There are similarities. The use of shotguns and clay pigeons are two. Past that, sporting clays is as different from its cousins - skeet and trap - as football is different from baseball.
It is, as shooters are finding, different and difficult. It is, too, new in the United States. It started in England half a century ago but only reached this side of the ocean about four years ago.It was first started to offer sportsmen more real-life hunting situations. And, given the imaginations of course designers, it does that.
There is no telling what the next station will bring. Targets can drop, roll, or climb. They can fly along ravines, up hills, zip past overhead, or drop from the sky. And instead of ones, they come always in twos.
Two shots, two targets. One miss, yes, but here recovery is possible. Breaking two targets with one shell is counted as two.
In trap and skeet, shooters stand on designated spots and shoot at clay pigeons that fly routine paths. The only thing routine about sporting clays is that the shooters know targets come in twos.
There are two sporting clay courses in Utah - one near Goshen and the second in Rose Canyon (Utah Shooting Sports) southwest of Riverton. A third one will open near Hyrum in May.
The Rose Canyon course, opened last fall by Gary Owen and Larry Mitchell, has started to attract attention . . . "which we feel is pretty good considering we haven't done much in the way of promoting it. We're still building," said Owen.
There are presently six stations open. By summer, said Owen, "we'll have 11 stations."
The six open stations go by the names "Decoying Ducks," "Sharp Tail Grouse," "Chuckar," "Fur and Feather," "Beaver Pond" and "Springing Teal." The name is a good hint for the type of shots to expect.
With the Decoying Duck, for example, two targets are lobbed from a hilltop to an area in front of the shooter, who takes his shots inside a makeshift duck blind . . . "Like two ducks coming in and landing in decoys," pointed out Owen.
The second station simulates two grouse being flushed from cover, and the third represents two chuckars flying off down a wooded ravine.
The fourth station is probably the most imaginative. The first target rolls and bounces in front of the shooter - "Like a rabbit," said Owen. The second is thrown into the air on call, or on the sound of the first shot.
"What it's supposed to represent is a bird being flushed by the sound of a hunter shooting at the rabbit. It's not easy to hit the rolling target, then swing up and pick up the bird," he said.
The fifth represents ducks lifting off a beaver pond and going straight up. The sixth is made very difficult in that two targets come from behind and over the head of the shooter.
"All the angles are different," said Owen. "It's not like trap or skeet. I've had a good trap shooter come out, many that shot 100 straight regularly, and and hit only 18 (of 50 targets).
"It's not easy. In trap you have a lot of perfect scores (100), but in sporting clays no one has ever shot 100 straight. The record is 97."
Then, he continued, there are rules that can be brought in to make shooting even more difficult.
For example, there can be up to a three-second delay between the time the shooter calls for the targets and they are released.
Also, rules can require that the shooter hold the gun off the shoulder until the targets are in view.
The course can also be changed daily.
And yet another allows courses to choose targets. There are, said Owen, five types - minis, middies, standard, battue (called flying razor blades) and rabbit discs. Minis are about half the size of the standard targets, and the middies fall between the two.
The battues are about half the thickness of a standard clay pigeon and, explained Owen, "fly in such a way that there's only one brief second when it turns broadside and you can shoot."
He added that he feels part of the appeal of sport clay shooting is the relaxed atmosphere. In trap and skeet you walk up to the line, shoot and then go back and talk. Here, you walk around and talk all the time. It's just more relaxed.
"I think, too, this type of shooting appeals more to the hunters. It's more like hunting. They get to practice the different shots."
There are plans to start holding competitive shoots in the summer, he said, when all the stations are completed. In other parts of the country, the shoots are getting as large, and at times larger, than trap and skeet events.
Cost of a round - 50 targets - at Rose Canyon is $12. The course is only open on Saturdays and Sundays now, but will begin opening on Wednesdays this summer. Hours are 10:30 a.m. to dusk on Saturdays, noon to dusk on Sundays.
The club is two miles south of Herriman on the Rose Canyon Road.