In 1920 in the town of Andover, Massachusetts, a small group of upland game hunters took to shooting clay targets as a means of practicing their wing shooting. As friendly rivalries started to develop amongst the group, a uniform series of shots were developed to keep the competition fair and even for all. It was from this crude beginning that the modern day version of skeet shooting developed into what is now an international sport practiced by hunters and non-hunters alike.

Charles E. Davies, an Andover, Massachusetts businessman and avid grouse hunter, is recognized as the inventor of the skeet game as we know it.

The word "skeet" is derived from the Scandanavian word for "shoot."Credit for naming the game goes to Gertrude Hurlbutt, a Dayton, Montana housewife, who in 1926 won a contest for naming the new game. Among the thousands of entries in the contest were "Bang" and "Bye Bye Blackbird."

Skeet Shooting today involves 10's of 1000's of people across North America and the world. There is American Skeet, International Skeet and English Skeet. Each form of Skeet Shooting varies slightly from the other.

The National Skeet Shooting Association is the governing body for American Skeet. More than 20,000 skeet shooters shoot "registered targets" that are sanctioned by The National Skeet Shooting Association each year.

If you want to shoot better in the field, enjoy a day at the gun club, or compete with the top skeet shooters in the world for honor and glory (notice that I left out money), then skeet shooting is a great sport.

Trapshooting was developed in England late in the 18th century. The first targets were live pigeons, which were released from cages known as traps. The sport was first practiced in the United States early in the 19th century and was popular by midcentury in a number of areas, notably Cincinnati, Ohio, and the New York City area. In subsequent decades the scarcity of live pigeons prompted trapshooting enthusiasts in the United States to create ingenious artificial targets. The substitute targets first tried included glass balls filled with feathers and solid iron pigeons mounted on long metal rods. Platter-shaped clay pigeons were developed about 1870. The subsequent introduction of standard-ized traps facilitated nationwide competition. The first U.S. national championship match took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1885.

The Amateur Trapshooting Association, with headquarters in Vandalia, Ohio, is the governing body of U.S. and Canadian trapshooting. Under its auspices numerous trapshooting competitions, notably the Grand American Handicap, take place each year. Trapshooting competition takes three forms: singles, handicap, and double-target shooting. In all three the targets are hurled from one trap, and 12-gauge shotguns are used. In singles shooting, contestants fire from a series of five stations located 16 yd (14.63 m) behind the trap. At a signal from the contestant, the clay target is hurled forward into the air, away from the firing line. In order to simulate the unpredictable flight patterns of birds taking wing, the targets are sprung out of the trap at various angles and in various directions. The clay pigeons rise to a minimum height of about 10 ft (about 3 m) and, unless hit, fall to the ground about 150 ft (about 45 m) from the trap. Champions often hit 100 out of 100 targets.