“Pull!” Alex yells as he draws the butt of his gun to his cheek, aiming down the barrel toward the little orange clay target rapidly moving away. After taking time to aim, he pulls the trigger and waits for the pigeon to burst into tiny pieces, flying in every direction possible. ”Hit!” The head coach calls out, and there’s a smirk on Alex’s face. That hit makes ten in a row.

Gregg Twedt is the head coach of the Cannon Falls trap team. Over this weekend there was a trap contest in St. Paul, where the Cannon Falls team would get a 10,000 dollar endowment fund if they brought five shooters and two coaches. Meeting the coach after he received the check, I asked him about how the team was doing. ”They’re doing great!” he exclaimed. “At each practice, we shoot 3,000 [shells], and so far, our team has an average of [hitting with] 53 percent of those, and 90 percent of our kids have seen improvement. Our best shooter right now is Alex Engebretson, and he’s been in the lead for three weeks, shooting around forty out of fifty [clay pigeons].”

Trap is a weird sport; participants don’t have to go anywhere for meets. “They’re called virtual meets,” Twedt explains. “We shoot at our trap range, they shoot at theirs, and the coaches are responsible for putting the scores up online. The system ranks who is first, second, third, and so on. We’ve had one meet, and that was on Monday, and were ranked sixth out of nine teams in our conference.”

As many might have known, these past few Monday trap team practices have been pretty rainy and windy, and affect the shooting of trap. ”So far, our practices are awesome. We’ve had rain and wind that moves the pigeons all over the place!” Twedt says sarcastically. “But I’m glad with the kids we have. All twenty-six of them are respectful, well-behaved, and take advice from the coaches. I hope I keep on getting kids this good, and I’ll never quit coaching!”

“It’s a great sport,” says Alex, cleaning out his gun. “It prepares me for duck hunting, and shooting in general. It’s also great since I can be competitive with my friends.” These are skills that trap shooters can take with them: becoming better marksmen, the ability to calm down in the midst of chaos and doubt while shooting, and breaking age barriers at practice.

“Pull!” the gun goes up. Breathe in, breathe out. Click. Shards fly.