seen it with your kids, I've seen it with my kids. You know, you take a kid through hunter education in January or February, then they go out in the field in October to hunt. Like there's a there's been a long time there, but you have a kid who comes out and shoots once a week or, you know, all spring season, just one year of shooting in a clay target league. The confidence, the safety, the ability is drastically different. You know, that old rule of doing something 10,000 times. And as our state becomes more and more urban, you know, less and less people living out in the country, there's less and less of handling guns. And, you know, when I was a kid, I carried my BB gun everywhere with me from the time I was probably too young.
Casey: Took it to show and tell probably.
Brian: And you know, this is I've seen it with my own kid. Just the ability, his ability in the field. Drastically increased. Which to the point where I have to like be on my toes a little bit more or he's gonna out shoot me.
Casey: Yeah.
Brian: And that's something a few years ago, he just didn't have that confidence in the field and, and the confidence in handling a gun safely. And as we have more and more people living in town, larger towns where kids aren't getting that exposure. This is a direct translation to being safe in the field as well.
Casey: Yeah. And, and when they really like to do something, they, they pay attention to the rules. You know.
Cayla: I'd imagine too, it's just like that set expectation when you have the older kids that are probably just as much like, I don't know. Yeah, nobody's messing around. Or like you said, it gets curtailed pretty quickly.
Adam: That's a good point. There is definitely a mentoring kind of process out here. We've got, you know, you can start shooting in the sixth grade and, and you go all the way through seniors in high school. So you've got a diverse range of ages out here. And it's natural for the younger shooters to watch what the more experienced older shooters are doing and pick up their habits. You know, the good habits that they're illustrating and that's been really useful.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: I could be wrong, but compared to like basketball, is there like a big advantage for someone from like a Bis-Man compared to like Turtle Lake? It feels like unless, I don't know, maybe in different events, but like, otherwise it's just like, trap is trap.
Brian: You, you can have a sixth grader that outshoots a 12th grader.
Cayla: Yeah.
Brian: That's the nice thing about it. It's, you know, anybody can do it. Any body size, athletic ability. That's one nice thing about the shooting sports. If you're willing to work hard at something and listen and be coachable, you can, you can get better. There's no doubt about it. So I know it's not like class B basketball class A basketball competition, but
Casey: Yeah.
Brian: You might have more resources if you live in a bigger town to a, a different type of club than, you know, just shooting trap. But yeah, I think sometimes some of those kids who come from smaller towns might even have an advantage because they do get to hunt and shoot a little more often to start off early.
Adam: Yeah, it's exciting to see what's going to happen here this weekend, right? So it's the first time that we're bringing all the kids together from all the classes together in a sporting clay shoot today, tomorrow and skeet shoot and Sunday in the five stand. So it's really a unique opportunity for these kids to come head-to-head from all different sizes of schools, all different backgrounds, and shoot the exact same course on the exact same day. I think it's just, it's going to be a lot of fun to let these kids go out and show how much they've learned and how good they really are over the next few days.
Cayla: Cause previously, were all of those events just at your own club or just the sporting clays was?
Adam: So the Sporting Clays event historically has been shot at your individual club. So if you're in Williston, you shot at your club, if you're in Bismarck, you shot at your club, etc. and then, you know, compared the scores. So, you know, theoretically there could be some differences on the course and the weather conditions, etc. so that the real equalizer will be seen today. And this is really going to be exciting because nobody has ever shot this course before, so it's completely redesigned. Today, the team has been working late last night, all this morning here running around reorientating the birds. So we're going to have 100 birds that nobody's ever seen before. Bismarck to wherever you're coming from to, to shoot on today. So it's going to be really exciting. The five stand and skeet events we have shot in Horace. Previously, but it's kind of been a mix and match hodgepodge of different days, different schools. So, you know, in some of these events, weather can be an equalizer. You know, if you're in the pouring rain or a 40-mile-an-hour wind versus the previous day, that was maybe a little bit more pristine. So, so again, we're working really hard to kind of make it as close to the same conditions as possible. And everybody gets the same targets at the same fields. So it's, yeah, it's going to be really exciting. And we'll really get to, to see who has their best day on, on the right day.
Brian: Absolutely.
Cayla: Can somebody, whoever just back up and explain the differences between trap, skeet, five stand and sporting clays for the listeners? Yeah.
Casey: Go ahead Adam, you can do it.
Adam: Yeah. So I, I, you know, trap is I call it kind of the, the introduction to this and it's the largest by participation of the shooting sports. And so essentially, you've got five stations where you shoot five birds at each station from a house going out in front of you. One bird comes out at a time. So one shell in your gun and there's five shooters, one on each post at a time, and then you'll just rotate through the post. So a perfect score in trap would be 25 birds consecutively. And so, we see that you know, again, there's a, it seems like trap clubs are more prevalent. There's a lot more trap setups, there's less to manage. And, you know, every bird comes out at 41 miles an hour and they're set height. So it's pretty well understood like what you're going to get right when you call pull.
Casey: Yeah. And trap was had a long, like a long history in that in trap of national shoots and like a pretty big, you know, especially over, especially in the 80s, I remember it was really big. But then the five standard and skeet has come on afterwards.
Adam: Yeah. You know, so I'd say skeet was coming along with, with trap just a little bit more. And my personal opinion, I'm a skeet coach and skeet shooter. So I, I think it's the, the, the best training tool for every shot you'd ever see in, in a field. So on the skeet field, there's eight stations. And picture, if you could picture like half a clock and at the 12:00 and 6:00 position, there's one high house at 12:00 and a low house at the 6:00. That means one target thrower that's ten feet in the air and one target thrower that's about 3.5ft in the air. And so, you start out station one, which is right at the 12:00 position, and you would throw a high house and then a low house and then a true pair. And so, for the trap shooters, when we first started shooting skeet at state and there's kids walking down like what they get more than one bird more one word at a time. It was like they hadn't been exposed to it. So I think there's you know, maybe I don't want to say more advanced, but people have been more comfortable with their gun. And, and, and so on and so forth were really excited about that. So then you kind of rotate through seven more stations, which would take you to the 6:00 position, shooting a high, high house bird, low house bird, sometimes a true pair on that condition. And then there's one last station in the middle where you're going to shoot a high house and low house before it passes the center point of the line. So when you kind of map that out, it's basically every degree of a bird that you could see in the field. You know, so I think it really kind of separates you know, I'm really good at a shot that's straight away from me or I'm really good at a shot that's just a crosser. You're going to see them all in that. And so, if you do the math there, you get to 24 birds. So your 25th bird in that application is you call it a mulligan, your first bird that you missed, you get to reshoot. And so that counts as your 25th bird. If you don't miss then you shoot the final bird, which is a low house two times to get to 25 targets. So, so that's a different they're like games, but different card games.
Cayla: Yeah, yeah.
Casey: Yeah right.
Adam: And then the, the five stand is, is as described like five cages lined up you know, in a horizontal line. And then you'll have sometimes it's eighths. It could be more targets. And those targets are not defined exactly what they need to be. So the person setting up the course or the gun club that owns the course sets and determines what those targets are. But again, it's 25 birds. Typically, in the high school league, we shoot a single bird and then a report pair at each of those five stations to get to 25. And you can include everything from rabbits bouncing along the ground to birds that are coming in way over your head to crossers and any, any mixture in between to the extent that the club has throwers and capacity and imagination to, to, to put it together. So.
Cayla: And Mark's evil.
Casey: Yeah. The rabbit one is always the one that gets me. I do pretty good on all the other ones but the dang rabbit.
Adam: Yeah. And then finally sporting clays is similar to similar to five stand, but you're traveling around a course. So today the kids, typically, of course, would be 50 birds at five at ten stations. Today, there's going to be a few more stations to get to a hundred birds. Out there. And, and again I think about sporting clays, like golf with a shotgun. We drive around the course and we shoot at multiple different stations and you never know what you're, I mean, you know what you're going to get when you get there, but it can be different at every club.
Casey: It's kind of like the golf with the little exploding ball.
Brian: Yeah.
Casey: You get the bang.
Cayla: Well, it feels like trap is like the driving range. And then yeah, sporting clays is like the course.
Adam: That's a great analogy I'm gonna use that.
Casey: I was going to say do all you guys golf because I don't.
Cayla: No, definitely not.
Brian: Absolutely not.
Adam: That's why I'm shooting. I'm so bad at golf.
Casey: None of us golf but we're throwing out golf lingo.
Cayla: Dang. I had a question. Oh, does anyone like, do you think any kids don't have sporting clays? But they're just they shoot trap or skeet and then just are like, yeah, I'll sign up for sporting clays. I mean, some of it has to be applicable.
Adam: Yeah, I think what I this is my personal observation is I've seen is kids will start out shooting trap middle school, and they'll get proficient with their firearm and then sometimes they'll gravitate to, hey, I really like shooting. I really like the sport. I want to do more. And then they'll start picking up a five-stand skeet to sporting clays and add it in. And then we've got some, call them, Ironman athletes that are shooting all four events, which gets to be a lot on a single day to process. But yeah, these kids are, some of them are really into it and really good, really talented.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: I guess you guys have all had kids go through it, but and you touched on a little, but any other just like, yeah, good stories on what it does for these kids.
Adam: Yes. So one, maybe that relates back to the notion of these gun clubs and growing. So when my oldest daughter, Hallie, wanted to get into shooting sports and we tried it and she picked up, she was really good trap shooter back in the day. And I went on to shoot some stuff in college. But anyway, we got into the sport and started traveling around and to me, it was a selfish motivation with like at the time, two daughters in like the middle school range that they like to come out and hunt with me. And I thought, how do we get you more success? How do we get you more proficient? How do we get you safer and more comfortable with firearms? And so you know, it was a good building mechanism for when fall came around. We got to go dove hunting or duck hunting that they had that comfort. They knew they could do the shot. They'd seen it. And I was comfortable with them having a gun in the field. And you know, just handling it like, like we said earlier, handling the gun was really important. So fast forward about 3 or 4 years later and now I've got two daughters in the shooting program and this time, they're junior or senior in high school and I'm like, hey, it's duck opener tomorrow. I got this great spot lined up. Let's get ready to go out there. And they're like, dad, why would I get up at 3:00 in the morning and go sit in a stinky marsh with your stinky dog? When we could go out to the club and shoot 100 birds. So be careful what you ask for.
Casey: So did your did your daughter get a scholarship to shoot in college? Because I've heard of some kids that are starting to get that now too.
Adam: Yeah. That's becoming more and more prevalent. This was 4 or 5 years ago, and she just, she shot for the Clay Dusters up here. So they were just kind of building out that program real time when we're building the MRCTL up. So it was fun.
Casey: Yeah. Cool.
Cayla: I feel like we would be remiss not to mention, too, that all this ammo goes to Pittman-Robertson dollars and then comes right back to us. Right. Yeah.
Casey: Well, and that's interesting too. So those Pittman and Robinson is the sales tax essentially on guns and ammunition and hunting equipment. But there's, there's a certain portion of that that goes to these types of things.
Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was amended in the was it the 80s maybe?
Casey: Yeah.
Brian: Added in handguns and handgun ammunition to that. And, and but still the driving force, I would say, and you can correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong here, Casey, but I think the largest contributor to Pittman Pittman-Robertson dollars is recreational target shooters by far. And I see that. And I mentioned that in hunter classes or I put that in our presentations. And if you think about it, you know, if you're a deer hunter, how many rounds you put through your deer rifle, if you get a deer tag.
Casey: Yeah.
Brian: Maybe a box if you're proficient.
Cayla: If you're not proficient, you mean if you're not proficient
Casey: As long as the scope's on, I don't need to shoot many more.
Brian: But Adam mentioned you know, some of these youngsters are shooting trap, skeet, five standard and sporting clays. That's 300 rounds a weekend. I know you come out and shoot around a skeet that's 50 rounds, 60 rounds pretty easily. And so there is a lot of money being generated by recreational target shooters. So that's absolutely a, a very important part to, to put habitat and critters back on the landscape too.
Cayla: Any examples of like kind of watching like families get back into it or I don't know, even just with the.
Brian: Absolutely. So yeah, it's the other benefit of this that, you know, it's kind of an afterthought a lot of times. But, you know, I mentioned earlier about more and more people living in bigger towns. And, and I always talk about if I wasn't as avid of an angler or avid as a hunter, it'd be really easy for me to just not go fishing this weekend up to Audubon or not go grouse hunting. And what one of the side benefits of this is kids getting, you know, involved in this. A lot of times it reactivates mom and dad and they get involved in the shooting sports and then, you know, they're doing something together, which is definitely makes something easier to do on the weekends, especially when you live in town. If the whole family jumps in the vehicle and goes out dove hunting or duck hunting. I would definitely say we don't have numbers on it, but it's definitely a reactivation tool for, for families to get back out and, and do things. And, and it goes back to the safety and the discipline, those youngsters, that confidence that they have and the confidence their parents have in getting them out there hunting. Or it's easier for me to invite one of my kids buddies to go hunting with us if I know he shoots out here. Because that discipline with the firearm. So it just makes things a little bit easier to get back out in the field, especially living in town. And so, there's absolutely benefits to, to all of it for families to get back involved in hunting and shooting sports in general.
Adam: Yeah. And as Brian said earlier, the opportunity for different ages, different sizes, different shapes, there's no differentiation. This isn't basketball. Yeah, anybody can do it. And it is a lifelong sport. And as I get longer and longer in the tooth and look at the life choices that you've made, it's kind of, you know, I wish that I would have had an opportunity like this growing up. You know, I've been become proficient much younger at shooting and still arguably not very proficient on the right day. But, but yeah, I do think yeah, it has brought my family together in terms of it's an activity that we, we go and we participate in together. And it's even with the kids gone away, moved on, have their career off in college, they come home. Hey, what do you want to do? Well, let's run out to the club and shoot around, do something together that we can all participate in equally. So it's been it's been fun. And I think, you know, with the shooting sports program in maybe a little bit unique to MRCTL with all the schools being together, you're getting exposed to, you know, a maybe a friend circle or a group outside of what you get exposed to in your, your normal school life. And, and I've seen some of those relationships grow and become really strong friendships from kids that maybe wouldn't have met each other otherwise. Now they're, you know, they're growing up and they're going hunting together because of their experience with, with the clay target league. So it's been really, again I feel like I'm dating myself, but looking back over a decade of doing this and just seeing the growth week to week and the kids with their aptitude, but then year to year, and, you know, now as adults, some of those kids that were in the first few years living their best life and, you know, good, outstanding members of the community doing really neat things and still participating in shooting sports. It’s great.
Casey: Well, it's almost one I'm one of those things where like, it doesn't matter your physical giftedness, whether you're tall, whether you're short, whether you're strong, like you're all on an equal playing field on the, you know, on the trap field. And so, it's, it's one of those things where a lot of kids can get, you know, probably contact or competition with those kids that they wouldn't normally.
Adam: And I guess one other thought that occurred to me is, you're saying that is just like the life lessons that you get from shooting sports again, watching my kids go through this in the programs. You know, sometimes you're one target or one bird away from winning or losing. And especially in trap, you might not be able to miss at all. Right. Or like one miss will win the state trap shoot. And so, it's, it's a lot like life. And how do you respond when you have that miss? You know, what? You know? And, and it's just like, I've seen it as like a growth opportunity for these kids coming up and how do you respond to that because we all have experiences in our life where, gosh, I wish I could have done that over. I’d do it differently. And that's how you feel, right? When you're at the state shoot and you miss the first high house out of the skeet station and you're like, oh my gosh. So, so it's kind of how do you learn and how do you respond in that? And I think it's a good growth opportunity to have to go through that and grind. It's like, so what are you going to do? Are you going you know, are you going to mentally fold and just say, I can't win it? Or, you know, we try to teach you have the mindset of the only bird that matters is the next one, right? Because you can't go back and you can't change what happened in the past. And I just I think that applies again to life in so many instances in my own life and like work and all the other stuff that you wish that you could go back and change or that you, you know, things don't go the way that you wanted them to. You can't change it. So all you can do is focus on the next thing up and, you know, try to have a positive attitude and move on. And so I really think like all shooting sports really grow that in people. And I've seen it in my kids as they matured.
Casey: Yeah. Yeah. It's always interesting. It’s one of those things where if you can hit one of the pigeons, you can hit them all. The rest of it's in your head, you know, and people get in their heads sometimes or I know my worst one is if I'm shooting good, the last bird, the last bird will get me because it's like, I'm gonna hit them all. And then I might as well just turn around and walk away because that sucker's getting away, you know? But so how many times, Adam, have you shot with your kids to let them beat you?
Adam: You know,
Cayla: Zero where he let them.
Adam: Yeah, I had a pretty good run. But I gotta say, my eighth grader moving to ninth grade is, is at a point where I can't, I can't give him anything. Yeah.
Brian: He's got those young eyes.
Casey: Yeah. He's got, he's got better quicker vision.
Adam: So yeah, it used to be an accomplishment to beat dad. Now it's maybe becoming too run of the mill for my, like, maybe I need some lessons.
Casey: So that's kind of where I ended up is like, I got nothing I can teach you anymore. I'm done. I'm out.
Brian: And then just pile on all that. I absolutely agree with what Adam's saying about, and it's not just necessarily the kids at the top of the top of the scores every week, there's learning that occurs from those sixth graders all the way through 12th grade. And I've seen, you know, 12th graders who are hoping to, you know, peak out and they have an off week. And then you just talk with them and, you know, adjust some things and they’re life lessons, just like you said. And it's fun seeing that and young people make those changes and be coachable. That's the thing that if you're not coachable in this game, good luck. Like it's, yeah, it's a, it's a tough lesson to learn. There's no team. If you miss, it's because you didn't do something right. And so that direct result of needing to be coachable is an incredible thing to watch in young people as they develop as shooters. And then just kind of the last thing too is we've talked a little bit about the translation into hunting and, and let's not forget that we live in North Dakota. When I moved out here 15, 16 years ago. I was doing that dear study up by Wing. It was amazing to me how far people were traveling to come here to, to be, you know, hunt, sharp-tailed grouse, pheasants, wing shooting in general. We live in a premier destination for wing shooting. And you want to get kids out, you know, not two weekends a year, three weekends a year like rifle deer season, but you can wing shoot from September 1st, even before that, with early Canada Goose all the way through freeze up. So you want to talk about a way to get your family outdoors and share some of North Dakota's finest hunting? It's teach a kid how to shoot a shotgun and go walk the prairie. So it's just a great thing for these kids.
Casey: It's, it was always funny to me when we started the one up in Turtle Lake. You'd have a few, a few kids that show up that have never really shot before. So like, they're, they're just hoping to hit one right when they start out. And then you've got these kids who've hunted a lot, who come in and think, this is going to be easy. And it only takes about a half a half a season to get that one caught up to those ones that hunt, and then all of a sudden they're scrambling. Those ones that are like, oh, this is going to be easy. It's like, oh, the one that's never hunted or never shot is starting to pass me. It's like, well, that's cause they didn't know what they were doing and they were listening the whole time.
Brian: And there is a definite difference between most hunting shots and being a very good sporting clay shooter or skeet shooter or trap shooter. But whatever game you play, you learn the principles of shooting a shotgun and that absolutely makes you a better hunter. So yeah, it's fun watching that, that kid who's never shot before. And next thing you know, they're real coachable. Now they're passing that kid who thought he was a good wing-shooter.
Casey: Well, then that helps that kid realize that like, hey, there's, there's, they start to become coachable too. Like it's absolutely, it's kind of weird because they're like, okay, something's going on. And, and so yeah, like you said, it's.
Brian: It's a social experiment for sure.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: All right. Well, yeah. Thanks for being on. Thanks for helping out with the league. Good luck this weekend. Yeah. Hopefully the weather holds.
Casey: Probably should send a shout out to Mark and his facility here.
Brian: Yeah Mark and his staff and volunteers have been out here for several weeks preparing for this provide a great venue for kids coming from all over the state. It’s a lot of work to put this stuff on. And every week across the state of North Dakota, there's volunteers that are out there doing a lot of work to make this happen for these youngsters. And it's, it's a great thing for sure.
Casey: Yep.
Cayla: Yeah. Brian said Mark looked like he had ten Red Bulls. And I said, what's new? That's, that's how Mark operates. Yeah.
Casey: He's wound-up man.
Cayla: He's got a lot to do. Yeah.
Casey: He's excited. That is. He's always been big on getting kids into it.
Brian: Yeah absolutely.
Cayla: All right. We'll get into the department droppings. So summer is here. Probably spending some time on the water when you're not at a shooting range. So just make sure to be safe. Have all your life jackets, be smart on the water, make sure you're not boating under the influence and pick up your trash. We've been at the river a lot and it's just like, come on, you can't throw this.
Casey: Pack it in, pack it out. Yeah, right. All right. And we should just be wrapping up our aerial pronghorn surveys when this airs. And so, pay attention for the pronghorn lottery coming up.
Cayla: And then come see us at the State Fair, right, Brian?
Brian: Absolutely.
Cayla: Yeah.
Brian: July 17th through the 25th.
Casey: He'll be up there all week.
Brian: Most of it. Yeah.
Cayla: Yeah, yeah. Free fishing, free pellet. What are they?
Brian: Pellet guns, air rifles, archery.
Casey: Cool place, shade.
Brian: Lots of shade.
Casey: Lots of shade. All right, now that we've dropped the droppings, you can get off the pot and get outdoors.