Home on the range: Coeur d'Alene High's skeet and trap team keeps its eyes on the target

Feb. 23—The first shooter shouldered her gun and said "pull" into a microphone at her hip. A clay pigeon flew out of the trap house. The report of a shotgun rang out. There was a pause, and then the next shooter said "pull."

When all four had taken their shots, they rotated stations and the sequence began again.

The simple choreography is routine at the Coeur d'Alene Skeet and Trap Club, a shotgun range here about a mile west of U.S. Highway 95. But the four shooters working the trap range that Saturday morning earlier this month weren't your stereotypical gun club clientele. They were members of the Coeur d'Alene High School Skeet and Trap Team.

Now in its 14th year, the team is one of Idaho's powerhouses in the sport at the high school level, having taken home three overall state titles in the past decade and finishing in the top three multiple times.

This year, the coaches have something new to boast about. Hunter Martin, a senior and one of the co-captains, has committed to join the shotgun sports team at Midland University in Nebraska next year. He's the first member to accept a scholarship for shooting sports.

The milestone shows how far the team has come over the past decade-and-a-half, beginning with a handful of students and turning into the largest team in the state. Chuck Keisel, the Coeur d'Alene coach, said the sport has become so popular at that school that the team has had to turn away students because there weren't enough spots.

"The kids want to do it," Keisel said. "They gravitate toward it."

Humble beginnings

Kiersten Kerr was in her first year as the Coeur d'Alene High teacher librarian when she heard about some students who wanted to start a skeet and trap team. She offered to help out, and along with Bill White, who is now her husband, became one of the founding coaches.

At the start, the team had five members, and few resources. Because shooting is not a sanctioned sport, the team had to raise money to cover its costs, which it did with the help of parents and grants from foundations.

She also got involved with the statewide organization overseeing the sport at the amateur level, the Idaho Youth Shooting Board, which organizes the state tournament each year.

Kerr said few other schools had teams at first, but that soon changed. Idaho now has several high school teams, from schools large and small. There are teams in Boise, Twin Falls and Pocatello, and at a few schools in between. In North Idaho, there are teams in Potlatch and at Coeur d'Alene's crosstown rival, Lake City.

The teams compete in skeet, trap and sporting clays, all with their eyes toward the state tournament in May. As the numbers of teams grew, the state tournament became harder to win.

"We won the state shoot a lot in the beginning," Kerr said. "Then all of a sudden it got really competitive."

Commitment

Students who join the Coeur d'Alene team make a big commitment when they sign up.

Safety comes first. Students are required to take the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's hunter's safety course, and they go through safety trainings at the beginning of each season.

The season is long, running from September to May. Students participate in trap and skeet leagues at the Coeur d'Alene club. They also volunteer at the range, helping with a variety of tasks.

There's money to raise, and there's also the tools required — shotguns and ammunition. The team has a handful of loaner guns, but many of the shooters use their own.

Still, the team has no problem filling out its roster. Keisel said some years, as many as 50 students will show interest in joining. Because of costs, they cap the number of spots at about 30.

There is a boys and a girls team, and they are fairly evenly matched, said Matt Brown, one of the Coeur d'Alene coaches.

"This is a very unisex sport," Brown said. "Even though they shoot separate, the girls are just as good as the guys, and vice versa. It is straight-up shooting for shooting."

For some of the shooters, clay targets have always been part of their life. That's true for Martin, who grew up shooting skeet with his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. By age 12, he was competing for a Spokane-based team.

"I've been around it as long as I can remember," Martin said.

Others picked up the sport only after joining the team. Kinsey Burke, the other team captain, joined as a freshman. She comes from a hunting family, but said she wasn't fully immersed in that lifestyle before joining the skeet and trap team.

When she learned about the team, she decided it was a good way to participate in the tradition.

"Even if I don't hunt much, I want to learn more about this sport and how to shoot better," Burke said.

Turns out, it was fun, and she was good at it. Her sophomore year, she took third place at state in sporting clays.

Building bonds

The three disciplines the team practices present different challenges. In sporting clays, shooters walk a course with different stations that spit clays out at angles and heights meant to mimic hunting scenarios — a goose flying overhead, a rabbit dashing and hopping at ground level, a pheasant zipping into a gully.

Skeet and trap are stationary, and more predictable.

In skeet, shooters move between eight stations and fire at targets that fly from two positions — a high house on one end of the field and a low house on the other. In trap, the targets fly from one spot at varying angles.

Each requires a different technique. With skeet, shooters have to be more exact, with precise leads. Trap is more forgiving.

Muscle memory is key. So is staying focused. Martin said one of the keys is turning your brain off when you get ready to shoot. Burke said that to keep her mind clear, she pictures a metronome.

Throughout the year, they participate in the leagues at the Coeur d'Alene Skeet and Trap Club, which are for all of the club's members. They've just passed the midpoint of the club's winter league, and just wrapped up their participation in The Spokesman-Review's annual trap shoot.

They shoot their rounds whenever they have time, and with whoever they find at the gun club. Brown said they have all shot with old-timers at the club, who offer guidance and help the young shooters hone their skills.

"This is a community deal," Brown said.

That's something Martin likes about the sport. He's been successful at high levels, but he loves being outside, the smell of gunpowder burning and the people.

"The family bonds I've built with a lot of people out just shooting are really nice," Martin said.