The Brisbane Gun Club has one of the best trap and skeet layouts in Australia. The site of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, it is part of the Belmont Shooting Complex, a two square mile block housing a dozen or so rifle, pistol and shotgun clubs, all within a few miles of Brisbane's city centre.
My family managed the Club in those days. My parents lived in a 25 foot caravan, while I shared a 10'x10' garden shed with my cockatoo, Floyd. The rest of the family comprised a doberman and an emu. Shaitan was the guard dog, and he spent most of his time sleeping in a wheelbarrow under the clubhouse. Partly from laziness, and partly to avoid Emmy the emu, who was raised from a chick to believe she was also a dog. Being bigger and uglier than Shaitan, she was naturally ahead in the pecking order. So a wheelbarrow may not be a bad hideout for a doberman with a bruised ego. He just about had to make room for another lost soul one Wednesday night after a round of trap.
The night was crisp and clear.
A fair-sized crowd of shooters had managed to resist another evening of mind-numbing bilge we call televised entertainment; some were already shooting while others were creating legends in the clubhouse bar. A myriad of insects buzzing the floodlights signalled the approach of summer, although the day's heat had gone with the sun.
Familiar sounds of, "PULL!", BOOM-BOOM, "ONE!" or the occasional "LOST TARGET!" echoed up and down the line. It was one of the last night Trap shoots before the advent of daylight saving.
The second detail was halfway through, shooters rotating clockwise around the tracks. White clays streaked out of into the sky, shining like neon against a perfect black backdrop under the lights, exploding like starbursts when hit, while the lucky ones arced out of sight to land unharmed.
Frank, a quietly spoken bloke in his mid-thirties, snapped his gun closed and pulled the butt into his shoulder to sight at the top half of the trap house. Could he have been a little nervous, with Bob, a very experienced Trap coach, the next shooter to his right?
The referee was having trouble hearing Frank's call, so had sidled up behind him, right ear uncovered, listening carefully. But instead of a sedate "Pull", Frank let loose all Hell; BOOM! went his gun, a load of #7 shot peppered the back of the trap house causing the young trapper inside to bang his head on the tin roof from fright; the ref jumped three feet while inadvertently pressing the release button for the trap as he did so, the thrower flung out the target and Frank, suddenly showing incredible presence of mind, tracked and powdered the clay with his second barrel.
"ONE!", yelled the ref.
Frank, somewhat shaken and embarrassed by the whole event and not helped at all by the cheers of the rest of the squad, cast a questioning glance at the referee. He shrugged his shoulders, saying, "The target came out, you shot it. No problem." The shooters regained their composure and continued their round. Presently it was Frank's turn again.
"Pull", he said; BOOM-BOOM; "LOST TARGET!", came the verdict as it frisbeed off untouched. But Bob, the Club Coach, made no move to close his gun. He pondered for a moment and turned towards Frank.
"What do you think you did wrong then?", he asked.
There was nothing he could tell a shooter of Bob's experience. Frank just shook his head dumbly.
"You didn't shoot the bloody trap house first!"