Latest / The Dead Pair Podcast / 270 When Good Courses Go Stale, with Matt Miller

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270 When Good Courses Go Stale, with Matt Miller · The Dead Pair Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, everyone, and welcome back to the show, Mr.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Matt Miller.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: What's up, bud?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Jason, good to talk to you again, as always.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: We were having a good conversation going here, and I thought, man, we we gotta record this.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd love to get this is a show I'd really like to get feedback from the listeners.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've got a comment, question, suggestion, don't hesitate to get a hold of us after the show, and we can address some of the stuff moving forward.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: But first and foremost, no tourney talk this week.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: And a reminder again, it's coming quick.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Neil Chadwick's contest for a junior and a sub junior entry,$500 credit to the national championship.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming up, it's gonna end the first week of October.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: So get me those entries, please.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: But no, on to onto what you and I were talking about, Matt.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: We were talking about targets in general, and you know, you've got a little bit of a course set up or however you want to go.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a few traps there at home you're working with, and you had some really good questions for me.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, man, we we gotta talk about this because this is stuff that you know I hear a lot from day to day.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: One of the first things you asked me was like, you know, what makes a five stand exciting, you know, for the first few times and then boring six months later.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: You you want to talk about that, Matt?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've always wondered that, especially as you go to different clubs and they have all these different setups and things like that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: You you've been involved in arranging those for clubs.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I I was kind of curious as to how the decision making goes with clubs and how they arrange, you know, especially like warm-up five stands.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: You see, some are on the ground, some are deck, and then they have different trap positions.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how's that design usually influenced?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, mainly it's it's the landscape, right?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what kind of room do they have available?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: If it's wide open, you could do anything you want.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: I could tell you some of the coolest five stands I've ever seen are like set over a valley, if you know what I mean.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like where you, you know, you could see the banks on each side.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: They got trapped all over the banks and down in the bottom and up in the top.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: It just makes for really cool presentations.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what what's happened a lot of times is that clubs just don't reset the targets or they don't get creative with the targets.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I mean, I I'm dipping my toes more and more in the target setting.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've set, I don't know, seven or eight, now more than that, nine tournaments now.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's and I of course I took Anthony's class, so I'm look I've learned a lot about it, but in conversations with people like Rick Hemingway and Joe Skull and stuff like that, it's you know, you you start to get to a point where you've set just about everything you can set, and that creativity, you've got to come up with new things, and that's why we're always seeing stuff like you know, the tire and the rabbit running up the tree, or you know, trampolines, or you know, we've seen all kinds of stuff.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: But variety is something you don't have to do trick stuff like that, but variety is something I think is what keeps the shooters interested.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you get a guy that's you know, his local club, he's going there twice a week or once a week to practice, and it's the same targets that have been sitting there for the last six months.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it just becomes monotonous, you know, like there's no your brain losing his interest in it, I think.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, when I'm making the decision of whether I practice at home and I have a really limited setup, so I can only do so much with no specialties.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to go to clubs and and shoot specialties or to be challenged.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like how how fresh are the targets?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I've already shot them, you know, I'm not super interested.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that resetting of the targets.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing I think that a lot of clubs are doing that is so smart is they'll set like four traps on a station.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then next thing you know, I'll be like, you know, you buy call it 200 targets that day.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I've blown through my entire target card in you know, four stations.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I you we used to be able to like make it through the whole course on the same investment.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, man, these guys are good.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like they'll throw a difficult D or a difficult C target, and then next thing you know, you're hammering away on that thing and burning through targets.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that can be a big and a payoff investment for clips is the multiple traps per station to keep shooters shooting more per station and burning through targets.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen that a lot, you know.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Airport Ridge really did that.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: They utilized, they've got three traps.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Some stations have three traps, some of them have four.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: It depends on the course, but you know, that variety of being able to say, okay, give me a you know an AC report or a a DA true or something, you know what I mean?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have yeah, you can mix it up, and that's something too about a five stand.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the more traps you have on it, the more variety you can create, you know, in your pairs.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going there to practice, now if you're going there for a tournament, you obviously you got to shoot by the menu, but that's that's a big opportunity right there for for somebody that's wanting to train that doesn't have a lot of time, they can walk out to the five stand and get a good variety if they're working with pairs.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think one one thing that clubs always factor in, especially clubs that are kind of getting into offering sporting clays or thinking about growing, is they don't they don't think about how the individual station layouts, like the terrain and the location of that station, is going to influence that target variety that you're talking about over time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So a 30 or 40 yard wide cutout in the woods, you know, you're pretty limited.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're either going to throw a going-away bird, an incoming bird, or it's gonna be like a short window crosser, which isn't you know always a crowd favorite, especially you know, older shooters that can't acquire targets as quickly as a younger shooter.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: You see a lot of quartering birds, and that can that can make people you know feel stale.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But on the five stand, I actually had another question for you.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the difference that in what you can get between say a$10,000 investment on building a five stand versus call it a$25,000 investment?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like what types of tiers of variety and call it quote, performance of the five stand can you get at those two different price points?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: I get that a lot.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: So from a club standpoint, obviously you want the bigger machines to have more capacity.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because so, you know, if you're throwing a tournament, you don't want to be out there loading, you know, every other squad out there, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, but if it's if it's an individual, you can get away with say our AT200 is, and I'm speaking about Atlas, they're a commercial machine, they'll do everything that the big brother will do just in a smaller package.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, with that being said, that affects price point.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So the AT200 is obviously a lot less expensive than the AT400 or 500.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that gives you the ability to buy more traps, you know.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: The more traps you have, the more variety you have.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I say for a good five stand, you need a minimum of six traps.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're at home, if you're a club, you should really have seven, eight traps, you know, on a five stand.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so that ten thousand dollar budget doesn't go really far by the time you add, you know, electronics, carts, solar panels, all that kind of stuff.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't go real far on a club situation if you're buying the bigger capacity machines.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: At a home situation, I mean, you you know, you could still get it depending on what you want, you can still get probably four machines, you know, five machines easily for that price for that ten thousand dollar price point.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's gonna come with remote control, all the receivers for the traps, the solar panels, the carts, that kind of thing.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you start adding specialty traps like a rabbit, a bat too, obviously you're gonna add more price to it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: The$25,000 mark you can fully outfit just like a club.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can you can get right there, you know, you can get into that that eight trap market, have a couple specialties on there.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: According to the NSCA rules, uh what they're calling for on if you dig into the rules on their five stand, it says you must have a rabbit and it must have a tower.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not every club has that, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Especially for a tournament, too.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the rabbits are tricky because and I and even Ed has talked about this on makeup because he's had rabbits a few times.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: You get somebody that wants to take a rabbit late, and next thing you know, that thing's rolling right over in front of another trap, and they're shooting a trap.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that that's kind of tricky.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Batus are really good, 90 millimeters, and I've seen 70 millimeters on five stands.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Those are great.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Rabus are great.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: I would just I would kind of stay away from just a traditional rabbit unless you've got like a big wide area for your five stand.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that rabbit from the time it leaves the trap to the time it runs out of room or runs into the bushes or whatever, it's no matter where they shoot it, it's not going to hit another trap.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, to answer your question on budget, man, it's there's so much variety there.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I get people all the time, what's a five stand cost?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, that's like saying, What's a car cost?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what brand, what model, what features, you know.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've got guys that that don't have a lot of money and they're like, Look, I've got a tractor with forks, I'll just leave the machine bolted to a pallet, I don't you know, to save the money from the cart.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't they don't buy a bunch of specialty machines, and because of that, they're able to get in that$10,000 budget, they're able to get more traps.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had all kinds of you know creative ways of making it work.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and even on you know, just talking about my own experience where I have a very limited setup here, I think a lot of people that are thinking about doing like a small-scale, affordable practice setup have this misconception that they need to invest in something like a complex five stand and they never do anything.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they're like, oh, if I can't have a$25,000 setup, it's not really gonna be worth my time.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's the case.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you have the land, what what they don't realize is like when you have all those traps, you're actually discouraged from what I consider true training.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you're not gonna want to reset them as much because it's gonna take you a lot of time.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a simplistic setup of two or three traps where you can set the basics and develop skill sets, like you can do really if I mean Wendell did all his training, you know, grid system on a single trap.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you can, if you have land and you're thinking about developing your own training setup, the investment is not that crazy.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Two traps, three traps, and you just you know throw a quartering bird and a crossing bird, and you can move around in that area.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need a big complex setup to have a great training area.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what I train on is is I mean, you're talking as simple as it gets.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that that's just the point I would make is is you don't you don't have to overthink it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I would agree with that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't want to make this a you know a sales pitch for Atlas, but that's the nice thing about our commercial machines, they're all toolless adjustment.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you can you can change the trajectory or you know, the presentation of the target very simple, very easy, very quick without tools.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, you can take it here's one for you, you don't need to adjust anything.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can take a quartering bird and move the tongue of the cart, you know, like where you hook it up to your buggy, move it to the left or to the right six inches, and you've totally changed that target.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's or put it up a little bit or down a little bit, or a little bit more tilt, or take some spring out of it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it doesn't take much to change it, but this is one thing I'll say you said something about land.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: My old house in Ohio, I had two acres, but I there was nothing behind me like where I was shooting, like there was nothing for a quarter of a mile, maybe even half a mile.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, and my neighbors didn't care.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So even on two acres, I had a five-stand with eight traps.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: I loved it, it was awesome.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I was fortunate enough to have eight traps, but in and the one other thing I'll say is by having your own traps and setting your own targets, you're gonna become a better shooter because now you're at the trap, you know exactly what that target's doing.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when you go stand wherever you're gonna stand to shoot, you already know what that target's doing.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like you know the transition that it's making.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it that I swear it's helped me in my shooting just by setting targets.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I haven't done any high-level target setting, but just milling around at the house, just seeing the plate, the big things like reading the plate, reading the spring position, if you can see it, and it makes a big difference.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where, you know, at least getting my first read on my look point, being able to look at a plate and getting pretty close is a big help.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and like I said, I don't have any high-level target setting experience, just simply milling around in the backyard and just pick it up from from changing your own traps.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, if the plate looks like this, you're probably gonna get this trajectory.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the cool thing too about these modern day traps is like, you know, I mean, speaking like of the sporting machines that I sell, you can tilt them way back.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think then Atlas will throw a 72-degree teal out of a standard out of a standard sporter.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you can lay it over and throw a big, beautiful Chandelle.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's infinite what you can do with a with just a standard sporter.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: So like I got people that call me all the time, they want to buy all these specialty machines and then they freak out about the price.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, wait a minute, you know, you can throw a lot of cool stuff with just a standard sporter.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I'm happy to sell them whatever they want, but I mean, you know, if budget is an issue, then you don't have to go with the big, you know, specialty traps in order to throw some good targets, and that's something else, too.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: I get asked a lot, like I see this all the time.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: What's worse?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Targets that are too easy or targets that are too hard, or targets that are just predictable?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you just made a comment, and this is what made me think of it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: You can look at the plate and kind of tell what it's going to do.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, what what's your opinion, Matt?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I I know this is a topic that's been drilled a bazillion times about either too easy or too hard.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Give me your opinion, I'll I'll tell you mine on it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: What what shoot are we at?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are we just practicing at a local course and and what makes a shooter enjoy their local club in terms of target difficulty at an event?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think just the just the labeling of the targets are too easy or the targets are too hard.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what makes a target easy?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: What makes a target hard?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll here maybe this will help you out.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just go ahead and give you my answer.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's up to the individual.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I remember being in D class thinking, how in the world am I ever gonna hit that?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that same presentation I'll look at today and be like, this is a no-brainer.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: So what I thought was hard then and what I think is easy now is two different things, you know.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, am I making sense what I'm saying?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I would agree with that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think there are presentations that get you know, can get pretty ridiculous.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then it just seems like the club is is almost not putting much thought into it, that it just becomes it's almost like a cash grab.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I throw something ridiculous that's difficult to shoot, just so shooters will be there a lot.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of frustrates me sometimes.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like there has to be to me, I I've been around enough to kind of look at a target and know whether I think a really good shooter is going to be able to consistently hit that target.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: If if I think, you know, if I was you know out shooting and I'm in Meadows and Kevin DeMichael's beside me, and I don't think Kevin can break that target 70% of the time, it's probably crazy hard because Kevin can is freaking amazing.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, to me, when a club throws something like that, that's a little bit beyond the pale.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: To me, easy.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I more read.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it I don't mind them as much if they're mixed in.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't I don't criticize for having some stuff.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I more look at it as if targets are set instead of being beneficial to the shooter, they make life easy for the club too to too far of an extent.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, all the traps are set close to the stations to make it easy to fill and shut down the machines.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And while I respect the club's enterprise, they have to make things efficient.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's just like if I'm just going around a course shooting a trap to my left and a trap to my right, it's it's not, I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if I feel like you know they're setting it to give a large variety, I think variety is a key where you're testing multiple skill sets.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The same holds true for an event.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I in an event, I want to shoot a high variety and I want to have all different skill sets tested.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I look at.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in that I kind of draw the line, like to me, easy is more of all right, is the club being is the club being not as you know quality oriented in terms of the shooter and hard is like, is this something where it's not really reasonable for even the highest level shooter to break it repeatedly?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in between anything in there, I'm okay with as long as there's a mix, you know what I mean?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, if I go to a big event, I'm gonna expect the mix to be you know aired towards difficult and rightfully so.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm saying a local small monthly shoot, it may be aired kind of middle of the road.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the range is fine, but that's kind of each end of that range, is where it's it's not as enjoyable for me.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and you know, I I've got some guys that are they're starting new clubs, and there's they're I get asked a lot, you know, like how should we set the targets?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, look, you got to set for the crowd.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're having a corporate event, you want people to break targets and have a good time.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: They should be, you know, on a scale of one to ten, they should be twos and threes.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like they yeah, like the guy that never shoots a shotgun should be able to come out and break 50 out of 100 easy, you know.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the guy that's a tournament shooter should be able to come there running 98, 99, or even 100 straight on it, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's how a corporate event should be or a charity event.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you're throwing registered tournament, you know, you need to have, like you said, you need to have that variety in there.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: You need, I mean, people are paying a lot more money for these targets.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you need to have the variety, you need to have the challenge effect in there.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and I say, you know, of course, you've got to appease, and this is again, this is something that's been hashed out a bazillion times over the years.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: You got to appease a lot of people, right?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: You got your masters that even on hard courses can run 100 straight.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen that a lot in the last few years.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then you got the D-class guys.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, are you setting for your masters or you're setting for your D class guys?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: My opinion is you should set for everybody.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a D-class guy should be in that 50, 55% break range.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're looking at your targets that you set and you don't think a D-class shooter can shoot 55% out of your 100 targets that you set, you set it too hard.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: If you think the D-class shooter is going to shoot in the 70s, you set it too easy.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, don't worry about the top guys.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: The top guys are gonna figure it out.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care how hard you set them, they're gonna figure them out.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Would you not agree with that, Matt?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I would.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, if I was a club owner, what I would try to get a handle on is what butter's my bread, what's my primary customer base, and really understanding your customer base in the area and then setting according to that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like our mutual friend Art was managing Blackjack for a while, and he he was talking to me a lot about what he was getting in terms of feedback from the customers, and his customers tended to like, as a general rule, a little bit softer targets, and they would give more, he would get more negative feedback if he took it too far in terms of difficulty or if you know the target setter.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: However, you go to Meadows or Old Hudson, which are clubs here, and they they tend to be a little bit uh maybe not even a little bit, a lot more target shooter oriented.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when the targets get too soft there, you know, from what I've talked to on on you know, like Trey and Porsche that are that are managing or running owning Meadows now, or Kevin that that manages Meadows, they get more negative feedback if the targets get, you know, too on the soft side.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you know, each club has a responsibility of understanding their customer base, listening to the feedback and setting it.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's always, you know, if you have the opportunity to have you know multiple tracks per station in your club and you can afford that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can do both now.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can have an easy A, an easy B, a difficult C and a really hard D.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or you just have multiple courses.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you go to Meadows, there's three courses, four at times blue, white, red, green.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You go to old Hudson, there's red, white, woods, and then a FETAS parkour that's usually set like like tougher than a three-dollar sirloin.
• 20:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can go different places and get the range if you're if you can have multiple courses.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think the short answer is like, you know, understand your customer base and and serve it.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and let's let's elaborate just for a second on what you said.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you mentioned R and being there at Blackjack.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go by the demographic.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: The village is is right there closer, and that's where their daily traffic flow comes from, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So those are older shooters, they want softer targets.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: The advantage that blackjack has, not only do they have trap and skeet and a really beautiful five stand, but they've also got three or four sporting courses, depending on you know what's going on that day, and a super sporting course.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: So they can have a really soft course, a little bit more, a little bit more, and a little bit tougher.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like they can they can they usually keep that black course in the back or blue course, whichever one it is in the back, set for tournament targets.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And a guy that's there for open practice, you know, during the week can go shoot whatever he wants.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he can there's probably if I had to add it up, 75 stations on that property.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Surely you're gonna find a target that you want to work on, right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can go do that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you just want to shoot around with your buddies, man, you can go to the softer course and laugh and hee haul and see who can run 100 straight and who's buying beer that night.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, but yeah, demographic.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Fixes everything.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I, you're exactly right.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, Art was calling me with the same thing, and it was like, dude, you just gotta set for your you gotta set for who's coming in the gate Monday morning to pay.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: What of all the club like you talk to these club owners?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is a general rule for how often a club resets targets?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it once per month?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is if you were to to you know put in a club and say this is the gold standard, how often are they changing the targets per course?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Monthly, bi-weekly, what do you think?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that is a it's a good question, but it's a broad question.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I give you an example.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you go out to Rahagi's out in California, they they've got traps that have not moved in the last 20 years.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like literally, they have not moved in 20 years.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: The same spring, same plate angle, same everything.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: But as you go around the course, they set for tournaments and you know, they change the targets.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Probably, if I had to guess, I think it's once every two weeks if they're not having a tournament.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: But then you go to other places that, man, they they reset the targets every week.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think as a general rule of thumb, if you've only got, say you've only got one or two courses, you should be changing the courses every two weeks.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you are a club that's throwing registered targets, you know, tournaments, you should be resetting the course, obviously, for the tournament, and then leave those tournament targets set up for at least a week because you're gonna get a lot of you know, a lot of comeback from the from the local tournament shooters.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: They want to come back and work on targets that they had a hard time with, and that is a big sale.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I and the guys and gals that tear down a tournament course right after it's over and set them back to easy targets.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're missing a major opportunity there for revenue because a lot of the shooters want to go back and work on those targets.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we used to do it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I say we, I mean Sean Alley and I, we would go shoot a tournament at me, you know, maybe Cardinal Center or Hillendale or whatever.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, man, that one target just kicked my butt.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And Sean's like, yeah, you know, and then let's go Thursday and work on it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: All right, cool.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we get off work early and we'd run over there and work on those targets.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: So that, but that is that is return revenue to the club when you do that.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're not throwing registered, man, you I, in my opinion, once every two weeks, I've seen a lot of clubs that kind of fall on that line, if you know what I'm saying.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: They they kind of abide by that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I 100% agree with your point about the tournament.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: But last two or three sets, Kevin's thrown.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've made sure to go back before they get reset.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh Cherokee Rose threw a circuit shooter on here, and and Cody did a uh a good job of setting a testy course in the woods, and I'm dying to get back there because he uh he got a hold of me pretty good.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, like I can't wait to get back out there and and figure out some of the things that I got worked over on.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's a it's a good point.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's I think it's it's something that clubs don't think about is like challenging shooters, and then the shooters are gonna want to get back out there and figure that out in their game to resolve whatever issues they had during the competition.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's I mean another thing too is like I've seen a lot of new managers that are maybe not even the managers, but they have a lot of groundstand.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, it's this business is hard to keep, you know.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to say good help, I don't mean it like that, but it's hard to keep knowledgeable help.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody knows what they're doing and what's going on, they're usually getting an offer every six months to go somewhere else.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: But and and I think that's where it's the general's general manager's job to step in and say, hey, look, you know, we need to we need to reset these, and this is what it should look like, and maybe go out there and spend a little bit more time in the field.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and look, I'm speaking for the average club, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Not every general manager.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of these clubs are ginormous, and that's hard for them to allocate that kind of time.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I've seen a lot of clubs that have that have set things that are just like, that's that's a bad target.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, why are you throwing that on edge at 70 yards, or why are you throwing that up in the sun, you know, for the majority of the day?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just that's that's where I think, you know, the manager needs to step in and kind of oversee that a little bit.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or go visit, you know, an established club or travel around to shoots and see what they're throwing there, and you get a lot more of an understanding of what is a you know a typical presentation.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people I think that that work at clubs and don't shoot a lot, they don't understand how a target can be way more difficult than they think it is.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't they don't understand what makes a difficult target or what can exacerbate target difficulty like vision, background, you know, line speed distance, obviously, but how busy is the background?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you throwing it?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can I see it well?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like at the best break point?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is it really dirty in the background there?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't think about that, and they could alleviate a lot of dissatisfaction from their customer base by getting more knowledgeable from other clubs.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the clubs are super willing to share their information or at least have you go there and see the the target sets and the variety in to help other other target setters, help other general managers have a better understanding of what serves shooters best, which are their customers.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, look, I there's some there's a few target setting classes or schools, whatever you want to call them, out there right now.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I personally took Anthony's and I I did that, I don't know, it's been four or five years, five years ago now.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I'll and I'll never forget, I was riding with it's a two-day class.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was riding with Anthony in a golf cart on the second day, and he's like, Well, what do you think?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, You know, Ant, I said, I've been setting targets a little bit, and I thought I'd come here and pick up on a few things.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, uh, I learned after the first day I didn't know squat.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I and Anthony started laughing.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because there's so much more to it than you think there is.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there really is.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if you're, you know, a general manager that doesn't know or hasn't said a lot, or maybe you're just, you know, somebody that works for a club that hasn't said a lot, that wants to learn, man, I highly recommend it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: I've probably referred 10 people to Anthony's class that went and called me and was like, this is the best thing I've ever done.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I never knew there was that much to it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're, I mean, you live with you leave with a phone book that he gives you, uh, like a like a manual.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and the amount of notes that you take during the class is, I mean, it's unbelievable how much you learn.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot more to it than people think.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And what's really cool is you actually spend some time talking about, you know, tournaments and how to set for a tournament.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And here's a prime example for you, Matt.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to give away the bank for Anthony, but just real quick, do you know as you leave the clubhouse at Anthony's, like you're heading out the drive, the last station that's right there on the right, it's the guy on the corner, always has the easy up set up and all that stuff when during the tournament.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know which one you're talking about.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we went there and Anthony's like, no, let me show you something.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he threw this true pair and he said, when this was originally set, it was set as a report pair.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he told uh one of the students in the class, he said, staying up there and he said, I want you to call pull, and you shoot the first target.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And when you say bang, I want the class to start counting.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, pull, bang, and everybody started counting.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was like seven seconds for the second target to develop.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, if I would have left this as a true pair, this one station, that seven-second gap right there, would have backed up the rotation by 20 minutes.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of clubs don't think about that.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: They set a really cool pair, but if it's a big developing pair and it's three report pairs, I mean, dude, that's that's time, right?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're gonna back up right there.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And nothing wrong with the with the trap or anything like that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: No broken targets.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've just because it takes that long to develop, and people don't think about that when they're set.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot I learned from that class.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I really think, you know, even if you can't get to Anthony, there's probably there's some other target setting classes around the country now, man, it'd behoove you to go and learn, you know.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's so much that goes into shootability, and of course, how you're gonna fill the traps without disrupting the next station.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: How can you fix traps without disrupting other stations?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, cadence of true pairs and a report pairs or report pairs into true pairs, how long the target takes to develop.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's just so much that goes into that.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that it's very difficult to wrap your head around unless you have really experienced people walking you through that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of take it for the granted when you get out on the championship tour, because there's experienced target setters and experienced clubs with experienced general managers running all that, but even at the local level, getting that expertise from a target setting class, from somebody like Anthony, from somebody experienced, or even like, you know, a high-level local shooter that they can give good feedback.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, you know, insinuating that you should only get feedback from the highest level shooters, but typically the highest level shooters have the most experience, can give a really solid feedback on how your course flowed on the target presentations, et cetera.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's amazing to me because I've I've got so many clubs that come to me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're 50, 60 year old trap and skeet clubs, and now they're gonna add a five standard.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're gonna put in a course, right?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I've I've, as someone that that sells this equipment, I've had to sit through board meetings on a Zoom call to just explain to the board because they don't know, you know, and I I've had to walk through all this, and you know, I've done complete layouts and design, and you know, of course, safety is a first factor in it, and we talk about all that, you know, shot fall, that kind of thing.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: But then it's these little little common nuances, like, you know, just like that big developing target, you know, there's so many things that go into setting a course in order to make it successful, not only for the challenge of the targets or you know, hard or easy, whatever you want to call it, but also the flow of the tournament.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And people just don't know this stuff.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, that's that's what I'm here for.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's what Anthony's, you know, has those classes for.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said, there's some other target setting courses around the country, but that's you know, that's why you know I offer to help people all the time on that stuff, and I end up on the phone for hours on end sometimes, but it's all good, you know.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I'm glad I can help.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I mean, have an available resource for someone to reach out to is critical, right?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: So let me ask you this, Matt, as a shooter, from a shooter standpoint.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Should every station have at least one presentation that makes a shooter scratch their head, or should it be like every four stations in a tournament?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Should it be like, you know, half of them?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what what's your take on that as a shooter?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know I mean, this is yeah, you're gonna be challenged, but you know, uh maybe a like, wow, man, I I don't I I'm dumbfounded.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: I guess as in the prime example would be a true pair you could take either way.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, again, always refer back to like what where you're at, and in terms of the the location or the event, you know, I think I think if you go on a championship tour, you can virtually expect almost every station is going to be difficult.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: If not one bird, both birds are going to be difficult or challenging.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's kind of the under-discussed thing about the tour.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not that each individual target is so difficult.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you look at the scores, and people are like, oh, you know, the scores are, I know that guy can really shoot and he shot up.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, score a lot lower than I thought he could shoot.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I bet the targets are really hard.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, the targets in a vacuum aren't that, aren't crazy hard individually.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's that each station is technically difficult enough.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you run into issues, you have to sustain your confidence through 15 or 14 stations.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: But on a monthly shoot level, I think it's different.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think they should probably look at having, you know, a separator station or two, call it the bulk, maybe 50% as one bird, reasonably technically challenging, you know, moderately technically challenged, and a few stations in there to give people a reprieve lighter to get a little momentum.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if they get if they get beat up on a rough station, let them get a little bit of momentum back.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what maybe novice shooters don't understand as much is how how repeated target difficulty can erode your confidence over time and getting a little confidence on easier stations can allow you to roll through more difficult stations.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's another hard part about target setting, where your question is kind of alluding to, is they don't understand the cumulative effect of difficulty across a course.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just continually testing people, you're you are likely going to erode their confidence at some point.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And can they sustain their confidence enough to shoot at their highest skill level?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you have easier stations in there, I don't have to have a high confidence.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can shoot an easy station pretty consciously and just build, you know, develop my own confidence just from the success of that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't get that opportunity, each station I'm having to bring my own natural confidence to it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that gets difficult over time.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think if you're setting targets that you should set, you know, obviously a mix of all of it, but you need to step back and understand how what is the cumulative difficulty across these 15 stations and how that can influence shooters.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're setting something that's difficult, station after station after station, the cumulative effect of that is it's going to shoot a lot lower than you think it will, just because of how it's going to affect people's confidence.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So and giving them a few easy stations in there to kind of rebuild the confidence or reset can help inflate the scores.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you have difficult stuff in there, if shooters are getting momentum and able to flow through some hard stuff, you can get some nice scores.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're trying to keep scores within that range, call it like, you know, the winning score is a 95 and double A's 90 or 89, and A class is, you know, 86, that kind of typical score stacked down that you want to see in classes is indicative of a nice well-rounded event.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that touch on what you were getting at?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Something a lot of people won't think about is difficult the cumulative difficulty over time on a course can really affect shooters.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, here's one for you, and and I have my opinion.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote this question down and says, what's the most overlooked presentation trap presentation in sporting clothes?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have my answer.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: What what's your answer?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think from a technical standpoint, deep quartering is one of the most technical presentations, and they don't they don't always look as difficult, but but quarter a deep quartering bird or a or a kind of hard angle quartering crossing bird to me is is is on average the most difficult target in the game.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and I Anthony will tell you it's a difficult presentation because it requires lead, but it also requires kind of a little bit.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just let your hands rip and work it because you have the distance aspect.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, anything going away from you, in essence, can is considered more of a short window because as distance increases, you know, difficulty increases.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to be able to break a deep quartering bird.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the sooner you can break it, the better you're doing on the distance game.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you have the factors of of lead and the speed of that that bird, and they get more difficult to read with a line.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my answer.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I that that is exactly my exact answer is a deep quartering bird.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, those things evade my launch more than any other target out there because the the read on them can fool you more than anything.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, that's I had one that ate me up pretty bad at the highest state chute, and uh it was a good set, you know.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: I just I just misjudged it.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: So another thing too, I I had in here was you know, a target that looks like it's flat, but because of the landscape, you don't realize that it's actually diving.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, in other words, what I mean by that is you know, a target say a target's coming from left to right and it looks like it's flat, but you don't realize the ground is going up.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that target is actually diving down.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I did it, you know, I did it at highest thing, I had the lead right and just wasn't under it enough, you know.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: If if I wanted to just grenade people's scorecards, I would probably throw the combination of medium and off speed at distance.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's kind of as difficult as it as it gets, is just get the medium and low speed stuff, and you get it at distance.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's tough.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Medium speed, low speed crosser 40-50 yards is can it can be pretty pretty brutal.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Difficult to get the feel, difficult to read the line, you know, they're losing power, it's tough.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is a presentation that is like overused in the game?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're just thrown too many of.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: I tell you one that I see more and more and more that I really can't stand is a is a just a trap teal.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, and I don't mean a big trap teal, I just mean just a trap's right in front of you 20 yards out, and it's just you know, half spring going up and out.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's to me, that's trap, right?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're not shooting trap, we're shooting sporting clays, you know.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I guess if you could compare that to, you know, hunting, which is what this game was designed around, that's just flushing out a pheasant right in front of you.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not a hard shot, but they often pair it with other targets.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: It makes it a little trickier.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I I see this a lot because some clubs are constricted as far as you know how much land they have they can use, and you ended up, you know, you can't throw big left or right because you're gonna be in line from the other or sight line of the other, you know, stations.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I see it too much.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I see it a lot.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: You see, well, Nationals is a prime example, you know.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you think about all the stations that are up and down that one straight road, you're gonna get some trap teals.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's gonna be a lot of trap teals, there's gonna be a lot of quartering boats because they don't have the room in some of those places to throw a big crosser.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, but that's that's the one I think is overset.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and it has no creativity in it.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're basically just rolling a trap out there, laying it back, setting it a half spring, okay, there you go.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that's there's no creativity in it, but sometimes they're limited, you know, on where the room that they have to work with.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that speaking of you know, stale targets, like circling back on this whole conversation, what would you recommend for a club to refresh whatever setup they have right now?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like what should be the first thing they should look at doing?
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, that's that's kind of a broad question, but I mean, you know, call me.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm here to help.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe we need to add some traps, or maybe we just need to change the change the targets rent.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's a complete course redesigned.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a million things you can do to keep it fresh, but you know, a lot of clubs mistake the understanding that that's where your revenue's at.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you keep even even your regular monthly tournament shooters that come there to practice or train, if you have a good variety and you're really changing things around, and you know, station seven on the green course is the same it's been for the last 20 years.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: You can only set so much stuff there, and all of a sudden, now we've moved where the station sits in within that landscape, right?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: You've moved the station 10 yards to the left, you've turned it a little bit, you've reset the traps where they've never been set before.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're still in that safety range for shotfall.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now it looks totally different to the shooter, just doing something like that and creating variety in it, and it's it's fresh, right?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's fresh to their eyes and it's it's interesting and it's new, and just something simple as that.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or it may be that, hey man, we we need to get some some different equipment in here, you know.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe this is a spot for a good bat too or rabu, or maybe we could throw a rabbit here, maybe let's let's try some 90 millimeters here or something.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's all different kinds of things you can do with presentations, but I would say that that's that's a pretty common question I get a lot.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've had a couple clubs call me, it's like, you know, we think we're good on equipment, but can you come out and look at this?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, I look at all their targets, it's like, oh, that's pretty decent.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what's the complaint?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we haven't been able to do anything different in a while.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, we need to start at station one and go through the whole course.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: But if it's a five stand and it's you know completely shifting things around on that too.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, and maybe you know, if they have the budget for it, throw a tower in there, you know, a 12-foot tower, 20-foot tower.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean like that's the stuff that I help them with all the time.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, yeah, I mean, listen, man, I I said we'd keep this one short.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is there anything else you wanted to ask me before we let everybody go here on this one?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't have anything else other than I think it's it's been a cool conversation to have because the biggest thing is as a shooter and a patron of clubs, just thinking about how they improve you know it improves my experience.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: So anytime a club is reaching out and thinking of a way to improve their facility, improve their product, improve their targets, I benefit as a shooter and I think it's awesome.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the more we can have clubs trying to push their offering, the more enjoyment I have in the game and having you know kind of resources out there that they can go to to get good directions in terms of their improvements.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I I will say this.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you run a club on your 510 or your sporting course or your feet ask course has gotten stale, or maybe people are wanting something a little different, man, send me a few pictures.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Google Google Earth is real easy to use.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can take a sky shot of your layout and you know, mark it up.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me where your you know where your stations are at, and you know, I can help you that way.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe maybe it's get in the truck and run out there and take a look at it.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, there's a lot of things I can do to help.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, again, this wasn't a sales pitch.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I that's not what this is all about, but I think there's there's a this is a good conversation for everybody, and I want everybody that's listening, whether you're an individual or a club, if you have questions or comments on this, man, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we can hop back on and maybe do maybe we'll do a scoops episode or something, and you know, I can bring up pictures and drawings and all kinds of stuff.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's I think this is everybody talks about hard targets, you know, and that I think that's been drilled into the ground a million times.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, everybody talks about like oh, these you know, these clubs are making so much money on these tournaments.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, they're not.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: I if you want to go back and listen, we did an episode, uh, it's been about a year and a half, maybe two years ago.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: We did an episode, we had a couple guests on club managers that talked about the cost of running a club in a tournament.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, they don't make a lot of money on that stuff.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I've got an episode coming up with a couple cool guests, and we're gonna kind of revisit that subject a little bit.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: But there is ways to improve and help your club or help yourself if you got something at home that can improve your experience and keep things fresh, keep things interesting, keep it fun.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Matt, Matt called me about this stuff, and that's what started this whole conversation, right, Matt?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: But listen, everyone, our message is the same each and every week.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: Take someone new shooting, take them to a tournament, show them how much fun this is.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: The game will sell itself, as Mr.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Alley always likes to say.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, anything like that.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm here for.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: And Matt, thank you.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you joining me, man.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's uh evening time, and I don't mean to take you away from the wife and kids that long.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't worry, I can always use an escape.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually hiding from my Velcro dog right now.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be worrying me to death again here in a few minutes.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: So always good to talk to you and uh enjoy the time and getting a break from the real world here.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, real quick, I'm gonna throw in a David David's brain segment.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: All right, that's enough of that crap for this week.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: Until next week, everyone.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you again, Matt, for joining me.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Until next week, everyone, we can't wait to catch you.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: Let me try that shit again.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: Until next week, everyone, we can't wait to catch y'all back here on the Dead Pear podcast.